What is the Teach901 Educator Survey and Why Does it Matter?
“Every student deserves access to a high quality educator in every classroom in every school every year and the Teach901 Educator Survey is a significant tool to better understand how current educators acquired their positions, their demographic information, years experience, and overall how educators are perceiving their leadership and school environment.”
-Bree Wilson, Teach901 Director
Teacher retention is one of the biggest challenges facing schools today, especially in Memphis. With Shelby County ranking as the 5th lowest in teacher retention among Tennessee’s 95 counties, it’s important to understand why teachers leave—and what motivates them to stay.
Excellent teachers are vital to achieving quality education in our city. Teachers shape lives, inspire futures, and impact our community in ways that extend far beyond the classroom. That’s why it’s important that we listen to them.
One of the ways Teach901 achieves that is by conducting an annual Educator Survey for over a decade. Originally designed in collaboration with Vanderbilt professors, the survey not only gathers data but offers a tool to empower educators and leaders to improve schools. By capturing educators’ experiences and insights, the survey provides schools with valuable information that can affect teacher retention.
The Teach901 Educator Survey has been capturing the voices of Memphis educators since 2014. In our recent survey alone, 1,357 teachers across 56 schools participated, offering a comprehensive look at the state of education in our city.
“The Teach901 Survey gave meaningful insight into what matters to our educators.”
What Does the Teach901 Educator Survey Address?
The survey covers key areas like job satisfaction, school culture, and professional development. It’s an opportunity for educators to share their experiences for the future benefit of our education system.
“The Teach901 Educator Survey gives longitudinal data on how the educator experiences are shifting across the past 10 years. Therefore, we are able to see where teachers are coming from and what subsets of experiences are alike. Schools can know what is effective and what to improve on, and then make informed decisions to shift and adjust to retention of current teachers and recruiting future talent,” Teach901 Director Bree Wilson says.
“The breakdown and comparison of our school data compared to the aggregate data, seeing breakdown of demographic and age group responses, and being able to see trends in data over time was the most helpful to our schools!”
How You’re Helping Build the Future
Teach901 offers this as a free service to schools to ensure everyone has access to the data that they need. This is a free data consulting opportunity conducted by an external third party, ensuring an unbiased and objective perspective. Because the analysis is handled externally, teachers feel more comfortable being candid in their feedback, knowing their responses will be treated with confidentiality and used solely to improve outcomes.
Each school receives an individualized report highlighting key takeaways on teacher retention and recruitment trends based on aggregate analysis. The report also includes school-level data compared to aggregate results, helping schools identify areas of success and opportunities for improvement. The Teach901 Director offers to meet with school leaders to walk through the findings page by page. Additionally, members from the Teach901 team meet to discuss the findings and offer ways to support them. It’s a valuable resource we’re proud to offer, thanks to the generosity of Give901 supporters.
When you support Give901, you’re fueling initiatives like the Teach901 Educator Survey that directly impact teacher retention and student success. Research shows that teachers are the most critical school-based factor in student achievement, and your contributions make it possible for Memphis students to thrive.
