What's it like to get up and go to work knowing that your best efforts that day will be fair game for criticism and censure? Imagine that your daily actions are subject to scrutiny by individuals who lack your education or experience? Suppose that your pay lags other professions, yet you often need to dip into your own resources to pay for your supplies. How long would you stay in this job?
Welcome to the world of teaching! A new survey of eight states confirms anecdotal observations compiled over the past couple of years: Teachers are leaving the profession at higher rates.
An eight-state report by Chalkbeat, a nonprofit news organization, reveals that turnover is at its highest point in about five years in Louisiana, Maryland, Washington, North Carolina, Hawaii, Maine, Mississippi, and South Carolina.
The federal government doesn't monitor the quit rate for teachers. Most states don't track it, either. Louisiana posted a turnover rate of 14%, up from between 11% and 12% prior to the pandemic. North Carolina jumped to 16%, compared to less than 12% in the three years prior to the pandemic. North Carolina's mid-year turnover edged up to 6% in the 2021-22 school year, up from under 4% in previous years. In Washington, more teachers left after the last school year than at any time in the past three decades. Maryland experienced a greater loss than any other time in the past decade.
Reasons for leaving include growing stress, Covid-19, student behavior, larger class sizes, staff shortages, and the intrusion of politics into education.
A nationally representative survey from RAND reinforces these statistics: By the end of 2021-22 school year, teacher turnover had increased 4% above pre-pandemic levels.
Not everyone is cut out to be a teacher, right? I'm a prime example. After one year, I told Mom that teaching was her chosen profession for me--not mine, and I went on to graduate school in journalism. I enjoyed teaching, but it wasn't my passion. It wasn't an easy profession then, and it's much more challenging today. I served on the school board when our children were in school. Being a board member wasn't a walk in the park then, and it's even more difficult today.
After all, teaching requires overtime: preparing lesson plans, grading homework at night, chaperoning school events, or serving as activity sponsors. And, somehow teachers are expected to overcome the detrimental impact of parental neglect or poverty on kids.
Teachers spend an average of $750 a year on school supplies for their classrooms (adoptaclassroom.org). According to the National Center for Education, a total of 18% of teachers hold second jobs during the school year, a far higher percentage than the 4.5% of all U.S. workers who have two jobs.
At one time, society's respect and support for teachers compensated for the lack of pay. But teachers have increasingly become an easy mark to blame for the challenges of educating a more diverse student body. Adding insult to injury, teachers have been in the crosshairs of active shooter school drills and mass shootings during the past 25 years. How do they process the horror of a 6-year-old in Newport News, Virginia, who brought a gun to school, and shot his teacher? Consider the high stakes battle of the Johnston student suspended for wearing a T-shirt featuring a 2nd amendment slogan and a rifle. The student's mother has filed a federal lawsuit against the school based on free speech.
Making a tough job tougher
In Iowa, legislators rewrote the collective bargaining law in 2017, imposing stringent limits on teacher contract negotiations. During the past two years, legislators in Iowa and other states have proposed and passed legislation that restricts and intimidates teachers, and silences marginalized students.
A national parent activist group, Moms for Liberty, was given a forum in Iowa to stir suspicion and create fears concerning books and critical race theory. Teachers also are being caught in the partisan crossfire surrounding transsexuals and school bathrooms, the nicknames and pronouns used in schools--and more. Social/emotional learning, which promotes empathy, self-control, and a positive outlook, has come under fire. What's wrong with learning how to handle your emotions if you don't get your way? These core skills are essential to our interactions with one another. Diversity and equity also have been embroiled in this. Certainly parents can teach social/emotional learning. But not all parents are role models.
Most of this current legislation demonstrates a fundamental lack of respect for the profession of teaching, and it's no coincidence that 74.3% of teachers are women.
Iowa seems to be following the lead of other states led by Republicans. Since 2021, PEN America, a nonpartisan advocacy group for free speech, has recorded 193 educational gag orders in 41 states on what should be discussed in the classroom; to date, 19 have become law.
Teacher turnover hurts student learning. These findings from the National Center for Education Statistics reinforce the importance of students having relationships with trusted adults outside of their families:
·      The average teacher will impact more than 3,000 students throughout the course of their career.
·      83% of students say a teacher helped improve their confidence and self-esteem.
·      87% of people wish they’d told their teachers how much they appreciated them.
·      88% of people say their teachers played a significant positive role in their lives.
·      79% of students say they’ve been encouraged to follow their dreams by a teacher.
·      54% of students say they’ve had a teacher who helped them through a difficult time.
·      75% of students say they see teachers as mentors and role models.
Teacher shortages impact high-poverty urban schools and rural schools especially hard. According to Teach, Iowa, there are more than 1,500 open, full-time teaching jobs. At the same time, colleges, especially in rural areas, are reporting a continuing decline in teacher training enrollment. When I left teaching after one year in the 1970s, there were 200,000 new teachers every year; the number dropped below 90,000 in 2019.
Iowa's neighboring states, including Missouri and Illinois, are competing for the same teacher pool. Why would our legislators and governor choose this time to persist in passing legislation that discourages entry into the profession, and potentially promotes turnover? Their answer (House File 255) is allowing shortcuts to the classroom or school library, and watering down the curriculum to reduce courses in foreign language and the arts (Senate File 391).
Which parents get what rights?
The Governor and most Republican lawmakers argue that they're fighting for parental rights. After all, isn't that why Gov. Reynolds signed legislation to use taxpayer funds to subsidize private schools? But it has nothing to do with parental rights. It's about using the power of big government to reach into schools and turn back the clock to "traditional" values". The Governor and Republican legislators also claim parental rights are driving the movement to scrutinize books and, in some cases, remove them from the shelves. They maintain that parental rights are the rationale for passing legislation to allow gender reaffirming care--- no, wait a minute, Iowa legislators don't want Iowa parents to have rights when it comes to approving gender affirming care for their own children. They want to take away these specific parental rights that they disagree with. You can't have it both ways. Or, maybe you can, if you're a Republican legislator in Iowa in 2023.
The battle cry of parents' rights is a smokescreen. Parents have the same rights they've had for generations. It's a bald-faced power grab, reaching into the privacy of our homes and our local public schools. After decades of Republican railing against big government, our Iowa legislators are creating it in their own ultra-conservative image. They're out-of-step with the majority of Iowans, the moderate folks who believe in local control of schools.
But this high-stakes hostile takeover of public schools has even broader implications. Laws aimed at stifling free expression in schools, and the right to a healthy debate and discussion discourage critical thinking. Critical thinking requires clarity, sound evidence, logical reasoning, fairness, and curiosity. It improves decision-making and problem-solving. Children learn it by asking questions, weighing the pros and cons of alternatives, and active listening. Critical thought helps to overcome biases, and encourages independent thinking. It's already in short supply.
It's key to discussions of our history, and to our future, and it's essential to democracy. The classroom is our last best hope to develop critical thinking skills, and teachers are in the best position to guide the next generation of future citizens. Yet, Iowa legislators want to dictate what teachers can teach, what students can read, and what programs are available to help kids with social and emotional needs.
No doubt that Iowa has fallen from its earlier pedestal of educational excellence. But are we witnessing the killing of the goose that laid Iowa's golden egg? Is the political fallout from our capitol's Golden Dome inflicting irreversible collateral damage on our teachers and students?
But, what if the damage is intentional? I don't know why I was surprised to read that Chad Aldis, the new director of the Iowa Department of Education selected by Gov. Reynolds never has served as a school administrator or teacher. He's an attorney who has spent years at an Ohio conservative think tank lobbying for private school choice and vouchers. Can you connect the dots?
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Thank you for this, Cheryl.
Unfortunately, too many Iowans think the actions by our legislators are a good thing - if they opposed these laws, they would not keep electing these legislators (and governor).