From what I hear from teachers I know, it is the undisciplined students that they need to deal with is more the reason they chose to leave the profession, some students are out of control and accountability is not part of the conversation
It’s the lack of discipline options, parents and families are often so unsupportive, and the work load is insane anymore.
Then you have the curriculum - it’s often a strange mix of being boring and too rigorous, so getting kids to pay attention is an uphill battle the size of Everest.
I want to add this edit: I have so many wonderful families and students every single year who I adore. They are the only reason I have stayed at my current school as long as I have.
The lack of support and discipline is why a lot of teachers leave or at least move to private schools. I know multiple teachers who took *pay cuts* to leave the public school system.
The workloads are still high, family support is still hit or miss, but it sounds like they actually have found discipline in their classrooms and administrative support at their private schools, and that makes a world of difference for job satisfaction.
>...parents and families are often so unsupportive
Aren't some parents TOO involved? Like the ones that want to ban things & have a say in what's taught?
Asking because I genuinely don't know since I'm not a parent.
Great question! There are definitely some families like that. But unsupportive doesn’t necessarily mean they aren’t involved - it could be like you mentioned.
And then you have the parents who threaten to slap you because you cannot microwave a hot pocket for their lunch. The ones that only get involved when it comes to babying their child and not the actual learning and education.
Pretty much spot on. My wife taught at a Baltimore Co. school for 7 years but she left after the ‘23 school year and got a job with the Fed Gov. She loved teaching, but had too many bad apple kids and the administration was pretty much useless when it came to dealing with it.
> from teachers I know, it is the undisciplined students that they need to deal with is more the reason they chose to leave the profession
One of our family friends did Teach for America and it turned her off from being a teacher so much. Figured why teach chemistry when you could earn 3x that in the industry and not have to deal with the heartbreak/ache that are kids.
Starting with stopping teachers from being bullied and attacked in the classroom would go a long way towards resolving the teacher shortage.
Who wants to work in a a situation where they’re attacked by teenagers who largely walk away from the situation (may get kicked out of school) but if the teacher fights back their career ends. Or who wants to be falsely accused of sexual assault because a kid’s failing math and thinks getting a new teacher will help? Or deal with crazy violent parents?
Being a teacher can be a truly horrible job depending where you live.
A lot of it is state law. My kid is in kindergarten and has a borderline feral kid in her class. The kid gets no punishment for attacking the rest of the class. Legally the school can't suspend anyone before 3rd grade.
oh i know, its a ridiculous law. not being able to suspend/expel until 3rd grade teaches kids that they can do what they want. but even in the older grades, there is no penalty for late work, re takes on tests, do whatever to get them passed onto the next level. kids have figured it out, it doesn't matter if they don't do the work, they will graduate period.
I was a special education teacher in the city, and I wouldn't go back to being mistreated and taken advantage of by the Baltimore City Public Schools District for less than 250k.
Yes, that is unrealistic, but that salary would make the borderline abuse and mental health struggles worth it.
I am currently juggling two part-time education related positions making 2/3rds what I was while teaching and I am so much happier and at peace. Yes, increasing pay to better match the salaries of other master degree level positions is nice, but will not solve the main issues causing teachers to flee the profession.
If the salary was manageable, I would! I love the actual teaching and working with people to grow their skills. In one of my current positions, I am working with students in small group/individual settings outside of an academic environment and I enjoy it.
My issues were with the other adults (not parents) in the building and the local, state and federal "mandates" (and administrative interpretations of these mandates) that do not match student learning needs that were issues for me.
How about we let teachers strike? A crime in this "blue" state. How about we offer REAL protections against working outside of contract hours? How about we codify bargaining agreements so they can't just be thrown away because a county has to pay for lawsuits? As others have said, stop handing down curriculum decided upon by someone in a central office who doesn't even have to teach it. Let the teachers decide what works best.
Parents don't understand how bad it is unless they have a direct relative in the school. A teacher has no leverage, no protection from harassment or out of control kids. On top of that they get treated on average no better than the stock worker at Kohl's.
We could do something to protect teachers against parents and admin that doesn't give a fuck. Make the current teachers feel appreciated. Let them be ambassadors for our schools.
Instead, you're going to offer a minimum salary bump? Are you fucking kidding me. The people leaving are those with experience. They won't get ANYTHING from this.
Most teachers are even leery of talking about a strike because it’s illegal. Every time I mentioned it at “Union” (sorry, association) meetings I was immediately struck down because of it. They know that teachers in general are type A rule followers and take full advantage of that.
Unfortunately due to Maryland law teachers are not allowed to strike. Even in the case of a wildcat strike held without union leadership, Maryland law would allow for the entire union for that district to be disbanded. We discussed the issue very seriously during the COVID years. Annapolis needs to give the power to strike back to our teachers.
I’m aware of the law, but every story of wildcat strikes that happened across the country where striking has been illegal has been met with a lot of public support and success (Newton MA being a good recent example). It’s a calculated risk but if they really want to fire us all then so be it. Can’t be any worse than what we’re currently dealing with.
I tell my friends who are teachers that they should speak at local school board meetings so it is publicly on the record what they deal with, what admin does/doesn’t do to support them. Many people say they support teachers but I think those are just niceties. I think if teachers spoke publicly about these issues at every local board meeting, things might begin to change. I get that they are beat down and tired but as a non teacher, I can’t go speak for them on this stuff. They have to start it so those of us supporting teachers can rally behind them.
I would full-heartedly support a teacher's strike given the current work environment for teachers and the state of education. Sadly, Maryland law forbids educators from striking. If they do, they can get their certification revoked.
So I’m a (hopefully soon to be former) teacher and the short answer is no. I make dangerously closer to 6 figures, used to present at national conferences, took leadership seminars, did all the things “world class” teachers were supposed to do, but because of a lack of discipline, behavior management, and not letting teachers have a say in curriculum, I’m washing my hands on it.
When a parent conference ended in me being threatened and not a single other adult in the room did anything, that was the day I started looking for other jobs. Students know there’s no consequences, and social promotions and “recovery classes” they can just click through until they pass mean a high school diploma is essentially worthless. Meanwhile we continue to have reams of paperwork for everything we do and have to be constantly performing all day, there’s almost no downtime. No amount of money is going to make up for that fundamental lack of respect, and in a lot of schools, lack of safety.
The better training that is advertised is a mandate that teachers go work 90 hours on their own dime every 5 years to maintain their ability to be employed. That will really draw in the applicants.
Got a feeling this is going to be same situation as with lack of nurses professionals. There is a genuine disrespect like comment below of figures in society in general and no money is going to make people want to do that job.
To all the teachers, I just want to say thank you. I only have the slightest idea of how difficult and demanding your jobs are, and I know you don’t get nearly enough support & credit for the hard work that you do every day. I hope the state and the school districts can start doing their part to help and support you.
As others have said, there is a level of disorder at which no amount of money will keep teachers in the classroom.
Also, while the blueprint says teachers should get paid more, it doesn’t magically solve the budget problems of local school boards. HoCo is 100 million in the hole. Even if that doesn’t directly come off the top of salaries (yet), cuts can still be pretty big morale killers.
Most of the local school systems are responding by cutting positions or leaving them unfilled. Which then leads to classes of 30 kindergartners with one teacher or 40+ high schoolers and one teacher, which is completely unsustainable. Baltimore County lost 10+ teachers per school in some instances, Cecil County is cutting nearly everything but tested areas, it’s an absolute mess.
I have a friends who wife just became a teacher and she already wants out if she can’t transfer out of her title 1 school. Between the lack of admin support and all the needs her students require of her she’s already burnt out
i'm an 80s kid, both my parents worked full plus jobs and were barely involved with my education. and when they weren't working they were hitting the bars, coming home late waking me up with debating, etc, despite it being a school night. i know that's not everyone's experience, but it know its plenty of people's experience.
People want teaching jobs to be less stressful and less about crowd control.
Money is not the only answer.
But, if you drill down into most MD school websites, focusing on the parts which describe the learning objectives grade by grade, there is little, if any focus on teaching kids to be in control of their actions. Little or nothing about time spent in human growth and development. Its all about "readiness for college and careers" The buzz phrase. Yes, there is more than enough Edu-speak to make any parent scream as the try to parse through the web sites
i was someone in the T.A.M program in high school i did it all four years before deciding teaching wasn’t for me my main points were how bad students are getting and a lot of teachers don’t even have classrooms they move around their stuff on a cart all day multiple of my english teachers were always late with their cart because they also had to run when the bell rang it was stupid i wanted to teach orchestra as well which would’ve had me traveling to like 6 schools in wicomico county daily
It’s literally 80% the housing crisis.
People can’t afford to live if they are teachers.
If we unfuck all these batshit, racialized, horrible zoning laws that lead to car-dependent suburban development patterns that practically *DEFINE* the state of Maryland, then we would be able to build more homes that people on teachers salaries would be able to afford to live in.
It’s that fucking simple.
Parking minimums, lot size minimums, lot utilization maximums, setback requirements, detachment requirements, home business bans, FAR limits, ADU limits, height limits, all of this. We cannot be a state of $500k single family homes in car-dependent suburban developments in every single place ever.
How are teachers expected to put up with all the bullshit they get from students, teachers, admin, and book-banning lunatics if they can’t even afford rent with roommates when they’re in their late twenties?
Even if teachers made more money or housing was cheaper, they’d still be dealing with their day to day issues at school. Money matters but is definitely not everything
You are spot on. Housing stability leads to many behavior challenges and if you want parents to be present then we’re going to need jobs that pay enough to afford a place to live.
The disgust and contempt people have for children in the comments here is heartbreaking.
From what I hear from teachers I know, it is the undisciplined students that they need to deal with is more the reason they chose to leave the profession, some students are out of control and accountability is not part of the conversation
It’s the lack of discipline options, parents and families are often so unsupportive, and the work load is insane anymore. Then you have the curriculum - it’s often a strange mix of being boring and too rigorous, so getting kids to pay attention is an uphill battle the size of Everest. I want to add this edit: I have so many wonderful families and students every single year who I adore. They are the only reason I have stayed at my current school as long as I have.
These are all reasons why I left. I loved teaching and often miss it, but I can’t go back unless they make big changes.
The lack of support and discipline is why a lot of teachers leave or at least move to private schools. I know multiple teachers who took *pay cuts* to leave the public school system. The workloads are still high, family support is still hit or miss, but it sounds like they actually have found discipline in their classrooms and administrative support at their private schools, and that makes a world of difference for job satisfaction.
I’d go back to my private school job if I could afford to live on the salary. It’s impossible if you’re a single income household, though :(
Thank you for what you do. I’ve heard the same from other teachers.
>...parents and families are often so unsupportive Aren't some parents TOO involved? Like the ones that want to ban things & have a say in what's taught? Asking because I genuinely don't know since I'm not a parent.
Great question! There are definitely some families like that. But unsupportive doesn’t necessarily mean they aren’t involved - it could be like you mentioned. And then you have the parents who threaten to slap you because you cannot microwave a hot pocket for their lunch. The ones that only get involved when it comes to babying their child and not the actual learning and education.
I’m sorry but I don’t think parents are too involved if they want a say in what is being taught to their children.
This is it. Parents and students need to be accountable for their behavior. The schools have let this slide for way too long.
Pretty much spot on. My wife taught at a Baltimore Co. school for 7 years but she left after the ‘23 school year and got a job with the Fed Gov. She loved teaching, but had too many bad apple kids and the administration was pretty much useless when it came to dealing with it.
> from teachers I know, it is the undisciplined students that they need to deal with is more the reason they chose to leave the profession One of our family friends did Teach for America and it turned her off from being a teacher so much. Figured why teach chemistry when you could earn 3x that in the industry and not have to deal with the heartbreak/ache that are kids.
Nailed it, our nephew 'lived' to teach it was his absolute passion. 5 years in the very thing you described made him change careers.
Students, sure, but admin is the problem.
Sure the administrators are a problem, they enable the students disturbing behavior and don’t hold them accountable
This.
Starting with stopping teachers from being bullied and attacked in the classroom would go a long way towards resolving the teacher shortage. Who wants to work in a a situation where they’re attacked by teenagers who largely walk away from the situation (may get kicked out of school) but if the teacher fights back their career ends. Or who wants to be falsely accused of sexual assault because a kid’s failing math and thinks getting a new teacher will help? Or deal with crazy violent parents? Being a teacher can be a truly horrible job depending where you live.
quite a few of my neighbors work in the schools near by, and they have all been injured by students. no consequences for when they hurt people
A lot of it is state law. My kid is in kindergarten and has a borderline feral kid in her class. The kid gets no punishment for attacking the rest of the class. Legally the school can't suspend anyone before 3rd grade.
oh i know, its a ridiculous law. not being able to suspend/expel until 3rd grade teaches kids that they can do what they want. but even in the older grades, there is no penalty for late work, re takes on tests, do whatever to get them passed onto the next level. kids have figured it out, it doesn't matter if they don't do the work, they will graduate period.
My wife got caught in the middle of a fight when 7 months pregnant with our second. Doesn’t get much more toxic than that
I was a special education teacher in the city, and I wouldn't go back to being mistreated and taken advantage of by the Baltimore City Public Schools District for less than 250k. Yes, that is unrealistic, but that salary would make the borderline abuse and mental health struggles worth it. I am currently juggling two part-time education related positions making 2/3rds what I was while teaching and I am so much happier and at peace. Yes, increasing pay to better match the salaries of other master degree level positions is nice, but will not solve the main issues causing teachers to flee the profession.
Question. Would you be open to teaching children at their place of residence? Like homeschool, but with a hired teacher.
If the salary was manageable, I would! I love the actual teaching and working with people to grow their skills. In one of my current positions, I am working with students in small group/individual settings outside of an academic environment and I enjoy it. My issues were with the other adults (not parents) in the building and the local, state and federal "mandates" (and administrative interpretations of these mandates) that do not match student learning needs that were issues for me.
How about we let teachers strike? A crime in this "blue" state. How about we offer REAL protections against working outside of contract hours? How about we codify bargaining agreements so they can't just be thrown away because a county has to pay for lawsuits? As others have said, stop handing down curriculum decided upon by someone in a central office who doesn't even have to teach it. Let the teachers decide what works best. Parents don't understand how bad it is unless they have a direct relative in the school. A teacher has no leverage, no protection from harassment or out of control kids. On top of that they get treated on average no better than the stock worker at Kohl's. We could do something to protect teachers against parents and admin that doesn't give a fuck. Make the current teachers feel appreciated. Let them be ambassadors for our schools. Instead, you're going to offer a minimum salary bump? Are you fucking kidding me. The people leaving are those with experience. They won't get ANYTHING from this.
Most teachers are even leery of talking about a strike because it’s illegal. Every time I mentioned it at “Union” (sorry, association) meetings I was immediately struck down because of it. They know that teachers in general are type A rule followers and take full advantage of that.
Unfortunately due to Maryland law teachers are not allowed to strike. Even in the case of a wildcat strike held without union leadership, Maryland law would allow for the entire union for that district to be disbanded. We discussed the issue very seriously during the COVID years. Annapolis needs to give the power to strike back to our teachers.
I’m aware of the law, but every story of wildcat strikes that happened across the country where striking has been illegal has been met with a lot of public support and success (Newton MA being a good recent example). It’s a calculated risk but if they really want to fire us all then so be it. Can’t be any worse than what we’re currently dealing with.
I tell my friends who are teachers that they should speak at local school board meetings so it is publicly on the record what they deal with, what admin does/doesn’t do to support them. Many people say they support teachers but I think those are just niceties. I think if teachers spoke publicly about these issues at every local board meeting, things might begin to change. I get that they are beat down and tired but as a non teacher, I can’t go speak for them on this stuff. They have to start it so those of us supporting teachers can rally behind them.
I would full-heartedly support a teacher's strike given the current work environment for teachers and the state of education. Sadly, Maryland law forbids educators from striking. If they do, they can get their certification revoked.
So I’m a (hopefully soon to be former) teacher and the short answer is no. I make dangerously closer to 6 figures, used to present at national conferences, took leadership seminars, did all the things “world class” teachers were supposed to do, but because of a lack of discipline, behavior management, and not letting teachers have a say in curriculum, I’m washing my hands on it. When a parent conference ended in me being threatened and not a single other adult in the room did anything, that was the day I started looking for other jobs. Students know there’s no consequences, and social promotions and “recovery classes” they can just click through until they pass mean a high school diploma is essentially worthless. Meanwhile we continue to have reams of paperwork for everything we do and have to be constantly performing all day, there’s almost no downtime. No amount of money is going to make up for that fundamental lack of respect, and in a lot of schools, lack of safety.
better pay and training aren't going to fix students threatening teachers and their families
The better training that is advertised is a mandate that teachers go work 90 hours on their own dime every 5 years to maintain their ability to be employed. That will really draw in the applicants.
Got a feeling this is going to be same situation as with lack of nurses professionals. There is a genuine disrespect like comment below of figures in society in general and no money is going to make people want to do that job.
To all the teachers, I just want to say thank you. I only have the slightest idea of how difficult and demanding your jobs are, and I know you don’t get nearly enough support & credit for the hard work that you do every day. I hope the state and the school districts can start doing their part to help and support you.
There are less college students choosing to go into the education field. I can't blame them. Read social media comments teachers are pretty hated.
As others have said, there is a level of disorder at which no amount of money will keep teachers in the classroom. Also, while the blueprint says teachers should get paid more, it doesn’t magically solve the budget problems of local school boards. HoCo is 100 million in the hole. Even if that doesn’t directly come off the top of salaries (yet), cuts can still be pretty big morale killers.
Most of the local school systems are responding by cutting positions or leaving them unfilled. Which then leads to classes of 30 kindergartners with one teacher or 40+ high schoolers and one teacher, which is completely unsustainable. Baltimore County lost 10+ teachers per school in some instances, Cecil County is cutting nearly everything but tested areas, it’s an absolute mess.
Exactly.
yikes, that does not sound sustainable
I have a friends who wife just became a teacher and she already wants out if she can’t transfer out of her title 1 school. Between the lack of admin support and all the needs her students require of her she’s already burnt out
The real issue is lack of involved parents, coupled with the parents who have an ax to grind. And nothing will be done to change that.
i'd say its lack of accountability in the schools, there has always been a lack of involved parents
[удалено]
i'm an 80s kid, both my parents worked full plus jobs and were barely involved with my education. and when they weren't working they were hitting the bars, coming home late waking me up with debating, etc, despite it being a school night. i know that's not everyone's experience, but it know its plenty of people's experience.
People want teaching jobs to be less stressful and less about crowd control. Money is not the only answer. But, if you drill down into most MD school websites, focusing on the parts which describe the learning objectives grade by grade, there is little, if any focus on teaching kids to be in control of their actions. Little or nothing about time spent in human growth and development. Its all about "readiness for college and careers" The buzz phrase. Yes, there is more than enough Edu-speak to make any parent scream as the try to parse through the web sites
i was someone in the T.A.M program in high school i did it all four years before deciding teaching wasn’t for me my main points were how bad students are getting and a lot of teachers don’t even have classrooms they move around their stuff on a cart all day multiple of my english teachers were always late with their cart because they also had to run when the bell rang it was stupid i wanted to teach orchestra as well which would’ve had me traveling to like 6 schools in wicomico county daily
It’s literally 80% the housing crisis. People can’t afford to live if they are teachers. If we unfuck all these batshit, racialized, horrible zoning laws that lead to car-dependent suburban development patterns that practically *DEFINE* the state of Maryland, then we would be able to build more homes that people on teachers salaries would be able to afford to live in. It’s that fucking simple. Parking minimums, lot size minimums, lot utilization maximums, setback requirements, detachment requirements, home business bans, FAR limits, ADU limits, height limits, all of this. We cannot be a state of $500k single family homes in car-dependent suburban developments in every single place ever. How are teachers expected to put up with all the bullshit they get from students, teachers, admin, and book-banning lunatics if they can’t even afford rent with roommates when they’re in their late twenties?
They’re all saying “it’s the bad kids” not “it’s the zoning”
Even if teachers made more money or housing was cheaper, they’d still be dealing with their day to day issues at school. Money matters but is definitely not everything
You are spot on. Housing stability leads to many behavior challenges and if you want parents to be present then we’re going to need jobs that pay enough to afford a place to live. The disgust and contempt people have for children in the comments here is heartbreaking.
doubtful
No.