Empty Classrooms, Abandoned Kids: Inside The Great Teacher Resignation | NYT Opinion 

The teachers aren't abandoning kids, the education system is abandoning teachers.

Teachers are educators, not social workers. I do not blame them one bit for quitting.

People act like teachers are supposed to educate AND raise kids at the same time! It all starts at home.

It is not just the kids who lose. This is having a tremendous impact on our entire society. And it's only going to snowball into something worse.

People don't realize how serious this is. One of the fundamentals of keeping our society in the bare minimum of functioning is early childhood education, which America was already severely derelict. Some of these kids will not recover from the last 5 years of this kind of neglect, which of course leads to higher crime, increased poverty, etc. I'm really worried about this and have so much sympathy for these kids. Their country has failed to provide the lowest standard of a safe educational space.

Parents sure like MAKING their kids, but don't expect them to actually TEACH, PARENT, AND DISCIPLINE them.

I asked two teachers why they retired early. Their answers were pretty much the same, "It wasn't the kids, it was the parents". I fully believe this and am grateful I changed my major and did not enter teaching. I can't imagine having oversensitive, overly-demanding parents threaten my job/dignity every day. 🤦

Have two relatives who became teachers. Both started as sunny, well adjusted, happy, and helpful people. Teaching left them cynical, angry, and disillusioned. Frankly, it was traumatic for them. And I don't know that they ever recovered.

My wife teaches high school. She comes home crying most days and wants to quit up to 5x per day. She consider herself LUCKY because she teaches ESL to Kids from overseas that have all had interrupted education. Most of them don't even try, which is frustrating, but she feels lucky because the general education students (native born english speakers) are out of control fighting, smoking, shouting, hitting teachers etc. There is a lot wrong with the education system in the US, it all starts at home.

Let's be real: Parents aren't raising their kids right and teachers aren't obligated to put up with it.

Other reasons I left: -disrespectful kids -parents in denial about their kids’ ability and deserved grades -administrators caring about “customer service” (students and parents being the customers) instead of treating public education as a service to society to have an educated populace. The only way I will ever teach anyone’s kid ever again is if it’s one-on-one and the child has parents who raised them the least bit properly. Unfortunately, many of you parents are raising absolute brats, and it’s obvious where it comes from….you. It’s not always what you say to them or around them; it’s also what you let them get away with or reward/punish them for (or don’t reward/punish them for.)

I'm a new teacher and I'm just done with having to babysit children who were not even raised properly. Absolutely disrespectful and no morals.

A $25k salary? How is that acceptable? Between teachers and nurses one thing is clear; we're taking these people for granted and not giving them the pay and working conditions they deserve.

My kindergarten students showed up this school year without potty training and without the basic behavioral skills like sharing and listening to adults. I have seen toddler level tantrums, children getting into physical FIGHTS in kindergarten. Ive never seen anything like it. What are you THINKING, parents? How is this acceptable way to send your kids out into the world?

I’m a substitute teacher and I took a middle school assignment for choir. The profanity and disrespect that comes out of the kids mouth was unreal. Even the principal was concerned with what happened. Even though I’m not giving up, I’m concerned for the future of education.

This was my last year in the classroom. It took 3 degrees to become a teacher, and after a decade of abuse and discrimination from administrators I am done. Our kids deserve better.

As someone who still would kiss the ground my teachers walk on, because they are the reason I am who I am, I feel so disappointed. There were times I would stay back at school because I didn't want to go back to a lifeless empty house or much worse, the one where fights had become an everyday thing. My teachers were my protectors, school was my safe haven and I am literally in tears watching these amazing people deal with so much. It physically hurts to watch this happen. Teachers deserve so much better! And we need to make sure that they get the better life they deserve.

my mom loves teaching, it’s her passion. in recent years my mom has struggled greatly. almost everyday she comes home crying and spends the whole night planning and grading bc she can’t get it done during school anymore. it’s really hard bc she loves teaching, but at this point she is so mentally and physically drained.

I've been teaching for 25 years and have always said that I would never retire mid-year but the past 2-3 years my students and many parents have become so disrespectful and absolutely uninterested in anything remotely connected to learning that every day is a struggle. Add that to all the pressures from district, state, and federal levels; the emotional state of the students; and the fact that my wage hasn't come close to keeping up with inflation in any way. I would literally leave at lunch and not come back this year... after I made sure my students would be safe and that my team wouldn't have to babysit my students of course. The thing is I actually love teaching and I am usually really good at getting the students engaged in learning but I'm not a counselor or psychiatrist and more and more of my students need that before they will be ready to learn.

I am happy for these teachers who don’t want to deal with this BS anymore. No teacher should have to work a part time job to survive!

I recently retired from teaching and I can tell you one of the causes of all this quitting is the lack of respect to teachers (from everybody, parents, administrators, kids) Additionally, we are not allowed to do classroom management for the sake of student rights. Your self- esteem gets hurt everyday while a bunch of mis-behaved students do whatever they please in the classroom. Standing up, yelling, offending you and you just stay there, not being able to do anything; not even defending yourself because you can be immediately fired. Then you get home from school to a ton of paperwork that doesn't have much to do with your real job in the classroom. You miss weekends and holidays in this fashion, not being able to rest properly. You are in constant anxiety because even a slight mistake gets you in real trouble. From being publicly humiliated by the administrator to legal repercussions of a student grade the parents were not satisfied with. To put it simply, we work in a mad house. No wonder many thousands are looking for another job, for the sake of their mental health

I work as a school bus driver and while my job isn't as hard, we have similar staffing issues. It's not uncommon for me to work 12-14 hour days. I've literally ran 2-3 routes for the same school with kids getting to school 3 hours late. Parents are understandable upset by that, but then they take it out on me like I have any power in the matter. One said she was going to have me fired and I snapped back that then she'd have to drive her kids herself. There is a disconnect within society. They're mad that there isn't enough of us but they don't want taxes to go up and they don't want government to go after companies for more taxes. Education is dying because we won't support it.

I got stomped on by a few vocal parents for not being “good enough” so I quit. I went above and beyond, stayed late to do extra things, arranged field trips, created interactive lesson plans, and it still was not good enough. So I left. The good parents tried to talk me out of it but nope. I was done. Months later they don’t even have a substitute and I find this funny. Hope those families are happy!!

As a teacher myself, we just need more teachers and smaller classroom sizes. Their behavior is getting hard to manage and when the classroom sizes are over 30 you have no control

I am a high school teacher in Missouri and I made more money off of driving Uber for one week over thanksgiving break than I make in an entire month of teaching. This is why teachers want out.

It makes me so angry to think that I went to college for nearly a decade for this career. If I leave how could I use these degrees elsewhere? We invest so much time and money into becoming a teacher only to be faced with financial burdens for the rest of our lives.

Teacher's don't "abandon" kids. We have to look after ourselves first and if that means leaving what we love because we have to, then so be it. No one else looks after us.

I am one of the teachers that quit. Administration was horrible. My last admin in public school was so abusive that I developed anxiety and needed to see a therapist. They cursed at us, took away our lunch for "emergency meetings." Our prep time was used for team meetings which meant no time to actually prep for lessons. Other prep time was used to meet with admin. Horrible. I ended up HATING teaching because of them. Sad part is I couldn't call them out and was so polite when I resigned. I hope that administration in that school will be exposed for their disgusting bullying tactics.

I taught for 12 years. Never made over $30k, but I have a Masters. I've been lied on, spit on, belongings stolen, broke up numerous fights, kids who weren't potty trained, and consistent years when more than 30% of the class came to me at below grade level reading. I even offered to keep a child when he failed and he was still passed to the next grade. I was a third grade teacher, and I spent the majority of the time dealing with bad behavior and remediating basic reading skills: how was I supposed to teach? To be honest, i don't really think the administration cared about teaching, just warm bodies to be in the room with the students. I can tell you honor stories about how the State funding was misappropriated for "other " uses, while we spend weeks without supplies like paper and ink, lacked Title One Teachers and Special Education services... Finally I decided I could do without the responsibility of being a glorified babysit.

Imagine if Teachers were treated like professional athletes. $400K minimum pay. Free college tuition. Top college prospects being drafted. Students fighting for the chance to educate the next generation. It's sad that we value celebrity and batting averages more than the education of our children.

Blame the parents as much as anyone! They are YOUR KIDS! Education begins at home. It’s not a teachers job to raise your kids.

As a special education teacher I have experienced everything these teachers have. The ‘spinning 100 plates’ idiom is accurate.

When I was in school 50+ years ago, the concept was almost military. There were individual desks, no community tables, face the front, no talking. Raise your hand and wait until the teacher acknowledges you, talk with respect, and do not interrupt. There were very few problems.

Stopped teaching after 38+ years..burned out because I spent most of my energy on maintaining order in the classroom..felt like I worked in Juvenile Hall instead.. Working with plants now..same pay..no behavior issues..quiet.. therapeutic...rewarding

Throughout all of these think pieces, no one wants to admit that student behaviors are a huge reason teachers are quitting. They are tired of having their physical safety threatened every day and admin just throwing up their hands saying, "Deal with it. It's part of the job." 😐

I was a second year teacher and I had my first pregnancy that ended in a miscarriage. The admin had been horrible to me and parents weren't disciplining their kids. I was so stressed. I taught a few more years and had 4 more miscarriages then I quit. I rested....then had a healthy pregnancy. I'm home with my 10 month old son now. I have a Master's in Teaching. I could only make $45,000. What a waste. My husband doesn't want me to go back.

Old friend, veteran math teacher who adores her students, quit in Florida this year. Simply couldn’t take the totality of politically driven directives & restrictions being placed on the classroom, many of which she felt directly harmed students or the quality of their education. All on top of insanely low wages & unhinged, abusive parents. She left the state.

As a young educator myself that joined in 2020, I came in with high hopes thinking that I could make a change. After almost 3 years into teaching, I would say here are the top reasons why educators are leaving in alarming rates: 1. Lack of Funding/Pay. We are expected to buy supplies for the children with the little money we make. This includes supplies to make learning engaging, snacks/clothings for underprivileged children. What other field requires you to buy your own copy paper and ink? This is absolutely ridiculous. In addition, we are required to volunteer our “free” time in the evenings for school events. 2. Unrealistic policies implemented by local and state government. How could you promote an individualized learning plan for each student when you have way TOO many kids to one teacher. We are not superheroes. Most parents can’t even handle their 3 kids at home. So how is giving 25-30 first graders to a teacher manageable? Smaller class sizes signifies that teachers can focus on individuals better. The ideal class size is no more than 15 students. 3. Administrations. Believe it or not whoever is leading the school has a huge impact in the school culture. When you have a leader that respects, trusts, and values your time as an educator, most likely you will want to volunteer your time to accomplish the school’s vision. In addition, most administrators will listen to parent feedback than teachers. Which I believe is crucial, parents should have a say in their child’s education. But you sometimes have to take it with a grain of salt. Some parents expect their kid to have special treatment. 4. Teachers need time to plan or prepare for lessons. This is just common sense. As an elementary educator who teaches all subjects, you need time everyday to plan and prep effective lessons (Did you notice it was plural?). This includes time to print copies, cut, laminate etc. The amount of work that goes into a elementary lesson is insane. Especially if you want to engage your students. 5. Parents. I’m sorry if you are a parent and you feel like you’ve done everything you can but I can safely say that I’ve met parents who should have never become a parent. School is not the only place where they should be learning. Learning starts at home. Being a parents means sacrificing the little time you have. So read with them, or count. Do something productive for at least 20 minutes. Nowadays when a kid is out of control, an electronic is thrown at them so they can “calm” down. That is not parenting. We can’t do that in schools, so imagine the number of behaviors we handle. I truly do love the kids. The relationships we foster within the classroom is what I cherish the most. You really do learn how to love them like your own. Teaching them is also exciting, but it’s all the rest of the baggage that makes it miserable and exhausting. Some serious changes needs to be made, or else there will be no teachers left. The ones who will suffer the most are the kids.

I was a teacher and in many instances I was given the title of the class, and told to go teach it, no supplies, no advice, that's it. I had to create an entire curriculum and lesson plans from scratch. Worked 12-16 hours 6 days-a-week and did not earn a living wage. Quit after four years of BS. Unless you've done it, don't think you could. I'm a nurse now, which is its own circus, and let me tell you teaching was EVEN harder. Hats off to anyone willing to teach.

I’m a 7th grade English teacher. The students are most certainly out of control and their apathy towards education is astounding. The parents are largely responsible for that. Lousy family lives = lousy students.

I teach elementary school. I took my first sick day of the year on Thursday just because I was feeling burned-out. Even though I entered my absence more than 24 hours in advance, they couldn't get a sub and resource teachers had to tag-team in my room. That meant that the kids who they would normally give extra support didn't receive any support. Basically, if I take a day off, it's the kids who have to pay for it.

The last quote about teachers abandoning kids is the toxic guilt used against us at my school. 'Kids have big problems. We have to support them.' So I asked about the big issues teachers face in their own lives. My principal responded with, "You're an adult." Yep, I retired. Yes, kids are important! But, I'm not a machine! 😑😐 Retired from Texas public schools. 😢 I loved teaching critical thinking and the scientific method.

teachers deserve to unionize and have collective bargaining. teachers are essentially held hostage and they are one of the backbones of this country, they are educating the next generation!

When parents don’t educate their kids with ethics and etiquette, it becomes impossible for teachers to educate their children with knowledge and truth. I would quit, too. It’s less an epidemic of bad kids, but moreso a plague of God-awful parenting….or lack thereof.

I met a teacher who moved to my small town from a large city, and she said she got tired of being threatened and assaulted. Can't blame them period! The government has destroyed everything in this country that was once great!!

Teachers and nurses are responsible for so much, yet we're treated like crap and aren't given the resources we need to properly do our jobs. This is why there is a teacher and nursing shortage and there probably always will be one.

I was a teacher for 2 years and that’s all I lasted. Got out before I was too deep for leaving to be easy. Most of the kids are great but let’s not mince words, many are not. It is nearly impossible teaching students who don’t care, and I feel most sorry for the kids who do. Sadly, I see no way this crisis gets better. I think within 10 years public schools will have so many vacancies and empty classrooms that online will be the standard for public school.

I abandoned education in 2014 for simliar reasons and now I am a therapist. Best decision I ever made; get paid about 25k a year more too and I can go to the bathroom whenever I want.

My teachers were monumental in ensuring my admission to a top college despite my background of being in Foster Care. They were a stable source during my awful upbringing. This seriously does a lot of harm to children like me.

My mom was a teacher for 34 years. She retired 5 years before covid19 and was a substitute for 4 of those years. She left teaching entirely when covid19 hit and hasn't gone back. Her colleagues have been quitting en masse. Covid19 proved the district absolutely doesn't care about the teachers. They all started making exit plans for ASAP. They just can't keep destroying themselves physically/mentally and being the punching bags of society. What's even worse: she and her colleagues were raising the alarm on students not being okay in 2014! Students had been showing increasing behavioral and emotional problems for 5 years before covid. They were becoming increasingly violent, billigerant, depressed, and suicidal. Parents have been getting worse to deal with for over a decade and refuse to discipline kids. Administrators capitulate to these parents constantly. Teachers can't even remove violent kids from their classrooms. HOW is someone supposed to work like that? One of my mom's colleagues had to quit before she retired because the stress very literally was killing him.

I feel like a dodged a bullet leaving my education major behind in college. Now I'm 5 years out of college and making 6 figures for the 1st time before 30. So glad I had the change of heart.

I started out my teaching career in the USA. I was still in college trying to finish my degree. I was living with my parents and barely making enough to survive. I got hired by school whose last teacher was fired. I walked into an empty classroom without supplies or resources. I had to pay for everything. The school board and the staff did not help. I struggled to keep my head above water and was released at the end of the semester because "proper teachers bring their own ideas and resources to the classroom" I left the USA for 6 years. I worked overseas. I made more money, had more time to myself, and was less stressed. It was a great. I moved back to USA because of COVID reasons and family reasons. I am back in the US public school system. The school barely has any teachers and they had to hire Filipino teachers to fill in 4 vacancies. I work from 7am to 9pm some days and still can't get things done. I am expected to volunteer, attend countless meetings, be a social worker, substitute, put in grades, lesson plan, build curriculum for 4 different classes, etc. It is ridiculous.

I was a teacher and quit after a year. The ratios are WAY TOO HIGH. Teaching is done best when teachers can work one-on-one with the kids, and that doesnt happen when the classroom is as packed as they are. The pay was garbage too, but honestly, I could have looked past that. It was the working conditions that finally pushed me over the edge.

I didn't get a degree to babysit. If they thought they could take me for granted, they learned they were wrong when I quit.

As a current teacher working 7/7 periods, no breaks - I feel like the days are all blended together. I love my job, i love my students, but it certainly takes a toll on the body physically and mentally. I arrive an hour early and stay 2 hours past my time to catch up on work because we are so short staffed. Im often times multi-tasking putting out fires that admins should deal with but have their own hands full elsewhere. Im not sure if paying more even will make a difference at this point as all we want is to make sure the students learn. But being divided all day shuffling multiple tasks is not making us as effective teachers as we can be. And while I do a good job at managing it, i have 9 years under my belt teaching and still am fairly young compared to my colleagues. Something at some point will have to give because we have no subs left in our district pool and teachers are quitting every few weeks to go into the corporate world.

Teachers are not suppose to be babysitters . Parents are not teaching their children manners and respect. I would not dare to behave like some of the kids today. If I showed disrespect to a teacher, I wouldn’t be able to set down for a week. My father would tell me , ‘you go to school to learn, not to misbehave and interfere with the learning of others.’ I know a lot of teachers that are leaving , they are just tired of it.

My mother retired a few years ago. She was a librarian/teacher. She hung in there as long as she could, but she'd finally had it. She'd seen the decline of education in the good ol' USA. Prior to her retirement, she began actively discouraging other people to get into the profession. A cynical move on her part, yes, however she was so right. Now she works part-time at the Carnegie Library and enjoys it. My dad took early retirement as a music teacher and now he teaches music on his own.

The only people who can be accused of "abandoning kids" is their primary caregiver. Teachers aren't "abandoning kids". They're self-preserving. Until society en masse gives teachers the respect and support they deserve, this will continue to happen. Throwing money at the situation by paying teachers more in hopes of retaining them will make it worse because then you'll have people working for the money, not for your children. Good luck, parents!

In the U.S., p-12 teaching is a profession that preys on teachers' altruism and desire to make a positive difference to children.

There are so many problems on so many levels, but the biggest ones are the behavior and discipline of students and a MASSIVE teacher workload. The paperwork administrators require and the pointless meetings they sit through leave teachers with very little time for planning and prepping for instruction. With the limited time they do have to focus on instruction, they then have to weed through inadequate and confusing curriculum. The odds are stacked against teachers and therefore students these days. I think the problem stems from listening to "gurus" and politicians and not listening to actual teachers. It's a case of the blind leading those who can see!

Both my son and my nephew quit teaching because they could do nothing for the children. Their parents would do nothing to correct them. On top of that, they feared for their lives due to school shootings. On top of that, my nephew left teaching to manage a restaurant for 20,000 more a year. My son makes even more! Teachers are getting dumped on. When our young people fail, our nation will fail.

4 teachers have already quit by the beginning of November and my entire department wants to quit. The saddest part is that we no longer feel bad for anyone leaving or wanting to leave. Btw, I work a minimum 12 hours a day and sleep about 4. I can't even get into everything, I would be here all day 🥴

I retired in 2022. I taught for 35 years. I truly enjoyed it and I had a good run. However, I saw especially during Covid such a disrespect for the teaching profession. I saw how America did not value their teachers. It was disheartening. I am so glad I am out of the teaching profession, that I am retired. I will not become a substitute. I do not want to go back into the schools, it is a bad situation. I’m praying much for all my colleagues who are still in the teaching profession.

I think it’s crazy how under supported and underrated teachers are. They pretty much raise kids. It’s crazy. And parents aren’t making it easier. I am a highschool student and I can see how stressed teachers are. Pretty much all of my classmates are stressed too. We need to fix the education system. It’s broken. It’s inhumane. We need to do better.

It is not just the pay. It is the working conditions, the disrespectful students, dealing with disruptive students in a regular class. The inability to suspend or expel the few students who make it bad for everyone. Yes, salaries are important. But the working conditions also matter.

It’s not just in America. Teachers are walking away from the profession in Australia too. Kids Behaviour is horrendous and teacher workload is unsustainable.

In a neighboring county to mine, they had school the Mon. and Tues. of Thanksgiving break. A school board member posted on the school Facebook page asking parents to please report if any teachers had shown a movie during those two days and to include the name of the school, grade level and teacher's name. Fortunately it back fired and 800+ irate teachers and parents called for the resignation of the board member, but that is the nonsense teachers are dealing with.

I quit in the middle. My fiancé quit in January. My best friend quit in spring break. All three of us worked in the same school district and it was horrible. My fiance had to break up fights every day. I saw fights, crowded classrooms,kids obsessed with their phones, disrespectful parents and kids. It was bad before covid and even worse afterwards. I had kids laugh at me during an actual school lock down as there was an active shooter outside our school. They laughed at me as I guarded the door and told them to be quiet and sit down. I lost my hair. Being a teacher is not an easy job. And the people who critize teachers by all means go ahead and take my place. I taught for 4 years, my fiancé taught 7 years (nominated teacher of the year) and my best friend taught 5 years. We didn’t want to just quit. Society pushed us out. We are in completely different fields not related to teaching and will never go back. They said if you don’t like it quit well we did! Now y’all get to see the repercussions.

After decades of abuse and being ignored teachers have had enough. I enjoyed my 40 years of teaching but would have none of it in todays world.

I am in a long term sub situation right now. I’ve observed that it just takes one or two kids to disrupt the entire learning culture in a class. In the class I’m currently in, there are five students in the one class with moderate to severe behavior issues. The other students are frustrated with the constant disruptions. It makes for a very challenging and tiring day. My approach is to remain kind but firm, patient. Notice any good behaviors. Deal with the inappropriate behaviors. If schools could assign behavior specialists in the classrooms to work with the students with poor behavior, to the point of pulling them out when needed and working toward longer periods in the class, this may alleviate some of the burnout teachers are experiencing, while also increasing the learning experience for the students on task and ready to learn. Although this is an expensive approach, it may be a price we must pay for years of neglect. 🤷‍♀️

I wanted to be a teacher, but I realized I would not make enough to support myself nor have enough to even enjoy life. I had multiple teachers tell me to not go into the profession as I would be “wasting” my life. I listened to their advice as they had been in the profession for 20-30 years respectively.

Taught 34 years. Three weeks before school ended, heart attack. Good now, thank God daily I left the profession that was a major factor in my health crisis. The NYT opinion is spot on.

I'm in a STEM field, and my starting pay was also 38k a year. So many people are underpaid in their fields. But teachers are being treated even worse.

When a 6 yrs old kid almost killed his own teacher, I think we definitely have a crisis.

Child care workers are quitting too. The pay is poverty wages, and we don’t get benefits. We are finding better pay at other jobs. We also need smaller classrooms, supplies, etc. it’s very stressful job, and because of that people don’t stay very long.

I’m a teacher and my coworkers are dropping like flies. It’s wild.

I was 2 classes short of my teaching credential, after subbing in a classroom for 2 years I learned just how horrible the job actually is. I don’t understand why anyone would actively try and enter the profession anymore.

Our age has reached a conclusion in the wake of arriving at its zenith. The downturn and financial exchange crashes are influencing everything, not simply FTX and 401Ks. My retirement values portfolio, at $750K, is bleeding cash. I'm continually losing because of expansion. This world will disintegrate under its authoritarian rulers, similarly as. Assuming you are contemplating resigning yet are concerned that your annuity won't take care of the increasing expense of living, I am sorry. All over the planet, there are poor administrative, monetary, and energy approaches as well as awful international strategies.

They also expect teachers to not care about their own family and kids. And if I hear one more person say we get paid summers off I'm going to vomit. Teachers are NOT paid during the summer.

I put the blame squarely on parents, who demand that teachers babysit their kids for them, but who also complain if the teacher imposes any kind of discipline on a kid who bullies other, trashes the classroom, etc. You can't have it both ways.

I received my Masters of Science degree in Early Childhood Education as an adult working in a non teaching (but related) field. I tried working in the public school system for 3-4 years (different school districts, longterm maternity coverage in resource rooms). What you (may) go through as a non-tenured teacher is unbelievable and unprofessional. I tried to challenge what happened but I folded early in the process. Over the years I knew of many others who went long haul, unsuccessfully. As a single parent, having to buy the amount of supplies I needed to throughout the year was a severe hardship. I made a decision to become an independent contractor working with Early Intervention as an ECSE teacher and member of the evaluation team. I never felt so free and nearly every moment was spent working directly with the children and the families. I am not surprised at all at the decision teachers and school staff are making. They stayed because the children needed them. They now want to survive and reevaluate. If things truly change, the ones who hated leaving may be back.

This video made me emotional as an 8th grade student, last year at my middle school many many beloved teachers left mid year and even more after the end of the school year (over 20 teachers I believe) not all of them left the profession but a lot left to work at schools in a higher socio-economic area (my school is majority low-class to middle class). I can tell you that it wasn’t like that before the pandemic and my school had gotten so much worse (after already being the most probable to incidents than the other schools in my town) when we returned to school after being virtual. I’m really disappointed in the public education system and I know it’s not the teachers faults, they can’t do anything about it. So I try to be as nice as I can to teachers and try to make their difficult job just a little easier.

I got out - retired early, I can't tell you what a relief it was not having to go back. The stress was unbelievable.

Do not focus just on the teachers, it is also the support staff leaving. Without the paraprofessionals, custodians, secretaries, bus drivers, and everyone who makes the schools run but are hidden who are stressed and filling in the gaps as well. They are paid even less. Most paraprofessionals are just as qualified as teachers often with degrees in education or other fields including graduate degrees but getting paid not enough to live on. We are leaving too.

I'm a first year sped teacher and you all are blaming the wrong people. Most of my kids are in special education because they miss school often which means they get less instruction time. Their parents don't want to work with them at home. We only ask to work with them about 10-15 minutes per day. And yes a lot of the kids have severe emotional and social issues and can't cope with life. I won't be in teaching long. I have a few years left. I will be going into a different field. I've never seen schools look like a hospital and psych ward. It's true and sad but we can't do a parent's job.

When family needs require BOTH PARENTS TO WORK FULL TIME to survive, sometimes two jobs each, the children are left to be raised by the teachers. To be given to instruct 40 unsocialized children is an impossible task.

From the student side of this issue, I go to a very highly ranked magnet high school and we’ve still had teachers leaving in droves. One of my favorite teachers, a woman who cares very deeply for her students, left mid year because she couldn’t take the stress of an administration who didn’t care and kept piling on more work with no sympathy, combined with a student body who is vastly immature for their age because of their two years spent online. I’m thankful that she left for a private school job where she will get supported and compensated as she deserves, but this pattern has been repeated with many of the other teachers at our school, and it makes me very worried for the future of the education system. Basically, the issues talked about in this video are very real, and happening everywhere. Something needs to change.

I pray for teachers all the time because I'm a single mom I need them. It really does take a village

i walked out at lunchtime 20 yrs ago from my high school, re-trained as a nurse and never looked back. screw that for a job

As a teacher in the public system in my home country I can say that it’s not just in USA, but it is a global problem. My students are poor and they prefere being jobless than being a teacher. Government hate us and do whatever they can to punish us and blame us for virtually everything and anything they can. Parents delegate their children responsibilities to the school; they say that they can’t teach their own children, but they want to dictate what we do in the classroom. Salaries are low, we often have to work 50 to 60 hours a week to make months end, but God forbids if we ask to a raise, because we are earning enough to the “little work” we have to do, it’s just 20 hours in the classroom with 30 to 40 students per week and 10 hours planing classes, working on diaries, receiving visits from parents, students, correcting activities and so on… a student is not going to school? The teacher has to call, visit and report to child services and if the student didn’t return to class? Salary cut because of student evasion, even if it is not their fault whatsoever… it was bad before COVID, but after it became 10 times worse. As a coordinator I do everything in my school, from assisting teacher, working with the district to making sure students are not in the hallway or climbing the roof to check the water levels…. Sometimes I want to leave it all behind, and I am studying a lot to get another public job. Health leaves have never been so high, this year alone 4 teacher had committed su****ed in my State because of working conditions.

This is heartbreaking. Teachers deserve so much more. They have to deal with a lot. Disrespectful students and parents, little to no support from admin, curriculum issues and low pay. And people want to ask this lackadaisical question: What can we do retain teachers? That aggravates me so bad.

Social media and the internet has made many stressed and unkind.

The wages are ridiculous. That's what society is willing to pay for their children - next to nothing. Therefore everyone who's aware of the task vs the payment walks away.

I began teaching in 2001 and left in 2006 because I could see ahead to the anihilated industry it would become. What I didn't understand at the time was that many parents simply use school and activities as a form of childcare packaged as social and intellectual experiences. They must otherwise need to provide that learning and socialization, and supervision, themselves, and they flat out don't have time to raise their own children. How many children are home alone because both parents work? How many kids just literally have no one to talk to and no on taking an interest in them personally? To go from that to suddenly being quarantined with relative strangers? And now their teachers are gone too? MERCY!! This is all way too much for a child to bear alone! I was a latchkey kid in the 90s but I can't fathom what a kid today may feel like other than numb. I'm still a teacher but now I only occasionally substitute K-12. Our public schools and children are in a devastatingly tragic state. My hats off to the teachers and administrators that do the very best they can each day, even if they don't stay forever. And bless our children's hearts. They deserve so much better than this.

A typical day for a teacher involves different occupations, such as a parent, teacher, social worker, cop, counsellor.

My colleagues who have left for new careers couldn’t deal with the administrative headaches and the stifling of creativity. Pay is sub-par and student behavior is increasingly an issue, but they were willing to work with that because they love teaching. It was spending an extra 10 hours per week doing paperwork that gets shoved, unread, into a binder and then shredded at the end of the year, and having to arrange every minute of classroom time around standardized testing that doesn’t really measure anything useful, that drove them away.

I left teaching after the 2021-2022 school year with no job lined up and I regret it zero percent.

We still have 3 unfilled positions and another teacher broke down in tears last week.

I taught high school science 18 years before I walked away in the fall of 2020. It was a doable job when I started in ‘03 but when the recession hit, we dropped off a cliff. We had massive lay offs and budget cuts with entire programs eliminated. The science budget was cut by more than half so I was teaching a college level biology class with less than $100 annual budget which eventually inched back up to $186 per year. This meant I funded it from my own money to have supplies to complete required labs. Our class sizes increased to 35 and the teaching load increased to six classes a day with our prep time cut by half. I was unwilling to compromise the quality of the curriculum and instruction I provided my students so for years I compromised myself instead. My physical and mental health and personal life cratered. I commonly worked 60 hour weeks and was paid for 40 and I was still drowning all the time. I was constantly under the gun to get curriculum I written and submitted so there were days where I worked through the night, took a shower and went to work with zero sleep. Teaching is my calling and I was heartbroken when I left but I just couldn’t do it anymore. There was nothing left for me to give and I was destroying myself. I feel for my former colleagues because I know it’s become even worse with an insanely toxic political environment driven by the right wing’s incessant demonization and blame. Teachers are getting death threats and are being called pedophiles and groomers if they dare say anything parents don’t like. Parents think the teacher should personalize their kid’s instruction exactly how they want it, regardless of what state standards and the needs of the rest of the class are. The entitlement and hate seems limitless. It’s a minority of parents who act this way while the rest are kind and respectful but this minority has been riled up by Republicans for their own political advantage. Republicans have been clamoring to privatize public education for decades. They want a for profit system so they can get their hands on all that tax money and warehouse most kids into fly by night cyber schools where they learn next to nothing as they did in New Orleans after Katrina. They want taxes to pay for their elite private and religious schools where they can segregate their own kids away from all the ones they hate.

The foundation of a democracy is an empathetic and educated public and when we tear down teachers we are literally tearing down our society. Civilization is a choice. Instead we are choosing to live like animals while a few enrich themselves at everyone’s expense.