Teacher retention comes up in almost every education conversation right now. Fewer teachers are planning to leave than a few years ago, but 57% still report burnout, according to RAND’s 2026 State of the American Teacher survey. Staying isn’t the same as thriving.
We talk about salary, workload, and working conditions—and we should. Those conversations matter deeply.
But here is a question I don't hear asked often enough: Have we ever shown teachers a clear, shared picture of what we actually need them to be?
The Definition Problem
Try an experiment in your school tomorrow:
- Ask ten teachers in your building what an "exemplary teacher" looks like. You’ll get ten different answers.
- Ask ten administrators the same question. You’ll get ten more—and several won't match the teachers' answers at all.
This isn't because educators don't care about excellence. They do.
It happens because, in most schools, the definition of excellent teaching lives entirely inside people's heads. No one has ever made it visible, compared notes, or calibrated expectations across the building.
The result?
- Teachers are evaluated against a standard they’ve never seen.
- They receive feedback from administrators who are working from their own private definitions of "good practice."
- They are expected to grow without knowing what true growth looks like or where they stand right now.
We are asking teachers to hit a target we've never shown them.
Living the Same Story—One Level Up
I spent years working on this exact problem for students, but it hit me early in my career.
As a second-year teacher, I stood at the chalkboard making up my own definition of a "proficient" summary on the spot. My students scored highest in our grade level. I was thrilled—until I walked past a colleague’s bulletin board and realized her students' summaries were far superior to ours. We were aiming at completely different targets.
Now, look at our adult systems: teachers are living the exact same story, just one level up.
The Cost of a Moving Target
When the bar shifts depending on who walks through the door, teachers absorb the inconsistency.
What one principal values during a walkthrough, another never mentions. What one instructional coach emphasizes, another frames completely differently. Over time, teachers learn one of two toxic lessons:
- Excellence is subjective, so it’s fundamentally unachievable.
- The goal isn't growth; it's performing for whoever is standing in the back of the room.
Neither lesson serves students. Neither serves teachers. And neither builds a profession people want to stay in.
Teachers don't quit because they don't care about being excellent. Many leave because they are exhausted by a system that demands excellence without ever defining it.
The Good News
The definition of exemplary practice doesn't need to be invented from scratch. In almost every state, it already exists in your professional standards.
Most educators simply haven't seen it in a way that makes it real, human, and actionable.
That’s next week’s post.
Sources: Elizabeth D. Steiner, Phoebe Rose Levine, and Sy Doan, [report title] (Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corporation, 2026). Based on the 2026 State of the American Teacher Survey.
