What 80,000 Teachers Say They Most Need in Their Classrooms

Last year, 83,962 of America’s most resourceful and creative teachers posted classroom needs on DonorsChoose.org. They asked for everything from robots to nature expeditions to puppet theaters.

What do teachers need more than anything?

Books.

In just about every grade and subject, teachers requsted books more than any other type of resource. Last school year alone, teachers requested 250,000 books through DonorsChoose.org, often seeking multiple book titles per project to help build classroom libraries.

To foster a love of reading, these teachers often try to meet kids where they are… and sometimes that’s the movie theater. Divergent by Veronica Roth and The Fault in Our Stars by John Green – two books with theatrical releases this past year – were two of our top three books, and that’s not a new trend. Last year, we chronicled how our trend-spotting teachers clamored for Hunger Games books on DonorsChoose.org months before the book surged in Google search results.

After books, educational toys and games were the next most requested type of resource, followed by classroom supplies and technology.

When we broke requests down by poverty level, we saw that requests for paper increased in line with the percentage of students receiving free or reduced lunch. Conversely, requests for tablets increased as poverty level decreased.

I hope you’re now asking, “What can I do about it?” Well, this weekend, we’re partnering with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to launch “The World’s Best Back-to-School Sale.” From now through Sunday, August 24, the Gates Foundation will fund half of every classroom project request on DonorsChoose.org when people fund the other half. Think of it as a philanthropic 50%-off sale to make your donation go twice as far.

We’re looking forward to another year of making classroom dreams come true, and we hope you’ll join us.

See the full infographic