National Ad Campaign Raises Awareness of Teaching Profession

DES MOINES, IA (12/10/2010)(readMedia)-- The Iowa State Education Association (ISEA) and National Education Association (NEA) announced their sponsorship of the award-winning "Behind Every Famous Person is a Fabulous Teacher" campaign which pairs celebrities with their favorite teachers in national ads.

The campaign, run by TeachersCount, seeks to raise the status of the teaching profession by pairing famous individuals such as Laura Bush, Edie Falco, America Ferrera, Taye Diggs, and James Franco, among others, with their favorite teachers in a series of radio, print, and TV ads. The ads talk about why their former teachers were important and how they affected their lives. The most recent ad stars 2010 U.S. World Cup team soccer star and LA Galaxy captain Landon Donovan.

"Teachers often feel like the scapegoat and the targets for all of the complaints toward public education," said Mary Jane Cobb, ISEA executive director. "We need to encourage teachers to feel appreciated in their jobs and to encourage today's bright, young people to become tomorrow's fabulous teachers," Cobb added.

There is a growing teacher shortage. More than 2 million newly hired public school teachers will be needed over the course of this decade. source: https://hems.nea.org/teachershortage/03shortagefactsheet.html

Schools struggle to retain teachers. More than a third of teachers leave within their first three years, and half leave by their fifth year. This high rate of turnover not only contributes to the teacher shortage; it also incurs major costs for school districts and detracts from instructional quality because of the decrease in experienced teachers. source: https://www.nea.org//home/14809.htm

Teachers are paid significantly less than those with comparable levels of education. Salaries of workers with at least four years of college are now more than 50 percent higher than the average teacher salary. Ibid

For more information about TeachersCount go to their Web site at www.teacherscount.org.

The ISEA is a professional organization made up of professional educators dedicated to supporting and protecting a quality public education for all Iowa students. Great Education. It's an Iowa Basic!