Education as a profession has hit a 50-year low, with record numbers of educators calling it quits—or wanting to. Is the system killing the survivors?
It’s that time of year again: back to school for America’s students, teachers, counselors, administrators and support staff. But for many schools, it’s not back to business as usual. The looming storm of staffing shortages is starting to break—with no real solutions in sight.
Almost two years ago, I covered this coming crisis of epic proportions. And while I don’t think we’re feeling the full effects yet, we have certainly seen some fallout. Earlier this year, USA Today reported that teacher turnover is hitting new highs, which of course has a negative impact on student achievement. New research by McKinsey indicates that nearly a third of K–12 educators in the U.S. are planning to quit.
And the problem is not just confined to teaching staff. A 2023 report from EAB that found nearly half (46%) of district superintendents planned to leave within two or three years, and RAND Corporation reports increased turnover for both teachers and principals. Additionally, a Brown University study found that “the teaching profession is at or near its lowest levels in 50 years.” We’re trending in the wrong direction.
Killing the survivors
As a speaker and consultant for education, employment and economic development across America, I see the looming crisis. Every year there seems to be fewer and fewer teachers, counselors, special needs educators, paraprofessionals and classified staff, but they’re serving the same number of students. Imagine a school that has 1,200 students and 100 staff. The next year (if it’s a good year) they have 95 staff but the same 1,200 students. The following year, it’s 90 staff—and still 1,200 students.
At the same time that the number of counselors, special needs teachers and psychologists is decreasing, more and more students now need those services and support. This can tax those professionals who do remain almost to breaking point.
Education has become a war zone, littered with casualties, and those who choose to stay in the field continue to be mown down. The system is killing the survivors. It’s a textbook definition of a toxic workplace, because even though most school leaders want to do what is best for teachers and students, the system makes it just about impossible to implement the kinds of drastic changes that would make a difference.
The human connection imperative
At the core of our education problems is a simple lack of human connection with students. As a generation, Generation Z refuses to move forward if they don’t sense a real rapport with the authority figures in their life. This is defined as feeling seen, heard and valued—the conviction that they matter on a human level to the people around them.
Although most educators truly do want to forge that meaningful connection with students, most no longer have the bandwidth to do so. Oftentimes when someone quits, understaffed schools divide up those responsibilities among the remaining staff. This puts everyone in survival mode—and it’s hard to go the extra mile when you find yourself carrying heavier burdens every day.
So students sullenly go through the motions of their education, achieving below their ability—and teachers are tasked with intensifying the academics, thus further reducing their bandwidth for creating moments of human connection. The lack of connection pushes students deeper into static purpose, where learning has stalled. What are teachers told to do to fix it? Teach harder. We have created a vicious cycle.
A toxic workplace
I work daily with educational organizations nationwide, seeing and hearing firsthand the struggles they’re facing, but even that perspective can’t begin to express all the pain points felt by these professionals doing their level best every day. Here’s the toxicity I see:
1. Feral students
Yes, I used the word “feral.” The pandemic took so much from all of us, but for students it hit at a particularly vulnerable time. The massive learning loss that took place was not all academic. Students of all ages also missed at least a full year, often more, of the critical human connection needed to move forward. And the behavioral challenges that have resulted from this loss have huge implications for the day-to-day experience of teachers.
2. Broken trust
Trust is foundational to a healthy work environment: trust between managers and individual contributors as well as trust between the consumer and the provider. In education, many of these relationships have been eroded. Broken trust results in stress, uncertainty and a negative impact on everyone involved—not least of whom are the students themselves. No human connection can be built without trust.
3. The pay
How much teachers make varies widely across states, districts and different types of institutions, but it’s generally accepted that whatever we’re paying them, it’s not enough. I personally know one counselor who returned to the school system after a 14-year hiatus—at the exact same rate of pay she previously made. However, low pay is not a universal challenge, as some educators actually cite good compensation as a reason to stay in their role.
4. The workload
Summers aside, I don’t know a single full-time educator who works just 40 hours a week. According to this survey, it’s more like 54 hours weekly, with less than half that time actually spent teaching. This is a perfect example of killing the survivors. When are we going to lighten this crushing load?
5. Teaching to the test
I’m hardly alone in saying that standardized testing has become a taskmaster instead of a tool. Teachers, feeling this pressure, devote massive amounts of time to teach to the test, but is high-stakes testing actually helping students retain information? Or does this model give them permission to forget everything as soon as they complete their test? I don’t know a single teacher who believes standardized testing strengthens student achievement in any way. All it does is fill up the teacher’s bandwidth, making it harder to build the human connection necessary to move students forward in active purpose.
Why educators stay
If the picture is so bleak, why do educators stay in the field? McKinsey found three vital reasons:
1. Meaningful work
Compared to employees in private sectors, educators are almost 20% more likely to identify meaningful work as a top reason to remain in their roles. They see the positive impact of their work, they’re aligned with the mission of the school and they truly want to help students thrive.
After all, this is why most people are attracted to education in the first place: to make a positive difference in the world. We need to amplify their ability to make this impact—and this means taking the extra stuff off their plates. We must also stop using their sense of purpose to get them to do more work for no additional pay.
2. Quality colleagues
The people you work with can make or break your workplace experience. Educators who stay because of their coworkers say they show genuine concern, help one another to achieve work goals, fit in with the organizational culture and feel that they can be themselves in the workplace.
This is similar to private-sector workplaces, where a toxic culture is often the number-one reason people leave but a healthy culture is a highly significant reason to stay. School leaders should do everything in their power to foster healthy coworker relationships within the organization; these are the ties that bind.
3. Fair compensation
Compensation is, as the McKinsey study admits, a bit of a conundrum with educators ranking it as a top reason both to stay in their profession and to leave it. For schools where compensation is on the low end, the study suggests getting creative in how they compensate educators, such as targeting high-churn roles with financial incentives.
Compensation basically comes down to fairness. If we can agree that the work of an educator is demanding, their salary should be commensurate with those demands. That will look different in every school and region, but fairness should be the guiding principle.
In the end, caring about students means caring about the educators who have devoted their careers to serving the next generation. If education is a war between ignorance and knowledge, educators are the ones in the trenches—and they need to do more than just survive. They need the time to deepen their human connection with the students who are desperate for it.
If our schools have become toxic workplaces, those of us in the community have a role in helping detox that culture. No one can do everything, but we can all do something. Let’s.
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