Lessons Learned: New Teachers Talk About Their Jobs, Challenges and Long-Range Plans. Issue No. 1, They're Not Little Kids Anymore: The Special Challenges of New Teachers in High Schools and Middle Schools

Generation Y teachers want to shake up the stagnant education system, according to a survey of first-year teachers commissioned by the National Comprehensive Center for Teacher Quality, funded by the U.S. Department of Education. The freedom to be creative, the power to make a difference, opportunities to grow, rewards, and an end to the one-size-fits-all model of instruction is what new teachers say will improve the quality of education, according to the nationwide survey of 865 teachers in their first year in the classroom conducted by Public Agenda. Most telling is that 79 percent of the respondents would choose supportive administrators over significant salary increases. Most of the survey sample is younger than 29 years.