The Culture of Scarcity

Changing the Working Conditions That Imperil Our Schools

By John Moir

This morning I arrive a few minutes early for my weekly coaching session with one of the beginning teachers I mentor. We often meet in his school’s teachers’ room, and as I wait I eye the yard-sale sofas and mismatched chairs. Fluorescent lights cast flickering shadows over several battered tables. A dozen rolls of butcher paper are stacked along the wall, and a laminator fills the room with the odor of plastic. The round metal foot on one of the legs of my chair is missing, and the chair wobbles.

My beginning teacher enters the room, pushing a supply cart. He doesn’t have a permanent classroom, so he roams the school like a nomad, setting up in other teachers’ rooms during their prep periods. He sits on another wobbly chair and we begin discussing his plans for the week. He has 43 minutes until the bell rings.

As I travel from school to school mentoring teachers, I spend a lot of time in faculty lounges like this one. These drab rooms embody the culture of scarcity that pervades the teaching profession. Many of us don’t have decent facilities or basic supplies. We’re inundated with noncurricular tasks that don’t leave us enough time to do our best teaching or to collaborate with colleagues. And most of us don’t feel empowered to change the poor working conditions that erode the effectiveness of...