Teacher Retention Starts with One Question: “How Are the Adults?”

Schools are usually built around one question: How are the kids? We measure it, we debate it, we obsess over it.

And that makes sense, because the students matter most. That’s a fact in education.

But here’s the hard truth: kids don’t thrive if the adults around them are working in systems that drain them dry. No teaching philosophy is expansive enough to cover that. When the conditions of work disconnect teachers from their purpose, the costs add up. At some point, they either endure at great expense or they leave.