Why Educators are Leaving the Classroom
Anyone who has been in public education for any length of time can list for you the myriad problems that exist in the system. There are many parents out there who can attest to the fact that this system is failing our children in so many ways. I believe there is one, significant, underlying problem that causes most of the others; we don't invest in or trust our teachers. Our school system is seeing teachers burn out and quit at an unsustainable rate. The public school system is on the verge of a reckoning. Here are some of the reasons why they're leaving in droves.
Direct Instruction and Grading: The Great Time-Suck
What most non-teachers don't understand is that to deliver a quality lesson, it takes approximately the same amount of time to plan it as it does to execute it. For every hour a teacher spends delivering direct instruction, it takes them an hour to plan it. Most teachers get a "planning period" for about fifty minutes every day. The rest of the six or seven hours is spent delivering instruction and guiding students through their assignments. If you're doing the math folks, that is woefully inadequate. Most of the time, that 50 minutes isn't even dedicated to "planning." We use it to FINALLY go to the bathroom, to finish paperwork that has to be turned in by yesterday, to call parents of struggling or failing students. We use it to get on the phone with counselors to address students we know are struggling with mental health issues. Teachers never get that "planning" time during the day. So do they eschew it completely? Of course not. They do it on the weekends, in the evenings, during the summer....even on Christmas break. Teachers also don't get any paid time to grade work. Grading is done before or after contract hours are long over. When you drive by a school, pay attention to the giant bags teachers are taking home with them. These are not purses; they are giant STACKS of papers they have to take home to grade.
Putting Off Mental and Physical Health
Before COVID happened, most teachers would come to work on the brink of death instead of calling in at the last minute for a sub. Here's a hard truth: subs are babysitters. Their purpose is to make sure that the kids don't destroy the classroom or physically hurt one another. When a teacher is out, nothing gets done. So what do teachers do? They put off their own mental and physical health and "tough it out." To go to a 30 minute doctor's appointment means teachers have to take a half or whole day off....and call in a sub. I have known many teachers who postponed life lifesaving surgeries until the summer time so they don't have to take time off during the school year. Additionally, mental healthcare is difficult as hell to get for teachers. The demands of the job leave little free time to go to therapy, and the government-issued healthcare pays for almost none of it. Teachers are pushing their own struggles and their own trauma down in order to keep doing the job.
Impossible Expectations
Teachers have been given more and more and more to do everyday for decades and it's at a breaking point. They've already given up a massive amount of their own free tine and neglected their health...but WAIT! THERE'S MORE! Teachers are expected to report suspected child abuse, intervene in bullying situations, counsel students on personal problems, differentiate their teaching styles for every one of 30 students, fill out paperwork detailing what they did *special* for every one of those 30 students, keep parents informed of their students' progress (good or bad), all while being evaluated by administrators who have little idea what does (and should) go on in a classroom. Teachers who "sit down at their computer" are almost always marked down on their administrative evaluations, despite the fact that they're expected to check their email every ten minutes for "urgent matters." If teachers aren't engaging 100% of their students 100% of the time, they're marked down on their evaluations. Administrators preach "grace and understanding" but if a teacher lets a student sleep in class that she knows stays up late every night to tutor their younger sibling, she's "lazy."
There's a reason that teachers are leaving the profession in droves. It's a difficult job with impossible expectations. The reality is that no one wants to take responsibility for the systemic problems in our educational system. It's easier just to blame it on the teachers.
