Teachers Are Burning Out on the Job is Matt Barnum’s latest article in The Wall Street Journal, and it’s a doozy (it’s a gift link, so should be accessible for thirty days).
It’s filled with lots of exceptionally depressing statistics about the state of teaching. The info highlighted in the textbox above is just one of them.
Immediately after the height of the pandemic, I was in a similar “space” (fortunately, I’m doing a lot better now) and wrote We Teachers Are Not Alright & Here Are Some Ideas For Making Things Better.
In it, I shared fifteen actions I thought districts and policy-makers could take to make things better for us, and I think most hold up well. Here they are:
Public acknowledgement by non-teachers, including district leaders, that the teaching environment is more difficult and that things are not “back to normal.”
Creating paid-time for professional development in areas identified by teachers and provided by teachers. And not adding those sessions to the teacher work-day. Instead, creating time during the school day.
Substantially increasing the pay for substitute teachers so that people want to be subs. One way to do this would be to hire a permanent pool of teachers as full-time substitute teachers. It’s not possible to overstate the crisis the lack of subs is for teachers – not only does it mean professional development options are eliminated (because there is no one to replace teachers during those days), but it means that regular teachers are losing their planning periods to cover for their colleagues who are out because subs can’t be found.
Increasing teacher salaries. Teachers earn about twenty-percent less than other professionals with similar education levels. Too many teachers work at other jobs to make ends meet.
Districts providing funds to schools to hire local residents, who have relationships in those communities, to contact and work with families and their children who are experiencing challenges in schools.
Stopping attacks on LGBTQ students and teachers; putting an end to book banning campaigns, and getting over Critical Race Theory hysteria.
Creating time for “Advisories,” where teachers and other school staff can spend specifically allotted time with students on non-academic subjects like Social Emotional Learning.
Districts working with teachers to figure out genuinely effective ways to support new teachers instead of the generally useless and paperwork-driven district programs that exist now.
Districts working with teachers of color to develop specific strategies for supporting them and recruiting more.
Providing stipends to teachers who want to develop and participate in book clubs focused on pedagogical issues.
Districts actually asking teachers – through their unions where they exist – for ideas on how to spend money and actually listening to them.
Creating more time during the school day where teachers can plan and assess so they don’t have to take so much work home with them.
University teacher-prep programs seriously re-evaluating if their programs are truly readying their students for this new classroom environment.
I also ended that post this way, which I also think still holds true:
District leaders and public officials don’t have a great track record of responding to the concerns of educators, so I’m not holding my breath that most – if any – of these ideas will get widely implemented.
And, if that’s the case, I think a lot of people are going to be surprised about the long-term price everyone is going to have to pay when there are fewer educators, and more demoralized ones, supporting today’s and tomorrow’s children.
Teachers Are Burning Out on the Job is Matt Barnum’s latest article in The Wall Street Journal, and it’s a doozy (it’s a gift link, so should be accessible for thirty days). It’s filled with lots of exceptionally depressing statistics about the state of teaching. The info highlighted in the textbox above is just Uncategorized Larry Ferlazzo’s Websites of the Day…
