A recent report from ASU’s Morrison Institute for Public Policy surveyed thousands of educators around the state about their relationship to their jobs.
The report was commissioned by Gov. Katie Hobbs’s Educator Retention Task force, and the results were concerning.
Alison Cook-Davis, director of ASU's Morrison Institute for Public Policy, joined The Show to discuss the findings.

Full conversation
SAM DINGMAN: Good morning, Alison.
ALISON COOK-DAVIS: Good morning. Thank you for having me.
DINGMAN: Thank you for coming on. And just to make sure we don't bury the lead here, the report states unequivocally that we have a quote educator crisis. Was this report an attempt to quantify a known situation or were the findings here sufficiently dramatic to warrant that label?
COOK-DAVIS: Well, I think that what we have here with these findings are maybe in some ways not totally surprising and that there are some trends that were ahead of this report that were showing that there were some concerning areas for teacher retention in our state.
But these findings were sort of commissioned at a time where the task force had questions about kind of what the sort of details were, what, how teachers were feeling and what their experiences were, in their positions, you know, post pandemic and kind of where, where they're at now.
DINGMAN: Yeah, yeah. Well, let's start with what is in my mind kind of the headline figure from the report, which is that 69% of the educators surveyed, and this is over 7,500 educators that were surveyed said that they had considered leaving the profession in the last year. Were you startled by that number?
COOK-DAVIS: I was actually. I mean, not only were 69% considered leaving, of those individuals, the 69% that considered leaving, 54% who considered leaving actually said that they were at least somewhat likely to leave in the next 1 to 2 years.
DINGMAN: Yeah, well, and the other thing that came through pretty clearly in this is that the main concern, although there were many, was salary and benefits, correct?
COOK-DAVIS: Yes, that definitely came through loud and clear. I would say that, you know, on the positive side, what really keeps teachers in their positions is the kids and feeling like they're making a difference in students' lives.
But on the flip side, I'm sort of like, what are the, the things that they see as being like really important and having competitive salaries and competitive benefits are, are really the key. And part of that is, is around the respect that is indicated for teachers and educators as a profession.
DINGMAN: Yeah, well, and just to tag on what you were saying there, we should point out that an overwhelming majority of the educators surveyed, 92% said that they feel they make a difference in their students' lives.
So the issue is very much not the passion of these teachers in terms of the work that they're doing. But let's talk about some of those changes in the way that the job kind of takes shape. One of the other big factors here was that less than 50% of the educators you spoke to reported having access to Social workers and staff that liaises with parents and community members.
Is the inference there that these are functions that teachers are now having to take on in addition to their classroom work?
COOK-DAVIS: That did seem to come through from the results is that teachers were just sort of taking on more responsibilities and felt like they had less time to be able to prepare and to really give it their all for the sort of being in the classroom. And so the sort of lack of support staff or, or lower support staff in a time when there's sort of increased need for mental health support for other types of support functions, teachers were really concerned about this.
DINGMAN: Yeah. Well, you also conducted focus groups with these educators to talk, in greater detail about these issues and concerns, and as you write in the report, quote, it is important to note that the focus groups and interviews were emotional in nature.
Can you give us some, some context for that? What was it about these follow-up conversations that made it feel important to really make that explicit?
COOK-DAVIS: Well, the teachers are very passionate about what they do, and while they sort of see a lot of opportunities for improvement, they really love their jobs and the impact that they have on their students.
And so I think in many ways the experience and talking through some of their frustrations and some of the opportunities, it really The teachers were emotional. They, you know, in some cases were like felt really emotional about feeling like they're not able to give everything they can because they're already stretched so thin and trying to do all of the duties and responsibilities that come from not just being a classroom teacher but also being able to do some of these support functions as well.
DINGMAN: Just about 20 seconds left here, Alison, you know, Obviously, there's a lot of factors at play here, but is it your sense from this report that if the salary and benefits could be adjusted upwards, it would address a lot of these issues or is more systemic change needed?
COOK-DAVIS: I think both. I think that the salary is more of an indicator of the sort of need for teachers to be supported and to feel like they are being treated like the professionals that they are. I think many educators cited that they felt unsupported by sort of state level policies because the salaries and that the funding was so low.