When I was a child, I used to line up my dolls and stuffed animals on my bedroom floor, pull out my mini-chalkboard and in my best teacher’s voice, “teach” them reading, writing and arithmetic. Pretending to be a teacher was my favorite kind of imaginative play. In college, I majored in Secondary Education and English and became an actual teacher. I loved teaching, but when I started having kids of my own, I quit to stay home with them. When they got to school age, I decided to homeschool and never went back to a traditional classroom.

I kept my foot in the proverbial school door, however. Over the years, I’ve followed the education world closely, listened to teacher friends talk about their varied experiences and written countless articles advocating for better pay and support for teachers. I’ve seen a teacher burnout crisis brewing for a while. Then the pandemic hit, and it was like a hurricane hitting a house of cards. Teachers are not OK, folks. Many weren’t OK before the pandemic, but they’re really not OK now.

A recent poll from the National Education Association found that 90% of its members say that feeling burned out is a serious problem, 86% have seen more teachers quitting or retiring early since the pandemic began and 80% say that job openings that remain unfilled have added to the workload of those who are still teaching. And more than half of teachers say they will leave the profession earlier than they had planned. Some surveys show that being a teacher is even more likely to drive burnout and anxiety than being a healthcare worker, and that’s saying something.

I checked in with several dozen teachers who have quit recently or are close to quitting, and the response was overwhelming. Over and over I heard the same sentiments: I went into teaching because I enjoy working with kids and I want to make a difference. I love teaching. I love my students. These are teachers who throw their whole heart into their work.

So why are they quitting? The reasons are plentiful, and heartbreaking.

The math is simple. Pay teachers more so that our brightest minds want to become teachers. Pay politicians less so that only those who really want to serve become politicians.— arjun (@arjunthanaraju) February 17, 2022

The math is simple. Pay teachers more so that our brightest minds want to become teachers. Pay politicians less so that only those who really want to serve become politicians.— arjun (@arjunthanaraju) February 17, 2022

It’s not really about the money

Low pay is an issue many of us think of when it comes to teachers, but it’s not the main thing pushing teachers to quit. One teacher told me that in his school district, garbage collectors make $10K more per year and have better benefits than teachers with graduate degrees and a decade of experience, but that wasn’t his primary reason for wanting to leave. There’s no question teachers deserve to be paid more, a lot more, but teachers don’t choose to become teachers for the money, and most don’t quit because of the money, either. It’s the issues that make the wages not worth it.

(Many school districts are adopting 4-day school weeks in an effort to entice more teachers to join up and stay. It helps with pay-related issues, but doesn’t solve many of the other problems.)

Teachers want to be treated like experts

One of those issues is a lack of recognition that teachers are actually highly skilled professionals.........

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