Nationwide, half of all teachers quit within their first five years of teaching

The biggest reason why?

The working conditions!

Phoenix is committed to improving teacher working conditions to the greatest extent possible. 

Here’s how.

•Better Professional Development - Most teachers (and I) have stories of miserably boring professional development (PD) they were forced to sit through. I want to establish dialogue and feedback with teachers around PD 

•Peer development - Make teaching less lonely, by giving teachers more dedicated opportunities to learn from one another 

•Supporting Teachers - Give teachers the support they need, by increasing mentoring for new teachers, autonomy and discretion in the classroom, and shielding teachers from as much administrative bullshit as possible

•Autonomy & Creativity - Elsewhere on my website, I’ve discussed adopting a content-based curriculum to improve early elementary education. That said, regardless of what knowledge we’ll need teachers to teach, all teachers should have creative autonomy in terms of how they teach it.

•Research Opportunities - I’ll give more opportunities teachers who want to do research and publish, just like college professors

•Sharing Knowledge - I’ll work to overcome the divide between teaching and the cognitive science research into teaching, by implementing a Speakers Series, and bringing as many education experts to Barbourville as possible

•More Funding - I’ll fight to end the chronic (and illegal) underfunding of Barbourville Independent School District

•Less Bullshit - Reduce the number of extra/additional duties teachers are required to do (lunch duty, hall duty, administrative paperwork, etc)

•Dialogue - If teachers ever want to talk confidentially, we can talk confidentially. Those running large organizations often have no clue what’s going on at the lower levels. And I want to help run our school system effectively. Stay in touch!

•And I promise, you will never see me declare a war on teachers