Teach901's latest educator survey, spotlighted on WREG's Live at 9 on March 6, 2026, offers an unusually sunny snapshot of Memphis classrooms: respondents said they expect to remain at their current schools for roughly 12 more years. That kind of long-term commitment stands in stark contrast to national headlines about teacher burnout and churn, and it has local leaders, principals, and classroom educators sorting out whether this signals a lasting shift or simply reflects who chose to answer the survey.
What Teach901 reported
Teach901's public summary says the 2024-25 Educator Survey drew 1,357 responses from 56 Memphis schools and found that teachers plan to remain at their current schools for an average of 12 additional years, according to Teach901. The summary also highlights a +35 Net Promoter Score for school satisfaction and notes that recruitment is increasingly driven by friends and mission fit rather than principal-led hiring. The page lists City Leadership as the parent nonprofit and names specific data-team contacts for anyone who wants to dig into the survey methodology.
On local TV
WREG's Live at 9 picked up the findings on March 6, 2026, and labeled the numbers “eyebrow-raising,” pairing the upbeat stats with local reaction, as reported by WREG. The segment pressed on familiar questions: how representative is the sample, and does Teach901's outreach capture a broad cross-section of Memphis teachers or a more engaged slice of the workforce. Local education leaders said they planned to request the full dataset so they could see exactly how the survey was sampled and weighted.
How the numbers stack up
Those results sit next to some grim national context. Gallup reports that roughly 44% of K-12 workers say they feel burned out “always” or “very often,” a rate that towers over most other industries, according to Gallup. At the state level, Tennessee’s State Board of Education has reported that the three-year retention rate for new teachers climbed to about 82.6% in its Educator Preparation Report Card, signaling statewide progress, per the State Board of Education. Put together, Memphis' survey numbers may line up with real local gains, but they also sit within a larger picture of significant burnout and ongoing teacher mobility.
Why some experts urge caution
Researchers often warn that recruitment-linked surveys can tilt toward more engaged or satisfied teachers, which can inflate positive signals. City Leadership, the nonprofit that runs Teach901, has publicly highlighted placing hundreds of teachers across Memphis in recent years, which suggests that Teach901's outreach may reach many educators who are already plugged into retention and support efforts, according to City Leadership. Teach901's report page does list a named data scientist and press contacts, which at least gives reporters and district administrators a clear path to press for details on sampling, weighting, and response rates.
What this could mean for classrooms
If the survey's optimism holds up under closer scrutiny, Memphis schools could benefit from steadier staffing, smoother curriculum continuity, and stronger relationships within school communities. Memphis-Shelby County Schools have also moved on to pay schedules and raises in recent budgets, a factor that can influence retention, as shown in district pay documents and reporting, per Memphis-Shelby County Schools. At the same time, educators and researchers point to leadership visibility, manageable workloads, and clear pathways for professional growth as some of the most immediate levers for keeping teachers in classrooms over the long haul.
Next steps and where to look
Teach901 says it plans to publish fuller survey results and make the data available to interested stakeholders, and local reporters are already watching for the release of the full dataset and methodology notes. In the meantime, Teach901 continues to host job fairs and events, including a recent fair at Crosstown Concourse that underscores the group's on-the-ground role in recruiting teachers, per Crosstown Concourse. Whether this upbeat snapshot turns into lasting improvement will hinge on whether schools and the district convert the findings into sustained investments in pay, leadership support, and workload relief.
