KTRH Local Houston and Texas News

KTRH Local Houston and Texas News

KTRH-AM covering local news from Houston and across Texas.

 

The Trouble with Teaching Today

50% of teachers want to quit.

That was found in a survey conducted on behalf of the National Education Association. 55% of teachers said teaching during Covid has speeded up career plans for a change. 91% say teaching during Covid has been a mental health strain because of the stress. 90% say burnout is a problem.

Dr. Margaret Hale understands why. She teaches future teachers how to teach at the University Of Houston College Of Education, and has been in teaching for decades: Hale wins awards for how she teaches teachers. “It’s not just Covid, its additional reporting requirements, additional testing.” Nobody goes into teaching for the money. After a year or two of grading papers every night, developing lesson plans on vacation and the myriad of administrative aspects of the job if you don’t love teaching kids you’ve probably already got a foot out the door. Those people in the profession who met the herculean task of turning on a dime in March of 2020 and transitioning to remote learning were certainly frustrated, and Dr. Hale could feel their pain. “And it wasn’t even the best instruction we could provide in a virtual environment; many people called it ’crisis teaching.’ And even though they’re back face-to-face now they’re still dealing with the ups and downs of the pandemic,” she adds. Doing a job to the best of your ability and not succeeding at your prime task is a frustrating experience teachers have learned to take in stride these past couple years, or has prompted them to consider other career options.

And then there is teaching to the tests. “With the passage of HB 4545 in Texas, now students who did not pass the state assessment are required to receive tutoring in a three-to-one ratio,” says Hale, ticking off the challenges. That’s one teacher for every three students, and that’s tutoring on top of teaching. And STARR tests for many students, and teachers, are February 14-18. Just as omicron variant Covid eases up on the crisis teachers, its STARR time for Texas teachers.

There has been a lot of news lately about the “Great Resignation,” with millions of American workers quitting their jobs in unprecedented numbers. We did not anticipate so many of them would be teachers, or why.  

photo: Getty Images


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