Why Are Good Teachers Fleeing California Schools?

Because nobody in charge wants us to stay.

I don’t know if you’ve heard this, but there is a veritable exodus of teachers from the system this year. 

The internet is rife with Op Eds and YouTube videos from great teachers leaving the classroom, every one of them citing a laundry list of legitimate, infuriating reasons for pulling the rip cord. These often-teary confessions fill me with a contrarian happiness as I too contemplate ditching 20 years of battle-scarred high school teaching in Southern California. I’m curious to hear other grizzled vets explain what drove them from the profession, but I’m pretty sure I know why they’re resigning in droves. 

The answer? Nobody cares if we go. 

Of course, there will be the requisite misty-eyed hugs and “But why?” cries from colleagues who have long ago nested in their curricular ruts and so can’t understand the professional’s need to escape the cognitive dissonance tied to delivering excellent instruction to students while also knowing the system stymies that goal at every turn. 

On YouTube yesterday, I saw teachers share a veritable smorgasbord of mental health-destroying reasons for their resignations.

Capricious administrators putting revenge for perceived slights above the well-being of kids? Check.

Blatant censorship of student publications by District Administration? Check.

Physical violence against teachers going unpunished? Check.

Helicopter parents allowed to repeatedly harangue teachers? Check.

Airpods? Check.

Out-of-control classroom behavior? Check.

Total lack of administrative support in classroom discipline? ALL THE CHECKS.

Students who could not care less about school? Check, double check, triple check, quadruple check. 

Administrators repeatedly asking teachers to violate their ethical commitment to honest grading in order to make sure more kids “succeed”? Check.

Teachers fearful that classroom management might be considered “racist” and thus avoiding disciplining any child? Check.

Violence on campus against students unaddressed by administration? Check.

Substance abuse by students being ignored? Check.

Substance abuse by teachers being ignored? Check. 

Quiet transfers of staff accused of inappropriate relationships? Check.

Ineffective teachers allowed to rob kids of years of their lives without any repercussions as long as the teacher keeps her head down and doesn’t annoy the wrong administrator?  Check.

I could go on, obviously. I’ll stop here though. What I’d love for you to do, though, is recognize that most of these complaints stem from a total lack of leadership. Strong leadership could nip these issues in the bud by sending a clear message to the malefactors that such behavior will not be tolerated, regardless of any past “trauma” being worked through. Most importantly, it would tell students present in the classroom for an actual education that they are valued. That their education matters. That their focus and attention and work ethic will be rewarded with thoughtful attention, corrective feedback and, best of all, growth. 

Instead, we lavish resources on families who have amply demonstrated little interest in public school except for its role as daycare.

Where DOES the buck stop? Well, it stops in the classroom, with the teacher, and however much outrage she can handle before she doubles up on her daily Xanax or quits in disgust. What else could make someone with a 185-day-a-year job want to crawl into the open arms (and relative freedom) of work-from-home corporate America?

There’s the blatantly obvious fact that when a teacher resigns, nobody says, “You’re integral to the function of this school. What’s missing for you? How can we make it better? Can we adjust your hours? Can we pay you more? Is there a benefit we can offer you?”

Let’s say a principal wanted to tell a departing teacher all that.  

She couldn’t. It is legally prohibited by the contract. Besides, new teachers are much less expensive and, now, since we’re grading for “equity” it’s no longer necessary that teachers actually be effective in the classroom. Grades, we are told, must be controlled for skin color, past trauma, socioeconomic status, and — most importantly— the willingness of parents to scream at the administrative staff. 

Teachers now, more than ever, are interchangeable cogs. The teachers unions, with their all-animals-are-equal step-and-column pay scales have ensured that. 

And with colleges churning out thousands of deeply-indebted, poorly-educated soft majors, there’s no supply chain problem to overcome. College graduates with low-demand majors and high monthly loan payments are very, very compliant. 

So, bye-bye National Board Certified, MA-not-in-education, economic historian who was the Swiss Army knife in our master schedule but who, very inconveniently, read books and graphs and was deeply familiar with Shakespeare, the writers of the Harlem Renaissance, the Greek tragedians, and — even more deleterious to promotion — Stalin, Mao, Marx, Orwell, Huxley, and Solzhenitsyn. 

But hey, there are leftover cookies in the break room from the end-of-year party you were too busy grading essays to attend. Take some. 

But be sure to throw away the rest before you leave. 

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The Dissident Teacher is an actual classroom teacher, and the stories shared by DT here are true. Ask any California kid in a PreK-12 California public school; he’ll tell you.