Scholastic Teacher & Principal School Report Shows Ongoing Barriers to Education

Scholastic Education, an arm of the book publishing organization, periodically surveys teachers in states around the country on a variety of issues from salary to job satisfaction to how their students are faring in class.

Scholastic’s most recent report surveyed 4700 educators nationally and shows some startling results for Colorado, including the fact that 71% of Colorado teachers reporting that they have students in their classrooms who are coming to school hungry. Michael Haggen, the Chief Academic Officer of Scholastic Education says that hunger is a major barrier to a student’s education.

“Studies showed that those students that received their food stamps further away from their monthly test, scored lower than those students whose families received their aid for food closer to their testing.”

Hunger is an indicator of poverty which the surveys showed is widespread in Colorado.

“About 80% of educators we surveyed said they have children living in poverty.”

Haggen says that their survey also showed that  Colorado teachers are spending more out of pocket on school supplies for their classrooms, than teachers in other states. The survey also showed that Colorado teachers are close to the bottom in terms of national pay scale.   “When you look at teacher pay, it’s pretty low in terms of average salary for teachers.”

Read the full report here.