When you’re a teacher, or studying to be one, you hear a lot of rhetoric about sacrifice. It’s appropriate because society demands teachers sacrifice a lot, for very little in return.
(Full disclosure: my degree is in elementary education and I ultimately decided not to enter the field.)
Now, teachers are more burnt out than ever, and wages are remaining stagnant while the demands are ever-increasing. It’s no wonder that so many are speaking out about quitting only days into the new school year.
Statistics Paint An Ugly Picture Of The Current State Of Teaching
About 35% of teachers say they’re ‘fairly likely’ to leave their jobs in the next two years, and at the end of 2023, stats showed approximately a 12% turnover (slightly down from the peak, 14% turnover at the height of the pandemic). That’s left 86% of schools in the U.S. struggling to hire enough teachers, according to stats gathered by Devlin Peck.
Pay is the leading reason given, with 67% saying that a pay raise is what they need to feel supported to stay in their current positions. After all, those same stats show that on average, weekly pay has only increased by $29 on average since 1996!
The New Viral Trend On TeacherTok Is The Quit Video
No wonder teachers on TikTok are going viral with short videos in which they either explain why they’re leaving or show themselves taking down their decorations in their (soon-to-be-former) classrooms. There are quite a few who started the 2024-2025 school year and are already quitting — and it’s barely September.
Those who are dropping videos aren’t alone, either. Each of these videos is flooded with comments from others sharing their own experiences. One commenter on the TikTok below said:
“I made it to year 5 and knew that it was time to do something different. I’m still in the education field just not in the classroom and I couldn’t be happier.”
Another chimed in to say she’s in year three and ready to go too, and another said, “I was ready to resign twice this week already.”
Most Of These Teachers Love The Job But Hate What’s Happening To It
Some specifically address that they’re overworked and underpaid. Others cite changes in how the system works or the expectations that have been heaped on them. In contrast to critics’ common claims that teachers work short days and have weekends and summers off, many of them are pouring themselves into the job endlessly (the teacher below, who quit during the first week this year, described 50-60 hour weeks) and never getting a real break.
They say that the job is impacting their personal life, destroying their mental (and in some cases physical) health and that they are losing their passion for the work. It’s just too much to keep doing while not being adequately compensated, and not getting sufficient support from their schools and communities.
The U.S. Department Of Education Acknowledges The Problem
In 2021, the American Rescue Plan aimed to address some of these problems, and it got a start, helping districts hire more social workers, and school nurses, and taking steps to address teacher staffing. Even then, though, the government acknowledged that there was a long road ahead. The Dept. of Ed. stated:
“Increasing teacher compensation is critical to effectively recruiting and retaining the teachers that schools need. However, teachers earn 26 percent less than comparable college graduates, a pay gap that has grown over time, and that can inhibit people from choosing to become teachers and staying in the profession.”
Unfortunately, teacher pay remains low, and morale is matching it. Another teacher below didn’t make it a full week into this school year.
Teachers Are Lacking Several Kinds Of Support
One teacher who left the profession after nearly a decade explained what’s changed for her in a TikTok earlier this year. Like others, she affirmed that the pay she was receiving for a job using her Master’s Degree just wasn’t realistic, but there is other support she felt was lacking, too.
One of her big reasons was political efforts to defund public education, leaving schools with a shortage of resources to meet student needs. Another was student performance as a factor in employment, and heavy reliance on test scores. She also mentioned the concern of violence and mass shootings, saying:
“I don’t want to go into my forever sleep because people brought things to schools and local areas couldn’t do anything about it.
Teaching Into The Future
If some major changes aren’t made to address teacher burnout, in particular about insufficient pay and lack of support, the mass exodus will continue. Teacher shortages will result in larger class sizes, with the remaining teachers carrying a heavier burden, and bringing more exhaustion and frustration into the classrooms.
We cannot fix public schools if we can’t keep teachers, and we can’t keep teachers unless their administrations, the parents, the communities, and their paychecks are showing more support than the current state of things.