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As teacher resignation letters increasingly go public -- and viral -- new research indicates teachers are not leaving solely due to low pay and retirement, but also because of what they see as a broken education system.
In a trio of studies, Michigan State University education expert Alyssa Hadley Dunn and colleagues examined the relatively new phenomenon of teachers posting their resignation letters online. Their findings, which come as many teachers are signing next year's contacts, suggest educators at all grade and experience levels are frustrated and disheartened by a nationwide focus on standardized tests, scripted curriculum and punitive teacher-evaluation systems.
Teacher turnover costs more than $2.2 billion in the U.S. each year and has been shown to decrease student achievement in the form of reading and math test scores.
"The reasons teachers are leaving the profession has little to do with the reasons most frequently touted by education reformers, such as pay or student behavior," said Dunn, assistant professor of teacher education. "Rather, teachers are leaving largely because oppressive policies and practices are affecting their working conditions and beliefs about themselves and education."
The study quoted a teacher in Boston: "I did not feel I was leaving my job. I felt then and feel now that my job left me."
(Score: 3, Informative) by NewNic on Friday April 07 2017, @06:35PM (7 children)
Why is it that people think that the main issue with teachers is the difficulty of firing them?
How about questioning the quality of teachers coming into the profession? Why are those bad teachers in the classrooms in the first place?
Even if you fire those bad teachers, there is no pool of better teachers ready to take their place. In CA, there is a shortage of teachers (note, not necessarily a shortage of people qualified to teach) so firing teachers merely results in understaffed schools.
I have said it before and I will say it again. Most teachers are underpaid when the qualifications required are taken into consideration. Pay more and perhaps you would get better teachers in schools. The average teacher quits after 5 years in the profession, which represents a huge waste of society's resources.
lib·er·tar·i·an·ism ˌlibərˈterēənizəm/ noun: Magical thinking that useful idiots mistake for serious political theory
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 07 2017, @07:04PM (4 children)
"This endeavor is failing, so let's invest in it more!"
—said no productive person ever.
(Score: 2) by NewNic on Saturday April 08 2017, @12:16AM (1 child)
That is complete BS. Cases where an enterprise may fail due to insufficient investment, but succeed with sufficient investment abound us all. In fact, it is essentially the model for all Venture Capital.
lib·er·tar·i·an·ism ˌlibərˈterēənizəm/ noun: Magical thinking that useful idiots mistake for serious political theory
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 09 2017, @04:04PM
The kind of failure that you are talking about is different from the kind of failure that I am talking about.
The truth of the matter is that nobody really knows what the solution should be; what this means is that the solution must be found, which means that the solution must evolve into existence by means of variation (error) and selection (trial), a process that is most robustly implemented as a market of voluntary trade (i.e., a free market).
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 08 2017, @03:20AM (1 child)
Educating the species isn't even on the same level as business investment. There is a lie floating around that education has been getting more and more money and it does nothing. The problem is that the money is not going to the correct places.
1st: Pay teachers more, help reverse the trend where 50% of teachers quit after 3 years.
2nd: Pay for MORE teachers. Class sizes have been steadily increasing for years. The ideal student : teacher ratio is 12:1 and that doesn't even cover having 5 different classes for a total of 150+ students.
3rd: Take money away from bureaucracy, if anyone is the dead weight you'll find them there.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 09 2017, @03:56PM
Nobody is arguing that it is going to the correct places. That's the whole point; there's no point in giving the educational system more money because this educational system has very little to do with education. It's a fucked endeavor.
(Score: 0, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 07 2017, @07:07PM
Because of unions, we can't give more money to better teachers without also giving it to awful teachers.
Because of the sheer number of teachers, paying even the median income is a serious problem. People aren't keen on 30% tax or classrooms with 120 students per teacher.
Teaching degrees are a joke. Those with the lowest SAT scores go into teaching. When not drinking, the soon-to-be-teacher people are "learning" SJW nonsense (which makes them dumber) and struggling to pass a class called College Algebra which is really 7th grade algebra.
Much of the problem is lack of ability to exclude and/or punish bad-behaving students. Add in an uncaring administration, and it's no wonder people hate the job.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Appalbarry on Saturday April 08 2017, @01:03AM
It seems that every time a CEO or politician feels the need of a six figure increase in compensation they jump and shout "If you want well qualified people to do our jobs you need to pay them well!" Usually this proceeds a quarter showing significant losses, or some kind of bone-headed scandal.
These same people apparently believe that teachers don't need the same incentive - that the less you can pay them, the better off we are.
Arguably teachers as a group have a significantly higher success rate than either CEOs or politicians.