Below is an article I found when looking to find the percent of
teachers who leave teaching. Again, we can all thank Laura Bush for the
catalyst to poor teacher retention.
Top 5 Reasons Many Teachers Quit - NCLB?
TOP 5 REASONS MANY
TEACHERS QUIT
Many teachers quit
because teaching is difficult and, to compound this circumstance, many school
and school district administrations practice micromanagement and a lack of
support that drives teachers away.
The U.S. Department of
Education; National Center for Education Statistics Teacher Follow-up Survey
shows these major self-reported reasons among 7,000 teachers and former
teachers for why they quit or are likely to soon quit.
Obstacles To Teaching
The persons
interviewed report (1) a constant battle with the administration, including
submitting weekly lesson plans for examination and approval. This holds up
their work and the students' progress. Teachers often feel that they are being
directed to "teach to the test" with only memorization of facts
instead of active learning. The bureaucracy has resulted in slow-downs in
classroom progress because of numerous re-writes of lessons and lesson plans to
improve standardized test scores only, and too many last-minute changes by the
administrations.
According to this recent
report on teacher attrition by the National Center for Education Statistics, in
teachers who quit and took non-education jobs, 64% did so to have more autonomy
at work, without micromanagement. The survey among 7,000 current and former
teachers, also listed (2) unreasonable, much-too-heavyworkloads and (3)
poor general working conditions as primary reasons for leaving.
(4) Too much
responsibility for accountability scores on No Child Left Behind and other standardized testing and
accountability initiatives was listed as another major reason to quit. As the
US states increased education reforms via NCLB and local accountability
initiatives, they also loaded increasing and unreasonable accountability
standards onto the teachers, without permitting them the necessary training,
vital ongoing professional development, or mandatory supplies they needed in
order to accomplish the job. These teachers often were given too many students
per classroom as well. This sometimes resulted in too many students in a room
that were memorizing facts, but not being able to retain them in order to score
high enough on NCLB-mandated tests.These students also did not know how to
use or apply the facts they memorized. Critical thinking as a learned skill was
bypassed. In addition, many parents in urban school districts (which
generally scored the lowest on NCLB-mandated testing) were unable to help their
children with educational needs. This dumped more responsibility onto the
already-broken teacher's backs.
(5)Teaching was no longer
rewarding, emotionally or
fiscally, since raises in pay were denied when students' scores were not raised
high enough. Some teachers were fired for this and others quit. All this
created problems regarding unfair terminations with the teachers' labor unions
and growing bad blood between teachers and their unions with administrations.
One -fifth, or 20%, of
public school teachers that had no previous full-time teaching experience quit
in the school year 2004-2005. Overall, 65% of former public school teachers
report that they are better able to balance work and personal/family life since
they quit teaching. Before quitting, nearly all their time was spent on such
things as rewriting lesson plans, purchasing their own supplies, and working
unpaid overtime hours without additional needed training.
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