The Celebration Our Teachers DeserveThe Denver Nuggets basketball team recently presented Carol Ortega with a Most Valuable Teacher award. As a Head Start educator in Denver, Carol has taught hundreds of students over the past 20 years and helped them reach their potential. She received a classroom celebration hosted by Nuggets stars, dinner at Ball Arena, a Nuggets gift bag, and tickets for her and all her students.
Carol took the spotlight this month as the nation marked Teacher Appreciation Week. It’s that time of year when “We Appreciate You!” emails and tweets from politicians start rolling in, along with deals from restaurants and stores. All the free frozen yoghurt and discounted fast-food meals are fine. So are the flowers cookies, warm notes and Starbucks® gift cards that many families give to teachers. These displays of thanks are a nice start, but they’re not what teachers really want, said a survey from the National Education Association this year. Instead, teachers want us to appreciate them by paying them what they’re worth, including their voices in decisions, giving them a realistic workload and providing them with the resources they need.
Teachers made their feelings clear in some of the tweets they wrote this month. “What do I want for teacher appreciation? How about respect for this profession? Respect from students, parents, society? That would be great. Oh, and all year too, not just for one week,” wrote a teacher from Washington state. A Texas teacher wrote, “If you really appreciate us, pay us well and bring back the respect.” And a Washington, DC, teacher agreed, “There just seems to be a certain lack of respect for teachers now, and that makes it harder and harder to do the job.”
That’s been especially true in recent times. No professional preparation program prepared our educators for a pandemic. “Teachers have dealt with school openings and closings and making sure students had what they needed in order to succeed,” said U.S. Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona. “They’ve had students who didn’t have access to a computer, or who were hungry or who had lost family members during the pandemic. And teachers have faced these challenges while taking care of their own families.”
Despite all they’ve done, the current school year has continued to be hard on many of our teachers. They’re now spending extra hours helping children catch up after the learning losses that long months of school closings caused. The teachers are exhausted and burnt out. They also feel even more undervalued than ever before. Memory of all the sacrifices our teachers made during the pandemic has begun to fade from the public mind as the country returns to normal. Many teachers have said they went from “heroes to zeroes” while remaining steadfast in their commitment.
The result is a severe shortage of teachers throughout our system of education, whether in high schools or pre-K. And that should come as no surprise, according to Brad Johnson, an author and speaker on transformation in education. “We need to make big changes to stem the flight of our teachers from the classroom,” he says. “If you only appreciate teachers during Teacher Appreciation Week, don’t be surprised if some don’t return next year.”
And teachers have good reason for grumbling and getting out of the field. Currently, elementary and secondary teachers make about 20 percent less than other employees with similar educations. Early childhood teachers fare even worse with a national median wage of $11.65 an hour, well below the national living wage threshold. Even before COVID, nearly every state in the nation reported shortages of teachers in science, math, English language development and special education. In addition, low-income and students of color are the least likely to have access to a stable teaching workforce since teacher turnover is nearly 50 percent higher in schools that serve poorer populations.
These inequities have led New Jersey Senators Cory Booker and Robert Menendez to back the Respect, Advancement and Increasing Support for Educators (RAISE) Act. If the bill becomes law, it will give educators between $1,000 and $15,000 in refundable tax credits, depending on numerous factors, including the poverty level of their schools. “This legislation would help support educators by using the federal tax code to put more resources into teachers’ pockets. It’s time to reward our society’s unsung heroes by increasing teachers’ take-home pay,” Booker said. So, we should make a “long overdue investment in our nation’s schools that will boost teacher compensation, diversify the teaching workforce and level the playing field between teachers and other professionals,” as Menendez agreed.
And there are some provisions in the bill that directly affect the early childhood field, my particular focus as CEO of the Council. The bill would create a credit of up to $10,000 for early childhood educators with an associate degree or a Child Development Associate® (CDA) Credential™. It would also increase the educator tax deduction from $250 to $500 to offset teachers’ purchases of school supplies and expand eligibility to early childhood teachers.
Measures like these would help teachers stay in the field and keep shaping the next generation. So, we should support teachers by amplifying their voices and advocating for the public funding they need—ways we can show how much we value them long after Teacher Appreciation Week has passed. Of course, there’s no need to stop giving teachers the small presents that have big meaning. Candy, cookies and cards are nice. So are classroom parties with NBA stars and Starbucks gift cards, but they’re not enough. We should celebrate teachers all year long by giving them the bucks they need to live and thrive. Your teachers deserve it for all they do to help students reach for the stars. They’re among the most valuable players in our students’ lives.
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Vice President of Strategic Alliances
Elisa Shepherd is the Vice President of Strategic Alliances at the Council, where she leads initiatives to advance the Council’s mission and strategic plan through designing, managing, and executing a comprehensive stakeholder relationship strategy.
With over 25 years of experience in early childhood education (ECE), Elisa has dedicated her career to developing impactful programs, professional development opportunities, and public policies that support working families, young children, and ECE staff. Before joining the Council, Elisa held numerous roles within the childcare industry. Most recently, she served as Associate Vice President at The Learning Experience and as Senior Manager at KinderCare Education, where she influenced government affairs and public policies across 40 states.
Elisa’s commitment to leadership is reflected in her external roles on the Early Care and Education Consortium Board of Directors, the Florida Chamber Foundation Board of Trustees, and as the DEI Caucus Leader for KinderCare Education. She has been recognized as an Emerging Leader in Early Childhood by Childcare Exchange’s Leadership Initiative.
Elisa earned a Bachelor of Science in Psychology with a focus on child development from Pennsylvania State University in State College, PA.
Chief Operations Officer (COO)
Andrew Davis serves as Chief Operating Officer at the Council. In this role, Andrew oversees the Programs Division, which includes the following operational functions: credentialing, growth and business development, marketing and communications, public policy and advocacy, research, innovation, and customer relations.
Andrew has over 20 years of experience in the early care and education field. Most recently, Andrew served as Senior Vice President of Partnership and Engagement with Acelero Learning and Shine Early Learning, where he led the expansion of state and community-based partnerships to produce more equitable systems of service delivery, improved programmatic quality, and greater outcomes for communities, children and families. Prior to that, he served as Director of Early Learning at Follett School Solutions.
Andrew earned his MBA from the University of Baltimore and Towson University and his bachelor’s degree from the University of Maryland – University College.
Chief Financial Officer (CFO)
Jan Bigelow serves as Chief Financial Officer at the Council and has been with the organization since February of 2022.
Jan has more than 30 years in accounting and finance experience, including public accounting, for-profit and not-for-profit organizations. She has held management-level positions with BDO Seidman, Kiplinger Washington Editors, Pew Center for Global Climate Change, Communities In Schools, B’nai B’rith Youth Organization and American Humane. Since 2003, Jan has worked exclusively in the non-profit sector where she has been a passionate advocate in improving business operations in order to further the mission of her employers.
Jan holds a CPA from the State of Virginia and a Bachelor of Arts degree from Lycoming College. She resides in Alexandria VA with her husband and dog.
Vice President of People and Culture
Janie Payne is the Vice President of People and Culture for the Council for Professional Recognition. Janie is responsible for envisioning, developing, and executing initiatives that strategically manage talent and culture to align people strategies with the overarching business vision of the Council. Janie is responsible for driving organizational excellence through strategic talent practices, orchestrating workforce planning, talent acquisition, performance management as well as a myriad of other Human Resources Programs. She is accountable for driving effectiveness by shaping organizational structure for optimal efficiency. Janie oversees strategies that foster a healthy culture to include embedding diversity, equity, and inclusion into all aspects of the organization.
In Janie’s prior role, she was the Vice President of Administration at Equal Justice Works, where she was responsible for leading human resources, financial operations, facilities management, and information technology. She was also accountable for developing and implementing Equal Justice Works Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion strategy focused on attracting diverse, mission-oriented talent and creating an inclusive and equitable workplace environment. With more than fifteen years of private, federal, and not-for-profit experience, Janie is known for her intuitive skill in administration management, human resources management, designing and leading complex system change, diversity and inclusion, and social justice reform efforts.
Before joining Equal Justice Works, Janie was the Vice President of Human Resources and Chief Diversity Officer for Global Communities, where she was responsible for the design, implementation, and management of integrated HR and diversity strategies. Her work impacted employees in over twenty-two countries. She was responsible for the effective management of different cultural, legal, regulatory, and economic systems for both domestic and international employees. Prior to Global Communities, Janie enjoyed a ten-year career with the federal government. As a member of the Senior Executive Service, she held key strategic human resources positions with multiple cabinet-level agencies and served as an advisor and senior coach to leaders across the federal sector. In these roles, she received recognition from management, industry publications, peers, and staff for driving the creation and execution of programs that created an engaged and productive workforce.
Janie began her career with Verizon Communications (formerly Bell Atlantic), where she held numerous roles of increasing responsibility, where she directed a diversity program that resulted in significant improvement in diversity profile measures. Janie was also a faculty member for the company’s Black Managers Workshop, a training program designed to provide managers of color with the skills needed to overcome barriers to their success that were encountered because of race. She initiated a company-wide effort to establish team-based systems and structures to impact corporate bottom line results which was recognized by the Department of Labor. Janie was one of the first African American women to be featured on the cover of Human Resources Executive magazine.
Janie received her M.A. in Organization Development from American University. She holds numerous professional development certificates in Human Capital Management and Change Management, including a Diversity and Inclusion in Human Resources certificate from Cornell University. She completed the year-long Maryland Equity and Inclusion Leadership Program sponsored by The Schaefer Center for Public Policy and The Maryland Commission on Civil Rights. She is a trained mediator and Certified Professional Coach. She is a graduate of Leadership America, former board chair of the NTL Institute and currently co-steward of the organization’s social justice community of practice, and a member of The Society for Human Resource Management. Additionally, Janie is the Board Chairperson for the Special Education Citizens Advisory Council for Prince Georges County where she is active in developing partnerships that facilitate discussion between parents, families, educators, community leaders, and the PG County school administration to enhance services for students with disabilities which is her passion. She and her husband Randolph reside in Fort Washington Maryland.
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