Monday, August 26, 2013

5 Reasons Teachers Quit



Below is an article I found when looking to find the percent of teachers who leave teaching. Again, we can all thank Laura Bush for the catalyst to poor teacher retention. 
Top 5 Reasons Many Teachers Quit - NCLB?

TOP 5 REASONS MANY TEACHERS QUIT
     Many teachers quit because teaching is difficult and, to compound this circumstance, many school and school district administrations practice micromanagement and a lack of support that drives teachers away.
     The U.S. Department of Education; National Center for Education Statistics Teacher Follow-up Survey shows these major self-reported reasons among 7,000 teachers and former teachers for why they quit or are likely to soon quit.

Obstacles To Teaching
     The persons interviewed report (1) a constant battle with the administration, including submitting weekly lesson plans for examination and approval. This holds up their work and the students' progress. Teachers often feel that they are being directed to "teach to the test" with only memorization of facts instead of active learning. The bureaucracy has resulted in slow-downs in classroom progress because of numerous re-writes of lessons and lesson plans to improve standardized test scores only, and too many last-minute changes by the administrations.
     According to this recent report on teacher attrition by the National Center for Education Statistics, in teachers who quit and took non-education jobs, 64% did so to have more autonomy at work, without micromanagement. The survey among 7,000 current and former teachers, also listed (2) unreasonable, much-too-heavyworkloads and (3) poor general working conditions as primary reasons for leaving.
     (4) Too much responsibility for accountability scores on No Child Left Behind and other standardized testing and accountability initiatives was listed as another major reason to quit. As the US states increased education reforms via NCLB and local accountability initiatives, they also loaded increasing and unreasonable accountability standards onto the teachers, without permitting them the necessary training, vital ongoing professional development, or mandatory supplies they needed in order to accomplish the job. These teachers often were given too many students per classroom as well. This sometimes resulted in too many students in a room that were memorizing facts, but not being able to retain them in order to score high enough on NCLB-mandated tests.These students also did not know how to use or apply the facts they memorized. Critical thinking as a learned skill was bypassed. In addition, many parents in urban school districts (which generally scored the lowest on NCLB-mandated testing) were unable to help their children with educational needs. This dumped more responsibility onto the already-broken teacher's backs.
     (5)Teaching was no longer rewarding, emotionally or fiscally, since raises in pay were denied when students' scores were not raised high enough. Some teachers were fired for this and others quit. All this created problems regarding unfair terminations with the teachers' labor unions and growing bad blood between teachers and their unions with administrations.
      One -fifth, or 20%, of public school teachers that had no previous full-time teaching experience quit in the school year 2004-2005. Overall, 65% of former public school teachers report that they are better able to balance work and personal/family life since they quit teaching. Before quitting, nearly all their time was spent on such things as rewriting lesson plans, purchasing their own supplies, and working unpaid overtime hours without additional needed training.

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