Jeff and Rachael explore how PSEA uses surveys and research to stay connected to its 177,000 members. Guests Dr. David Wazeter and Dr. Katherine Hamilton from PSEA's Research division share what the data reveals about educator stress, job satisfaction, and public perception, and how those insights shape our work as an organization.
Jeff and Rachael explore how PSEA uses surveys and research to stay connected to its 177,000 members. Guests Dr. David Wazeter and Dr. Katherine Hamilton from PSEA's Research division share what the data reveals about educator stress, job satisfaction, and public perception, and how those insights shape our work as an organization.
Do you have some feedback for us? Send an email to podcast@psea.org.
Learn more and watch for upcoming episodes at psea.org/podcast.
Voiceover:
Welcome to Duty Free Lunch, the official podcast of the Pennsylvania State Education Association. Join us as we unpack the issues that matter most to you. From cutting-edge classroom strategies to thought-provoking policy discussions, if it impacts PSEA members, it's on the menu.
Jeff Ney:
Hello, friends, and welcome to Duty Free Lunch. I'm your PSEA vice president, Jeff Ney, and I am here with PSEA Treasurer Rachael West. How are you doing, Rachael?
Rachael West:
I'm good. It seems like something's missing today.
Jeff Ney:
Well, yeah, something is missing. Once again, Aaron left the keys to the podcast room alone on his desk. So you know what? We get to take it out for a spin today.
Rachael West:
See, we're unsupervised now.
Jeff Ney:
Unsupervised. That's always been one of our good things that we can have. So how are things going right now?
Rachael West:
Good. I'm still like a little bit I'm excited to see what we do on our podcast when we're unsupervised.
Jeff Ney:
Well, we have some great guests for our podcast. I mean in this episode, we're going to be diving into the key tools that we use here at PSEA to tap into member sentiment and to make sure that we're doing the work our members want and need us to do. I'm talking about surveys and polling, which may not sound too exciting for our non-data-driven audience, but some of the findings from these surveys have been nothing short of fantastic. So here to help us make sense of the data, our two members of our PSEA research division, who we will hear directly from PSEA members on a regular basis. In fact, across the span of a year, they have heard from over 26,000 PSEA members on a variety of important issues.
Rachael West:
Nice. 26,000.
Jeff Ney:
26,000. They are both former university professors, so a lot smarter than us.
Rachael West:
Absolutely.
Jeff Ney:
Okay. With professional consulting experience, which helps to ground their work in the scientific rigor and actionable insights. First, we have Dr. David Wazeter, AKA Waz. He has a PhD in labor and industrial relations from Cornell University. He has taught at SUNY, Buffalo and Michigan State, and has worked for PSEA for 36 years. He is the assistant executive director for program services, which means he directly manages the research division and also oversees the educational services and communications divisions. Waz, welcome to the podcast.
David Wazeter:
Good to be here.
Jeff Ney:
Our second guest is Dr. Katherine Hamilton, who has a PhD in industrial organizational psychology from Penn State University with a minor in management and organization. Katherine taught and did research at Penn State for over a decade before joining PSEA as an assistant director of research. Katherine, welcome to the podcast.
Katherine Hamilton:
Thank you.
Jeff Ney:
So thank you, guys, so much for joining us. Let's get started with the basics. What's so different about PSEA's research division and the survey work that is done there?
Katherine Hamilton:
Yeah, I think that's a great question because oftentimes people don't realize that we are here. And so what we do is we oftentimes have different types of surveys. One is focus on public opinion polls, and for those we basically reach out to Pennsylvania voters and ask them about a variety of legislative issues. So we've done separate polls on school vouchers, school funding, the department of education, and that information can be really helpful for PSEA to know. Now, the bigger bucket of surveys that we have focuses on member surveys. So we're sending surveys out to members on a variety of issues. As you would imagine, as a union, we're sending surveys out that relate to pay. So for support staff members, we ask them about their wages and really try to get a sense and fill in a gap that the Pennsylvania Department of Education does not meet for support staff members. So that's a very important survey that we do.
There are other things related to working conditions. We have done surveys on stress. And that really helps us gauge the level of burnout and coping and well-being of our PSEA members. There are also surveys related to bargaining that are really important, so that helps local leaders really understand what the key needs are when it comes to the bargaining table. I think one of the strengths of [inaudible 00:04:57] division is that we often try to keep our ear to the ground and listen out for key assumptions or misperceptions people might have, whether it's of union members or schools or school employees in general. And I think a great example of that is, or senior junior project, and I think has more to add on that.
David Wazeter:
Yeah, so I'll go back to the early nineties, when a lot of our staff and members and leaders, we were hearing from them, and they were going away to conferences and meetings. And the message that was coming back to us was the new generation of teachers in 1995 were so different. They dressed differently, they communicated differently, they listened to different music, they weren't that interested in unions, and that's what we were hearing. So one of my research colleagues, Jerry Brandon and I came up with idea, which was to do a survey of our membership, but we thought long-term that every five years we're going to come back to these people, because maybe they are different in 1995, but maybe five years from now than they all become similar. And so we worked with Penn State University and we've done it just about every five years. Katherine actually led a research team there that we worked with not too long ago.
And it was fascinating because in so many different ways, they were very, very similar. In a few ways they were different. But if you think of it, we as people are generally interested in differences, why are we so different? Why are we so different? And they forget that. And we have a group of people, a large group of people who at some point in their life, 17, 18, 19, 20, 22 years old, made a decision to go into the same occupation. So they have a huge similarity that everyone ignores and we focus on the things that our eyes. And it turned out that they were almost identical on a lot of things like their commitment to unionism, participation in unions. So it's very similar and we were able to then sort of like you tag them in a survey way and you come back to them and we come back to these people.
We've had people who filled this survey out for the last 30 years, every five years. And we call this the crown jewel of our research division because in all of our years we've never heard of another union that has this kind of data set.
Jeff Ney:
Well, I was going to bring that up because just listening to your answers, I mean, a lot of people out there think, oh, well, PSEA must just simply randomly pick different things and to move the organization in those areas because they get anecdotal answers to some of the questions. No, there's a lot of research that goes into everything.
Rachael West:
So we have this, we call it the senior junior project that you mentioned. It's a very unique polling exercise that we do here at PSEA. Can you explain how exactly, I mean, you're saying it's every five years, how do you conduct that? What makes this one unique compared to some of the other things that we do?
David Wazeter:
So we have a group that we follow, and then every five years we add thousands of new people. So we're constantly refreshing the data and then following people along. And just to continue on that story that I started before, the fascinating thing is when we go away to meetings now and we talk to, let's call them our more senior members, when we call it senior, junior, don't think of it as seniors in high school or juniors in high school. These are more senior members versus more junior members. We hear from the senior members. These new members are so different. And it's fascinating because those were the new generation of teachers who the older generation in 1995 were referring to. They're saying the same story. We do the study. We find out that they're remarkably similar. There are some differences we can get them later, so it ends up being thousands of people in this data set.
Rachael West:
So I won't ask you any way all of your secrets that you guys use there in research, but is there any data in this senior, junior survey that always stays the same? You said there's always something different. The new group is different, but what always stays the same?
David Wazeter:
Well, I'll tell you something that always seemed to stay the same, which was like job satisfaction for decades was very, very similar. And so why do you keep doing these surveys when they're so similar, similar? And then we had COVID and then the bottom fell out. And that happened with other things, with compensation, with satisfaction, with the pension. And so it was similar forever, for literally for decades. And then boom, it fell off.
Jeff Ney:
There always seems to be that one thing that always resets our education. I mean, probably '95, we were getting close to internet becoming so big and popular. And now with this next generation, I mean, social media has really enveloped a lot of what those people do. So that might be one of those things that we continue to take a look at.
David Wazeter:
Yeah. And I will say this, in other, and we do a big survey called strategic planning survey. And there you can set your clock to, because we asked them what are the most important things that we can do? Healthcare, pension, salaries, school funding. The order of those four may change infinitesimal. And then so they are very-
Rachael West:
Those are always a constant.
David Wazeter:
But things like student behavior, that was another thing that we've picked up in both strategic planning and senior junior. It was constant, constant, constant, COVID, boom. And we found that there. We find that that's a huge concern, not only with our members, but with the public.
Rachael West:
I didn't think about the... You mentioned earlier that you survey the public and I didn't think about that they might even notice that.
David Wazeter:
They definitely do.
Rachael West:
So how do you do these surveys? Tons of different surveys. Waz just mentioned some other ones besides the senior, junior. How do you take the results of the surveys that you do? And then how do we use that to strengthen our association?
Katherine Hamilton:
Before I answer that, there was something I wanted to add about the classroom behavior and kind of seeing how student behavior shifted with senior and junior. One thing that we did to follow up on some of those results was to do that stress survey. And we saw some other notable results that I think our listeners should know about where we see from a RAND survey on the state of the American teacher. We saw that they had 62% of teachers reporting frequent job related stress and about 21% finding difficulty in coping with it. When we did our survey in spring of 2025, we found that 76% of our EA members, now EA of course includes more than classroom teachers. We have certified nurses, school psychologists, librarians, but 76% reported frequent job related stress and about 33% had difficulty coping with it. So I just want to highlight that as a key finding that I think our listeners should know about.
And one of the frustrations there was that they feel a lack of administrative support as a high place for stress and it causes them, so they're stressed out in the classroom or in the school system and then they leave their profession. You mentioned the media survey and the public opinion polls that we do, but they leave their profession and they feel that they have a lack of respect outside of schools and that can be really problematic. To get at your question and how we can strengthen the association, there are places or opportunities where we can work with other divisions at PSEA, whether it's communications or government relations or education services to help the association have better, or members have a better training or support to support their well-being. And in terms of government relations, kind of focusing on some of the legislative issues that we can stand behind to support our members.
And in communication center, there are different types of campaigns that we do with the media survey, the public opinion poll that we do to really understand how the public view schools and educators. And we do quite a bit with the media campaign and getting the word out because we know that a lot of those facts that we have, that we, I guess many of us at the table here know about, or Pennsylvania schools, sometimes the broader public doesn't know that. And we have seen with our surveys that it can really shift the needle in people's perceptions of how excellent or good they see Pennsylvania schools as. And I can share that in one of those polls that we try to do annually, the media survey.
We have seen that just within the span of 15 to 18 minute phone call. So this is a phone survey, just kind of doing a pre-post. So asking what their perceptions are of Pennsylvania schools at the beginning, sharing the facts during that phone survey and then checking at the end, we have seen significant net gains in people's perceptions of Pennsylvania schools just by sharing some of those facts. And if the listeners want to go check out what those facts were, you can go to psea.org\fundamentalfacts to find out more about that.
Jeff Ney:
I love it when they plug their own stuff. That's awesome.
Rachael West:
I know that there have been times that I've used some of your research in some of the... When we are meeting with the regions and things like that, one of the things your media survey shows is that as much negative press as teachers get. The actual members of the community really love and respect their local teachers. And they just think it must be those other teachers out there because they know their teachers are good. They know their community school is good, but they hear all of that negative media and they think, well, it's got to be somewhere else. But here in my town, in my school, in my kid's school, I know and respect these teachers. And I think that that's something that's very easy for us as educators and as people that work in schools to just keep hearing that negative press about public schools, and it's easy to get caught up in it. So it's nice to be reminded when you guys do those surveys to know that truly that's just negative media. It's not the reality of what people think of us in our neighborhoods.
David Wazeter:
We could have, in Pennsylvania, you can go to the grocery store and someone might say something negative about the schools and you hear it, and you might take it personally, but it's what we can get from the survey is for every person like that, there's six or seven others whose perceptions of teachers or support personnel is drastically different and much more positive, which is why we tell our members and our leaders, they are the best messengers. Why? Because the public perception of our members is really, really high. So speak about your schools.
Jeff Ney:
So for our PSEA members that are out there, whenever you get Aaron or Rachael or myself to come and speak at your events, the stuff that we're saying to you is backed by our research. Everything that we're putting out there to our membership to let you know that you're doing a great job and people respect everything that you do. It's because of our research division. So now for our listeners, Waz and I have a connection, we both grew up in the same city in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania. Both graduated from the same high school a few years apart because you're approaching almost 40 years at PSEA.
David Wazeter:
Yes.
Jeff Ney:
So in all of the time here at PSEA and probably the hundreds, maybe even thousands of different surveys that you had, has there ever been one that stands out saying, whoa, you know what? I am super proud of this one. This is the one that stands out in my memory.
David Wazeter:
Well, I returned to it because I think it's the most fascinating one that we have, which is the senior, junior, and I still go back to that. But strategically, a real fun survey was because vouchers is always a big issue. It's a hot legislative issue. It is now, always will be. But a lot of groups will put out surveys. People are in favor of vouchers and they'll ask a loaded voucher question, which is they'll combine public and private. And so for years, but especially when those voucher battles were really cooking, we would go to Mansfield or we would go to other consultants, F&M, and we would split those questions. And it's a very different result. People, they may be, when you combine them, smush them together, the vouchers get a better result. But when you say, what do you think of sending public school students, giving parents public money to send their kids to private and parochial schools, very different result. And being able to take that information and use it in op-eds and use it with legislators, it is very worthwhile.
Jeff Ney:
In the research department, Rachael and I, as sitting on our board of directors, we've had the pleasure of hearing a lot of your results that you deliver to our board of directors, but you don't get out in front of our general membership nearly as often as you probably should. So now that you've got their attention here on the microphones, are there any parting thoughts that you have that you would like to give to our listeners? Katherine, let's start with you.
Katherine Hamilton:
Yeah, so first of all, I just want to say thank you, because I know you've probably received some email from me at some point in the past three years, so I appreciate your patience and just the time that you've taken to complete surveys or participate in focus groups. I can tell from the data that you have a lot on your plate and so thank you for your time. We value your feedback. Even if you feel that it's different from everyone else around you, we want to hear what you're saying. Anything that you share is kept confidential.
I never share any data that has names tagged on there, any identifying information that could be connected back to you. So just know that you're appreciated and we really want to hear from you. And we kind of get excited that we have, when we send out our paper surveys and they come back, we are kind of nerds, that way we get excited about each paper survey. And I love watching the counter on the online surveys go up as well. And it's just so important to have your voices represented in what we do, so thanks.
Jeff Ney:
Waz, how about you?
David Wazeter:
I would just echo that because it's really important, but I would take it, and I think it's especially, especially, triply especially important when you get a bargaining survey, because that's going to directly influence your wages, hours and working conditions. And Katherine does an excellent job, and Ryan does an excellent job, and Katie and our research division working with local leaders and working with field reps and locals to put them together. But when they do them, that will help to shape. It won't be the only factor that shapes it, but it will have a large influence directly on your contract. So that is a really big deal. They're all big deals. But that one I really want to underscore.
Jeff Ney:
Yeah, so I mean, when Rachael and I, when you guys get yourselves all queued up to give us a presentation and you probably accidentally open up all of the slides that you guys get and a presentation has 120 slides, we're like, oh my God, are they going to go through all 120?
Rachael West:
I might panic a little. Well, Jeff, I know that you're in a different seat today, but I think you forgot something. Do you know what time it is?
Jeff Ney:
Is it that time? See, without Aaron here keeping me on task, I don't have... But Rachael, thank you so much for remind. Is it pop quiz time?
Rachael West:
It's pop quiz time.
Jeff Ney:
It is pop quiz time. So this is probably going to drive the research people crazy because they did not get this question ahead of time. So in all of the surveys that you guys have gone through, and Katherine, you actually pointed out in your last thing that you very much enjoy going through all of them, has there been a big surprise, like, oh my goodness, I can't believe that this is an answer, that somebody is answering to a question that surprised you, that actually made a difference in the way your own thinking was about an education topic? And they're both sitting there, they're going through some papers and they're trying to figure out exactly what surprised them.
Katherine Hamilton:
I think what's most surprising to me is how resilient our members are. They're dealing with a lot. I mean, I read some of those comments and sometimes I tear up. It can be very heartbreaking to hear those stories, but they're still there. We look at turnover or their potential to leave and they're still there, and they do it because they love their kids, they do it for the students. And that is inspiring.
Jeff Ney:
Oh, thank you for sharing.
David Wazeter:
And for me, I think it would be several survey findings coming in in concert after COVID that kind of helped explain why we have such a teacher shortage. And it was the drop in pay sat, so you pay with some of our members was drop in pension satisfaction. When you say sat, we mean satisfaction. And student behavior, so now you're putting together a picture. Well, the pay isn't as good and some of our benefits are falling off. And our immediate environment is much more challenging. And then there's a tax at the local school board level in certain districts, and you start to say, well, if you're a teacher and a younger student came to you and said, [inaudible 00:24:44] I go into teaching, this is what you're experiencing. I'm sure you would give many of the positives, but now if you give a perfectly honest answer, there's going to be some negatives there.
And those all came in. But everyone in the world is asking, why do we have a teacher shortage? Well, those factors all combine, and we picked every single one of those up on our surveys. They were not that way 10, 15, 20 years ago, but they are that way now. And then we get to, well, what do you do with that? Well, that's why we have things like 60K for salaries, which we were also, I think really surprised about how much support there was and $20 an hour [inaudible 00:25:32] wage for support personnel. Those things are going to help. They're all going to help. But it's a challenge, the teacher shortage, and we get to sit there and see it trickle in from the public and from our members. Some of it, as Katherine said, is sad, but some of it also says, okay, we can change this.
Jeff Ney:
Now, Rachael, I don't know about you, but I'm super happy that these two individuals, along with everybody else that works with them are here at PSEA helping us out.
Rachael West:
I don't know what, we need something to be the rudder for our ship and they are absolutely some of the answers that they give us are what drive decisions that we make and how we prioritize things here at PSEA.
Jeff Ney:
Wow, that's fantastic. Unfortunately, that does it for our time here on Duty Free Lunch. Our guests today have been Dave Wazeter and Katherine Hamilton. Thank you both so much for joining us and shedding some light on the work that you do on behalf of members of PSEA. Thank you guys so much.
Katherine Hamilton:
Thanks for having us.
David Wazeter:
Thanks.
Jeff Ney:
You got it. And thanks to all of our listeners for tuning in. Do you have some feedback for us? Share it by sending an email to podcast@psea.org. I'm Jeff Ney.
Rachael West:
And I'm Rachael West.
Jeff Ney:
And you have been listening to Duty Free Lunch. Goodbye for now.
Voiceover:
You've been listening to Duty Free Lunch with the Pennsylvania State Education Association. Visit psea.org/podcast to learn more. And don't forget to subscribe and share. Paid for by the Pennsylvania State Education Association.