I've blogged about this incessantly throughout the years so I'll come back with updates to the current struggle against high-stakes testing and accountability in the coming weeks and months as we get closer to the next regular legislative session that begins in January, 2023.
Here are a couple of good memories involving former teacher Andrew Gonzales that help illustrate this loss of talent that will be difficult to recover from, particularly in the difficult days and months ahead.
The first was when he took four of his high school students in his Ethnic Studies class at Travis High School to regularly attend a policy class I taught that semester. This was made possible by a connection we had to each other via our Saturday school, Academia Cuauhtli and the Ethnic Studies movement in Texas. He and the students rushed over together to UT every Tuesday after school was out to make it to my class by 4PM. I liked how our Education Policy and Planning masters students were so happy to have them in our class and to see how welcoming they were of them, especially since they at first seemed intimidated. Mr. Gonzales' students expressed great interest, quickly became vocal and never missed a class. By the end of the semester, I sensed that the college experience was demystified and that they could see themselves in the college classroom. One of the four students made this comment explicitly.
I am so saddened by these stories and these news, but fully understand not just the gravity of this decision by gifted teachers like Andrew Gonzales who have to make ends meet, but also the magnitude of this crisis—which is fully amenable, as AFT correctly indicates—to policy solutions.
I am who I am and where I am because I had a few good teachers. We are all indebted to our teachers. There are no shortcuts here. We must advocate for our youth, teachers, and schools.
-Angela Valenzuela
‘I had to get out’: High number of teachers, staffers resigning from Austin schools
Rebecca Johnson
Austin American-Statesman | July 6, 2022
For Andrew Gonzales, resigning from his teaching job at Lively Middle School in South Austin was a difficult decision. A third-generation teacher, he envisioned himself as a lifelong educator and fondly remembers helping his mom set up her classroom during her 36 years on the job.
But after seven years in the profession — including five at Travis High School, also in the Austin district — Gonzales, 30, said the “abysmally low” pay and ever-expanding responsibilities became unsustainable. So he left in Octoberto work at a medical device company, earning a $1,000 per month pay raise and a quick promotion.
“It makes such a big impact on how I feel when I go to work,” he said.
Gonzales isn’t alone. According to data provided by the district’s Office of Human Capital, more than 1,700 staff members resigned from Austin schools from July 2021 to June — more than in any of the past three school years.That includes 875 teachers resigning — a nearly 30% increase from the 2020-21 school year.
The school board approved pay increases and bonuses for the upcoming school year, but some teachers and education advocates worry that the pay boosts are too small and are coming too late to improve staff retention and alleviate a shortage that's being felt nationwide.
Bronwyn Merritt, 35, decided to leave teaching in December after 15 years in the profession. She said she resigned from her job at Brentwood Elementary School, where she had worked for four years, because she felt a lack of support and understanding from the administration, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic.
“Public education wasn't serving me as a person anymore,” she said. “It wasn't fulfilling, and it was taking away from my personal well-being and my family's well-being, so I had to get out.”
There are multiple problems in the field, Merritt said, including low pay, long hours and “endless to-dos.” But she said it’s the way teachers are treated by administrators and state and federal officials — with a lack of respect, lack of trust and increasing oversight — that pushed her to leave the profession.
“It seems to me like our administrators, locally at the school level, at the district level and also at the state and federal level, just really want to micromanage everything that's done in the classroom right now,” she said. “And it's taking away the autonomy from teachers.”
In a 2021 survey conducted by the district, about 17% of respondents who reported that they planned to leave their campus said their salary expectations not being met factored into their decision. About 24% cited an unsatisfactory workload and 36% cited a poor work environment.
The district’s budget, which was adopted June 23, includes a 2% midpoint raise plus a $1,000 base pay increase for teachers and librarians. It also has a $2,000 retention stipend for full-time employees and a $1,000 stipend for part-time employees, along with a $21 per hour starting rate for bus drivers.
To remain competitive with neighboring districts and adjust to Austin's high cost of living, Eduardo Ramos, the district's chief financial officer, said the district's goal is to be the highest paying district for teachers in Central Texas within the next two years. District officials also said the upcoming bond proposal might include investments in affordable teacher housing.
“Austin ISD is working hard to have a compensation package that is reflective of our hardworking staff while also managing budgetary constraints,” said Jason Stanford, a district spokesperson.
At the last board meeting, Trustee Arati Singh thanked the administration for investing in the staff, calling the pay raises and stipends "fantastic."
However, Merritt doesn’t believe these pay increases are sufficient, even going so far as to label them “offensive” because she said higher pay raises are needed to afford living in Austin.
“I think that paying off teachers at this point without any actual structural changes ... is just meaningless,” she said.
Retention rates better in Austin
Stanford noted that Austin retained more teachers than schools overall in Central Texas and in the state. During the 2020-21 school year, the most recent for which data are available, Austin schools saw a teacher retention rate of 86.9%, compared with 85.2% for the region and 85.7% for the state, according to Texas Academic Performance Reports.
Ken Zarifis, the president of Education Austin, a union for Austin school employees, said this messaging “deflects away from the reality that this is really bad.”
“I've been in the district and around the district for 25 years, and it's never been this bad,” Zarifis said. “I think one of the disappointing things I'm hearing from the messaging from the district is, ‘Oh, it's not as bad as other districts.’
“I just wish that they would own the fact that it's bad, and what are we going to do to correct it?” he said.
More:Austin ISD to redesign elementary music, art classes to boost PE, teacher planning time
Zarifis said higher wages, more respect and more support from the district are needed to help alleviate the shortage.
“We choose a profession that we want to go into, but let's not make the mistake that we're just doing it for the sake of the kids. We have to live; we have to survive,” he said. “Whenever people use that as a narrative, it dismisses the economic realities of human beings that are working so hard 60, 70, 80 hours a week for a starting pay of $51,000 in this city. It's absolutely unacceptable, and it is an insult to our labor and our hard work.”
On top of that, Gonzales said he believes teachers need more time to plan, but not in a way that disrupts other parts of the classroom. He thinks the district’s current plan, which will redesign elementary art and music classes to increase PE and teacher planning time, will cause too many disruptions to the classroom.
Part of a national trend
Ultimately, Gonzales said he believes the district needs to be a leader in solving the teacher shortage, referencing comments from Anthony Mays, who started as the district’s interim superintendent on Friday. Mays said last week that the high number of teachers and staffers leaving the profession should not be framed as an Austin schools issue, but one that is affecting multiple industries.
“It's not just an isolated issue for Austin ISD, but one of the ways that we plan on attacking that challenge is focusing on taking care of our teachers, taking care of our leaders and trying to make sure that we're focused on the mental health of those leaders that we have here within the district,” he told the American-Statesman.
“It just kind of felt like a sidestep of the issue,” Gonzales said. “If we are in the city of Austin, which is a global edge leading city … and the fact that we cannot think critically about this issue and put it as part of this national trend is sad, and it’s disappointing to me.”
