Gritty Peers & Tired Teachers

"There are three teachers of children: adults, other children, and their physical environment." - Loris Malaguzzi, founder of the Reggio Emilia educational approach

This is something something we think a lot about at Forge.

Today I’ll cover two of those three. The adults. And the other children.

First, it’s the final count down

I’m very happy to share that 27 students (out of 30) are now enrolled for Forge next year. Thank you to our our Founding Families for your trust and for joining this movement.

For those who have been interested but haven’t moved yet, apply asap.

We’ve got an amazing group of young people (5th to 8th) joining us in Fall ‘26. As you’ll read below, being around great peers is, as Malaguzzi said above, a huge part of a great education.

Put your kid around the “chalant” kids

My daughter will sometimes describe someone as chalant (as opposed to nonchalant).

Chalant, as far as I can decipher Gen Z talk, describes the people who work hard, care and who aren’t NPCs (see PS if unfamiliar with NPCs).

I like this description of people especially in the middle/high school years.

As all too often, those formative years are characterized by a sense that it is cool to act like you don’t care. It’s a time where effort is often deemed unfashionable.

It is a time where nonchalance is often en vogue.

Not surprisingly, the data says something very different.

It says that being around the ‘chalant’ kids is incredibly beneficial.

And so parents, a question worth asking when thinking of your child’s school is:

Who are they sitting next to every day?

This isn't a soft benefit.

Jim Rohn popularized the idea that “you are the average of the five people you spend the most time with” and the research on peer effects confirms it is true.

Here's what we know.

A 2024 study of 717 middle schoolers found peer relationships directly and significantly predict academic achievement.

It’s all pretty intuitive and unsurprising tbh.

Better peers drive higher motivation. Higher motivation drives more engagement. More engagement produces better outcomes.

The good news is that it goes deeper than motivation.

When researchers randomly assigned students to peers with different personality traits, the students placed with persistent, gritty peers got better grades immediately. Even better, they kept getting better grades in later courses even after the peer group had already changed.

So the personality and motivation of your peers goes beyond passing tests to helping you rewire who you become.

In other words, when you see and work with great, you raise your own game.

This means that the school your 10-14 year old goes to isn’t just a building and teachers and homework, it’s also implicitly determining their peer group during incredibly formative years.

That’s why we look for “chalant” students at Forge (although that’s not the term we use).

We look for creativity, curiosity, capability and grit.

I’m very excited to see what students like this learn from each other next year.

Now the adults.

We’re hiring Guides at Forge Prep ($100-200k comp), and it’s been interesting to see, hear and realize first-hand that teaching in America is in trouble.

The data sheds some light on what is going on.

In the 1970s, 75% of Americans would have wanted their children to teach. By 2021: below 40%. The lowest ever. Source: Kraft & Lyon, Brown University.

Teaching as a profession has lost its luster.

It is no longer a prestigious career.

What makes a job prestigious? Four things.

• It's selective.

• It pays well.

• It gives you autonomy.

• The people who do it are respected.

Teaching has ceded massive ground on all four.

A lot of it through self-inflicted wounds if we’re being honest, but nevertheless, this is very bad for the USA as teaching done right is really nation-building infrastructure.

What’s even more alarming is this data about teachers and their own enthusiasm for work.

It dropped from 62% enthusiastic to 20% in just 10 years.

That’s a 68% drop in just 10 years.

And these are the people who are helping educate the next gen.

If 8 of 10 are not enthusiastic for the work they do, how are they showing up for their work every day of educating young people?

Right now, 1 in 8 teaching positions are either empty or filled by someone not certified to teach the subject.

Talented people don’t want to enter teaching, and if we don’t figure this out, there is no way this ends well.

When you dig into what teachers don’t like, the #1 stressor is:

• Not pay.

• Not paperwork.

It is managing student behavior.

RAND surveyed 1,400+ teachers.

45% named behavior as their top stressor.

For teachers in their first five years: 66%.

And if we go back to the impact of peers on kids from above, there is a similar negative effect on students from being around disruptive peers.

• Disruptive peer behavior raises suspension risk and lowers test scores for everyone nearby.

• Poor peer attendance pulls classmates' own attendance down.

• One study showed that re-enrolling dropouts into the same classes as other students measurably harmed those students' outcomes.

The bad apple effect is real.

Of course, as many parents know, there are little to no ramifications for disruptive/bad students in most government schools today. They give various virtuous reasons for this, but the real reason is that discipline hurts school attendance and enrollment.

And enrollment and attendance drive that sweet sweet state funding.

As always, incentives drive behavior.

The even more hilarious part of this funding is it doesn’t even go to hiring more teachers.

It goes to more administrators.

Since 2000, administrative staff in public schools has nearly doubled. Teachers grew 10%. Students grew 5%.

The bureaucracy exploded while the people working with students barely moved.

I see it in the teacher resumes we receive at Forge.

Very few talk about their passion for teaching or the positive impacts they’ve had on students.

Many (most) talk about their prowess with random administrativia.

This is just them reacting to incentives so I can’t fault them.

Some next steps

I don’t usually give folks reading this homework, but since it’s an education-focused newsletter, that seems on-brand.

I’m hoping some of you do it (esp HW #1).

HW #1 - If your son/daughter has or had an amazing teacher OR if you had an amazing teacher, let them know about their impact via a note, in-person conversation, etc.
Great teachers don’t hear about their impact nearly enough, and when people are leaving the profession in record numbers, recognizing the great teachers more is one simple thing worth doing that might help us retain the few great ones.

HW #2 - If you know a great teacher who loves seeing students realize their potential and who is frustrated by the sclerosis of the current system, please forward this to them. At Forge, they’ll actually get to teach without all the BS. The Guide job spec is here.

As always, if you have thoughts, please just hit reply and let me know.

Have a great weekend.

Have a great weekend.

Forge ahead,
Anand

Co-founder, Forge Prep

P.S. NPC = non-player character. A term from video games describing the characters not controlled by a player but who just move around in the background and have no real impact on the game.

P.P.S. I wrote an essay about how teaching can become prestigious again here.