Valuing Teachers’ Voices on World Teachers’ Day—and Every Day
Our guest author is Julie Vogtman, Senior Director of Job Quality, National Women’s Law Center.
Did you know that Saturday, October 5th was World Teachers’ Day? According to Unesco, one of the day’s convenors, this year’s theme is “Valuing teacher voices: towards a new social contract for education,” which is meant to “underscor[e] the urgency of calling for and attending to teachers’ voices to address their challenges” and “most importantly, to acknowledge and benefit from the expert knowledge and input that they bring to education.”
This is a vital mission—one that merits far more than a day to honor. And it’s particularly important in this moment, when teachers in many U.S. school districts feel that the “expert knowledge and input that they bring to education” is being disregarded more than ever. When at least 18 states have enacted laws restricting K-12 public school teachers' instruction on topics related to race, gender, sexuality, and other so-called “divisive concepts”—and PEN America has documented more than 10,000 instances of book bans in the 2023-24 school year alone—many teachers across the country lack the autonomy and respect for their profession that they want and deserve.