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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: 2) by nobu_the_bard on Friday April 07 2017, @07:15PM (1 child)
The school districts in my region of the US usually use in-school suspension instead. Students are "suspended" but actually go to special classes where they study responsible behavior instead of their normal classes (or, that's what I'm told - never seen one myself). Out-of-school suspension is pretty rare now; most things bad enough to warrant it tend to instead call for a criminal charge.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 07 2017, @09:00PM
It sounds good on the surface, but one of the reasons for this is that suspending them and sending them home (at least in my state) automatically triggers consequences for the school. I'm at a loss to recall what those are off the top of my head (I think it automatically triggers a review of an IEP or something like that), but I've got a special needs kid who has been in in-school suspension before. I once made the comment to an educational advocate about how we really didn't have in-school suspension for us back in the day, they would just send your ass home and tell you when you can come back, and she told me the reason the schools keep them there. The primary motivation wasn't because of the kid. I'll have to ask my wife what that reason was because she has a much better memory than I for details like that.