Business leaders and policymakers will join teachers, students, and parents at a series of forums on teacher retention.
The first of six such forums will be held in Philadelphia April 25. Other forums, to be held over the next year and a half, will be in Chicago and four yet-to-be-named sites. They are being organized by the Committee for Economic Development, a Washington-based business policy group that represents 200 business leaders and university presidents, with a grant from the New York City-based MetLife Foundation.
The idea for the forums grew out of a survey of teachers released in October that showed, as have previous indicators, a quarter of those polled were planning to leave the profession within five years.
Amy Morse, an outreach associate for the CED, said forum participants would discuss national data from the survey and what is actually taking place at the local level.
“We are looking at improving the teacher profession from a business-economic point of view in the long term,” she said.
