Exalted and Assaulted: Conflicted Sentiments about the Profession of Classroom Teaching in America. By Michael F. Addonizio. W. E. Upjohn Institute for Employment Research, 2022, 245 pp., https://research.upjohn.org/up_press/267/.
Productivity has been growing since the Industrial Revolution. With each technological advancement aimed at a production or service improvement, the availability of consumer goods and services has increased at a faster rate. Growth in productivity can also be attributed to a skilled labor force. Elsewhere, but particularly in the United States, skilled labor has become a premier commodity, rendering intellectual growth indispensable. Interestingly, the relationship between public school performance and economic productivity in the United States is less straightforward, not least because of the complex history of reforms and policies affecting the U.S. public school system and its most important assets, teachers. In Exalted and Assaulted: Conflicted Sentiments about the Profession of Classroom Teaching in America, Michael F. Addonizio puts the teaching profession under a microscope, examining the labor market for primary and secondary teachers in the United States, as well as the profession’s place on the scale of skilled labor.
In the book’s opening chapter, Addonizio begins by discussing public sentiments about the teaching profession and the public school system today. As many would acknowledge, the U.S. public school system faces many challenges, one of which is the shortage of teachers. Throughout the book, the author discusses the array of reforms that have affected public school education over the years and the reasons why effective teachers might want to leave their profession. This discussion begins with an account of a significant public school reform that occurred prior to the 1990s, namely, an increase in high school graduation requirements—a reform that, interestingly, led to more high school dropouts entering the labor force.
Moving on from the introductory chapter, Addonizio thoroughly examines teacher labor markets in the United States, temporarily setting aside education policy and reform. Key topics in this discussion include historical teacher–student ratios and trends in teacher qualifications, education, turnover rates, and salaries. The author makes some especially interesting points on teacher supply and demand, suggesting that many U.S. cities have experienced a shortage of effective teachers in math and science partly because qualified teachers in those fields can easily get a nonteaching job with higher pay. The author also documents a teaching wage gap, revealing that teachers’ salaries are very low given their educational background, credentials, and tenure. In fact, as pointed out in the book, teachers in some states even qualify for public assistance programs.
After presenting these facts, Addonizio addresses teachers’ unions, which have been a target of much public criticism because of allegations of reducing teacher accountability, higher costs to taxpayers, and political influence. Besides providing political and historical background on teachers’ unions, the author examines the relationship between collective bargaining and school productivity. This discussion cites multiple studies to showcase the many different findings concerning this relationship. In addition, Addonizio highlights the challenges teachers face in the labor market (e.g., low pay) and suggests that collective bargaining agreements can address some of these challenges and make a teaching career more desirable. The author ends this discussion defending teachers’ rights to job protections, indicating that the involvement of teachers’ unions has the potential to bolster the supply of teachers.
Next, Addonizio dedicates an entire chapter to the topic of school choice, identifying the charter-school movement as a possible side effect of failed reforms and highlighting the problems faced by teachers at charter schools. The author suggests that the original vision for charter schools differs starkly from the reality of those schools today. Amid heavy reforms, teachers’ unions sought to break away from a standardized education system and create schools with greater teacher autonomy. However, Addonizio observes that while many charter schools have remained true to that vision, a significant number of for-profit charter schools have cut labor costs by continually automating education. These (typically online) schools, the author claims, are harmful not only to teachers in the labor market but also to students who may lack the motivation to seek rigorous education.
Addonizio then circles back to a key topic concerning teacher quality at public schools: teacher accountability reforms and their effects on the profession and student achievement. The author begins by pointing to mounting empirical evidence that public school teachers are essential to student educational success. However, he then cites research on the many uncontrollable factors affecting this success (home environment, student commitment, etc.), suggesting that measuring teaching effectiveness can be difficult. Addonizio brings the reader’s attention to value-added measures (VAMs) for assessing teacher quality—measures based on a method that uses students’ previous test scores and projected growth to gauge teacher performance. After detailing the history of VAMs and their use in reform efforts, the author concludes that these measures are unreliable indicators of teacher effectiveness. In addition, he claims that without a fair and accurate method for teacher evaluation, the supply of teachers will continue to dwindle.
Delving deeper into the effectiveness of public school policy, Addonizio presents a real-world analysis of two states with very different policy approaches—Massachusetts, a state with a highly ranked public school system, and Michigan, a state with a poorly ranked public school system. Beginning with Massachusetts, the author highlights several reforms the state adopted in the 1990s, including a policy for basing public school financial allocations on a formula for adequate expenditure, curriculum structure (developed by educators and citizens), and teacher accountability measures. Michigan, on the other hand, took a very different approach in the 1990s, abolishing local property taxes for public school funding and, thus, constraining public education budgets. Addonizio points out that while the reforms in Massachusetts aimed at improving education quality, those in Michigan amounted to a tax shift agnostic to educational need. The author also adds that, unlike their counterparts in Massachusetts, teachers in Michigan were evaluated on the basis of student performance. This comparative analysis concludes by showing that teachers in Michigan have had lower salaries, more students in the classroom, and higher turnover rates.
Addonizio ends the book by offering some solutions to the problems facing teachers and public schools. According to the author, curriculum dictates and teacher incentives based on results from standardized tests have undermined teacher autonomy. He argues that because judgment and discretion are a key part of the teaching profession, teachers should be given more autonomy and ways to express their professionalism, which would increase the profession’s appeal. The author goes on to state that the problems of the public school system can be traced to policymakers attributing shortcomings to teachers while failing to address issues such as inadequate school resources and student experiences outside of school. He sees unions as increasingly important for securing adequate school resources and teacher job protections and calls for higher salaries and better working conditions for teachers.
I recommend this book to anyone interested in the recent history of public school policies and reforms, teacher labor economics, teachers’ unions, and the current state of the U.S. public school system. Readers should know, however, that much of the book presents research conducted prior to the COVID-19 pandemic. While a section addressing the postpandemic state of public education was added after the book’s initial publication, it is important to keep in mind the many new challenges that have confronted the teacher labor market during and after the pandemic.
United States Department of Labor
