It's profound to consider all the havoc wreaked by the pandemic and how it has implications for children's development. However, this piece focuses on just how brutal it has been for teachers that today accounts for teachers resigning and leaving the profession in great numbers. Read, for example, this deeply concerning Aug 1st piece in the Houston Chronicle titled, Houston districts trying to fill thousands of teacher vacancies just 2 weeks before school starts.
The irony for us here in Texas, and presumably throughout the U.S., as well, is this Charles Butt Foundation report that I previously posted which shows that respect for teachers in Texas has been increasing among parents with school-aged, children, and is at an all-time high as a result of the pandemic. Accordingly, I quote one of their key findings on page 3 as follows:
“Texas public school parents’ ratings of their community’s public schools have surged since the onset of the coronavirus pandemic, signaling broad appreciation of schools’ – and teachers’ – efforts to respond amid closures and controversy.” (p. 3)
Report citation:
o Charles Butt Foundation. (2021). Connected Through Our Schools: The 2022 poll on Texans' attitudes toward public education. [Report]
While these are precarious times for public education, let's not squander this good will and let's pass policies that pay all teachers well, that diversify the teacher workforce through Grow Your Own teacher programs and other measures, and address working conditions, especially the toxic environment created by high-stakes assessment and accountability to make the profession attractive to current and future teachers. And while we are at it, let's be sure to defend public education against vouchers schemes and privatization proposals.
-Angela Valenzuela
#TheGreatResignation
From regular f-bombs and bullying to difficulty finishing assignments, raising hands or buttoning pants, young people across the country are struggling to adjust to classrooms after lengthy pandemic isolation. 122 teachers from 37 states and Washington, D.C. painted a picture of a generation emotionally anxious, academically confused and addicted to technology, in a survey created by The 74.
Educators from coast to coast noted students had difficulty with common classroom routines — writing down homework, raising their hands to speak, meeting deadlines. And for the youngest learners, underdeveloped motor skills made it difficult to use scissors, color, paint and print letters.
In their responses, teachers plead for parents and other adults in their life to lead with “grace”: ask questions, read to them every day, listen to frustrations and model behavior.
“We have a huge problem we’re facing with kids now as a result of the pandemic, which isn’t over,” said Pedro Noguera, sociologist of education and dean of USC’s Rossier School of Education. “I hear it directly from teachers — talking about a kind of chronic absenteeism, kids not wanting to come, kids not being motivated when they do come, and then the behavior challenges that come when they are present.”
And while states iron out summer programs and tutoring initiatives for next year, made possible by pandemic relief funds, teachers have identified a summer wishlist for how parents and guardians can help the young people in their life.
The skills typical of age groups have seemingly shifted, teachers reported in the survey. Elementary students fumble to form sentences, use scissors and pencils; middle school students can’t quite grasp the concept of multiplying and dividing fractions. High schoolers are silent during discussions, averting the gaze and judgment of peers.
And racist, homophobic and transphobic language is on the rise, teachers say, as part of an a pattern of more aggressive behavior.
“This year’s students had significantly more behavioral problems than most previous groups of students. They made inappropriate racial remarks, struggled with owning the issues they created, made disrespectful comments to staff, engaged in bullying and even physical altercations,” a 7th grade teacher observed in Nebraska.
In Kentucky, an elementary educator asked a school mental health practitioner to lead social skills peer groups to curb conflict and get kids talking about their emotions.
Above are the words teachers used to describe student behavior and discipline challenges in the 2021-22 school year.
One fifth grade teacher in Arizona said students struggled to manage emotions and respect each other: “…Being honest about social issues (never heard so many lies before), tidiness, respecting others property [or] space. Arguments and competition [are] getting out of control.”
“Any little thing can wreck their whole day,” they added.
Young people now need extra practice with staying organized, taking notes, managing their time and following through with deadlines, many teachers told The 74. As one Texas high school English teacher said of their students’ executive functioning skills, due dates would “snowball… They quickly became overwhelmed.”
“Their fuses are just shorter and the concept of respect seems different. You can’t push them too much or they turn off … Their emotional state is still in turmoil, partly because they are teens, but also since the concept of school is new again,” one California English teacher said.
Accordingly, educators are adapting policies and class time to help students manage workloads.
“I’ve learned to be much more understanding to what’s going on at home. I’ve also scaled back on ‘homework’ and deadlines due to absences and personal situations,” said a 7th grade English teacher in southern California. I’ve also used class time to help students organize themselves or catch up on work. Some often just appreciate time to clean out their backpack.”
ACADEMIC CHALLENGES
In elementary and middle school, teachers observed a host of language challenges. Students found phonics and reading aloud difficult, along with forming grammatically correct sentences and capitalization.
Reading longer texts, inferring meaning, and thinking critically were challenging for students of all ages, educators said.
In math, elementary school children struggled to understand numbers and order of operations.
“4th graders came having major gaps in basics of arithmetic … operations, number sense, problem solving,” said Stafford, Virginia teacher Jill Lottes, whose students could also not speak or write in full sentences when they returned in-person last fall.
Educators across state lines and grade levels noticed shorter attention spans and a lack of “stamina” or motivation to focus — listening to peers in class, and on most assignments.
In response, teachers incorporated more learning by doing; slowed down the pace of lessons; and added reading and writing activities to classes that never usually reviewed them, like math and Spanish.
“I am very firm with procedures and expectations, and saw much more success this year. I was able to build relationships with the students because they knew what my expectations were, but also that I cared,” said Andrea Calderon, a 7th grade English teacher in southern California.
For one first grade teacher in northern California, the biggest change in her teaching was devoting regular class time throughout the year to talk about behavior — how they treat each other, and why. It felt counterintuitive, given how much academic growth needed to happen.
“I think that a lot of last year for them was sitting in front of an iPad for a few hours at home, and then watching TV the rest of the time,” the teacher said. “I don’t know how much time most of the parents of our students spend with their kids talking with them, problem-solving with them, engaging with them.”
Challenges with motor, executive functioning skills
Above are the words teachers used to describe motor and executive functioning skills students were missing in the 2021-22 school year.
Across ages, teachers also observed students’ difficulty keeping track of their work and collaborating with their peers.
“Students really struggled with completing group [or] partner activities … having to wait their turn or share materials wasn’t something that was as big of an issue in middle school prior,” said one 7th grade teacher in Columbia, South Carolina.
Elementary school teacher Catherine Graber noticed similar trends in Louisville, Kentucky: “Social awareness and relationship skills were areas of growth. I worked with the school mental health practitioner to facilitate social skills peer groups for some small groups of students.”
Behavior challenges
As compared to pre-pandemic school years, many teachers noticed a rise in behavioral concerns, including fighting, bullying in person and on social media, and using sexual and racial slurs.
“The last two years have been some of the most divisive in American society … Show the kids what it looks like to respect each other and stop treating everyone like an enemy,” said Illinois middle school teacher Anthony Modica.
For young children, behavior changes were more subtle.
“It was fairly obvious to me that they probably hadn’t had a lot of adult interaction over the last year or two, and they were just so talkative, so needy, just sort of over the top in terms of how much energy they needed and wanted from me and the other adults in our classroom,” said a first grade teacher from Emeryville, California.
Key for most educators was getting to the root of behavior and showing kids what it looks like to talk through emotions.
“I still took time to ask questions about how or why a student was feeling or acting out negatively,” said a 2nd grade ESL teacher in Carrollton, Texas. “I also took the time to apologize to them when I overreacted and explain my feelings in a child friendly way. This went a long way in building trust and respect between us.”
Virtually all 122 educators surveyed acknowledged that behavior and academic challenges are challenging but not unexpected given the pandemic and exacerbated youth mental health crisis.
“We can’t just expect kids are going to just pop right back into where they were pre-pandemic,” a third grade teacher outside of Minneapolis said in an interview with The 74. “We’re going to have to do a lot more work to settle them into what school really is like and make them feel safe…”
And academics like Pedro Noguera say children will need much more than just academic recovery to feel like school matters.
“We have to bring some joy to learning and to being in school, so that kids want to be there,” said Noguera. “A sense of joy comes from a sense of belonging…So music, theater, sports have to be more integrated into the academic program, and not treated as an afterthought.”
Marianna McMurdock is a staff reporter at The 74.
@marimcmurdock marianna@the74million.org
Teacher shortages are a worrisome emerging trend, as you can read about in this piece by Michael DiNapoli of the Learning Policy Institute that lays out the problem quite well.
-Angela Valenzuela
This post is part of LPI's Learning in the Time of COVID-19 blog series, which explores evidence-based and equity-focused strategies and investments to address the current crisis and build long-term systems capacity.
For decades, U.S. schools have struggled to provide all students with access to well-prepared and experienced teachers who reflect the rich ethnic and racial diversity of the country. Reports have repeatedly documented that students of color and other historically underserved students are disproportionately taught by new, underprepared, and inexperienced teachers—an inequity that is substantially responsible for persistent achievement gaps between students of color and their white peers.
Before the pandemic, districts across the country were grappling with ongoing teacher shortages. In the 2017–18 school year alone, these widespread shortages resulted in more than 100,000 teaching positions left vacant or staffed by individuals who were unqualified for their jobs. Likewise, nearly every state reported shortages of teachers in high-need subjects like math, science, and special education, driven by both teacher turnover and significant declines in those choosing to enter the profession. From 2009 to 2017, 340,000 fewer students enrolled in educator preparation programs, with the drop driven largely by financial concerns, including the high cost of comprehensive preparation, the burden of student loan debt, and the lack of competitive compensation. More than two-thirds of educators are weighed down with an average of $20,000 to $50,000 in student loan debt. Preparation costs and student loan debt are a particularly significant burden for students who are Black, indigenous, and people of color (BIPOC) and contribute to difficulties in attracting and retaining a diverse teaching force.
COVID-19 has only served to worsen these pre-pandemic conditions. According to U.S. Department of Education data for the 2020–21 school year, to date 43 states are reporting shortages in math teachers, 42 in science teachers, and 44 in special education teachers. In addition to expected reductions in those entering the profession, we’re seeing concerning signs of increased turnover as stressful working conditions and health concerns are prompting some to seek early retirement and others to leave the profession. At the same time, school communities are grappling with layoffs that are destabilizing their educator workforce, including teachers and support personnel. And local and state policymakers are bracing themselves for future budget cuts—and the layoffs that go along with them.
Unlike the Great Recession, when a weak job market drove up college enrollment, the pandemic is leading to a decline in enrollment in higher education. Data on teacher preparation program enrollment is not yet available, but early signs are worrisome. Undergraduate enrollment is down by nearly 4% (a concerning statistic, given that 80% of educators begin teaching with a bachelor’s degree). Enrollment declines are steepest among Native American and Black students. Enrollment at historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs), which are a significant source of new educators, is down 5.5%. Alarmingly, 22% fewer students from the high school class of 2020 enrolled directly in college after graduation, with the greatest declines seen at schools serving students from low-income families, students of color, and students in urban areas.
Enrollment in community colleges, which are more racially and economically diverse than their four-year counterparts, has also dropped—by more than 10%—with public two-year HBCUs experiencing a more than 20% enrollment decline. These declines threaten enrollment in traditional teacher preparation programs, as well as in 2+2 educator preparation programs, which help diverse candidates become teachers through partnerships between 2-year institutions of higher education and their 4-year counterparts.
An August 2020 Census Bureau survey provides insight into the causes for the drop in higher education enrollment. Alongside the shift to distance learning and their fears of getting COVID-19, survey respondents cited their inability to pay as a factor in their decision to forgo college. Pandemic-related layoffs have hurt low-income and BIPOC communities the hardest, including requiring recent high school graduates and current college students to forgo their education in order to help support their families.
A forthcoming LPI analysis will provide an up-close look at how the pandemic is impacting the teaching workforce in California. Soon, LPI will release California Teachers and COVID-19: How the Pandemic is Impacting the Teacher Workforce. The report details how teacher burnout, retirements, and resignations have exacerbated critical shortages in California districts and could lead to even worse shortages to come. The report describes how state investments can ensure a strong and stable teacher workforce by funding high-retention pathways into the profession and providing educator development and supports.
Since the first COVID-19 restrictions were put in place last March, teachers have been on the front lines of an unprecedented effort to adapt teaching and learning to our new and often-shifting reality. The challenges they report include longer hours, inadequate support, and strain on their mental and physical health. For example, 75% of National Board Certified teachers surveyed last August and September reported working more hours, with 20% reporting working more than 15 extra hours a week. About one in five of these respondents—who are expert, experienced teachers—stated that professional learning supports from their schools and districts were “not at all adequate.” A survey of Colorado superintendents revealed widespread fears of teacher burnout resulting from the additional burdens associated with enforcing safety protocols, addressing the impact of lost instructional time, teaching in hybrid situations (online and in person), and abruptly switching to fully remote learning when classes must quarantine.
These and other factors are already taking a toll. Surveys from the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards, the National Association of Secondary School Principals (NASSP), and the National Education Association (NEA) all show that many educators are planning to retire early, take a leave of absence, or exit the profession entirely. In an August 2020 poll, 45% of principals said pandemic working conditions were “accelerating their plans to leave the profession.” In the NEA poll (released in August 2020), 28% of all teachers and 43% of Black teachers said they’re more likely to retire early or leave the profession. This emerging trend is worrying, given the outsized role that turnover plays in teacher shortages. Prior to the pandemic, research showed that about 90% of the annual nationwide demand for teachers is created by teachers leaving the profession.
There’s also evidence of a shortage of substitute teachers to tap when classroom teachers fall ill, are quarantined, or are otherwise unable to work. For example, a fall EdWeek survey found that about one-third of schools and districts are unable to hire a substitute for roughly 50% of their absent teachers. Eighty percent of respondents reported leaving classes uncovered. Schools in California, Idaho, Michigan, Rhode Island, Tennessee, Wisconsin, West Virginia, and other states have had to close temporarily when teachers quarantined and substitute coverage came up short. In some instances, the lack of qualified substitute teachers has resulted in states and districts lowering the bar for these positions, including allowing individuals with just a high school diploma to serve as substitute teachers. Jhone Ebert, Nevada’s Superintendent of Public Instruction, explained, in a January New York Times article, “We have to go to … extremes to get adults temporarily in the room to support our children.”
Employment in public schools is at its lowest level since the year 2000, despite there being about 3.5 million more students in schools today. The latest job numbers indicate an over 8% decrease in public school employment, meaning students have access to about 676,000 fewer educators and school support personnel than they did at this time last year. Although many of these cuts are non-teaching positions, teacher layoffs have occurred or are anticipated, based on budget conditions, in Hawaii, Missouri, and New York, among others.
And this could get worse. The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP) has projected that state budgets will likely see a reduction of 11% this fiscal year and 10% in the next fiscal year. An earlier estimate by LPI showed that a 10% reduction in state funding would result in a 5% reduction in the teacher workforce—or more than 173,000 teachers losing their jobs. During the Great Recession, cuts in teaching positions had the greatest impact on BIPOC students and students from low-income families. The cuts also had long-term implications for the profession, as the widespread teacher layoffs are widely believed to have been one of the causes for the significant drop in enrollment in teacher preparation programs.
“While research shows that students from all races benefit from being taught by an educator of color, our study shows that the discrimination and implicit bias that Latino teachers face leave them feeling discouraged and perceived as unqualified to be professional educators, which hurts the teachers and in turn students. By listening to and learning from Latino teachers, school leaders can start to create and implement supports and working environments aimed at increasing the number of Latino teachers and retaining them.”
We spoke with more than 90 Latino teachers in a series of nationally
representative focus groups, adding rigorous qualitative data to the
ongoing national conversation about teacher diversity. The purpose of
these focus groups was to better understand Latino teachers’ experiences
separate from the broad category of teachers of color, including why
they teach, what they believe they bring to the classroom, and what
challenges they face in the workplace.
"Why does it matter if most minority students have white teachers? For starters, a Center for American Progress study titled America’s Leaky Pipeline for Teachers of Color reports that minority teachers have higher expectations of minority students, provide culturally relevant teaching, develop trusting relationships with students, confront issues of racism through teaching, and become advocates and cultural brokers."
"[I]n literature, students need “mirrors and windows,” meaning they can see them themselves in stories and also experience unfamiliar worlds. ....It doesn’t mean all the people in their lives have to do that mirroring, but they should have some. And we know that in the teaching profession, there really are not enough mirrors.”
The federal government’s teach campaign, which included recruitment visits to colleges campuses like Morehouse by film director Spike Lee, has a goal of recruiting 1 million teachers in the next 10 years, with an emphasis on diversity. Hayes even met with Secretary of Education John King last November about how better to recruit and retain minority teachers.Really good points here throughout. Don't know how many students have come my way ask the questions appearing at the end of this text:
“We’re all thinking, ‘Can I go back into the classroom? Or should I make an impact in education some other way?’”While education policy is potentially a good way to make a contribution without being in the classroom—we still very much need to address this gap which is not just a "teaching gap," but also a policy one that can help remedy this otherwise systemic paucity of teachers of color in the teaching profession.
Summer 2016
