The Mental Health Crisis That’s Causing Teachers to Quit (New Republic)

 

“…Teaching is a demanding job at the best of times. Before the pandemic it was among the most stressful occupations, on par with nursing. But there are indications that it has only gotten worse since Covid-19 entered the profession... According to a RAND survey from June 2021, which found, among other things, that teachers were almost three times more likely to report symptoms of depression than other adults. Clearly, teachers haven’t just reached their breaking point but surpassed it, further imperiling a profession that has long struggled with low pay and declining morale. 

“Two years ago, when the pandemic first hit, teachers were heralded as first responders, heroes. Celebrities such as Patton Oswalt and Dave Grohl heaped praise on them, echoing the amazement of harried parents everywhere. Their stock had seemed to shoot up overnight. Respect for the profession was momentarily restored, but it was fleeting. As the pandemic drags on, the pressure has piled up from all sides. In the past year, teachers have endured culture-war attacks, worsening student behavior, and endless health and safety regulation changes...

“For months, advocacy groups—including the National Education Association, the country’s largest union—have been driving home the point that teachers are not OK. In January, when the NEA polled more than 3,000 of its teachers, nearly all of them said burnout is a serious problem, and more than half indicated plans to leave teaching earlier than expected. The last time the association surveyed its teachers, back in August, only 37 percent were looking to leave. Most favored simple fixes like hiring more teachers, adding more mental health support for students, and, of course, raising pay, which is generally abysmal for teachers…

“Researchers have even coined a term—the “teacher pay penalty”—to refer to the fact that the average teacher earns about 20 percent less than accountants, journalists, inspectors, and computer engineers—professions that require a similar skill set and education. In a RAND survey of nearly a thousand former public-school teachers, nearly two-thirds of those who left during the pandemic said their salary was a factor.

“‘School staffing shortages are not new, but what we are seeing now is an unprecedented staffing crisis across every job category,’ NEA President Becky Pringle said when the survey results were released. ‘If we’re serious about getting every child the support they need to thrive, our elected leaders across the nation need to address this crisis now.’

“The fear that burnout will contribute to a mass exodus of teachers isn’t overblown—but it isn’t supported by enough data yet. During the pandemic the public teaching workforce appears to have shrunk by nearly 7 percent, according to federal jobs data crunched by the Economic Policy Institute. Unfortunately, neither the federal government nor states reliably keep records on teacher turnover, making that figure hard to confirm. 

“Many districts aren’t seeing much change compared with any other year, though the data varies by region. In Austin, Texas, midyear resignations are up about 11 percent. In Illinois, three-quarters of superintendents say the teaching shortage is getting worse. On LinkedIn, the number of teachers who left their jobs last year for a new career is up by two-thirds too.  

“In other words, the worst may be yet to come. Researchers who track shifting demographics in the teacher workforce have found that the profession is becoming less experienced and more unstable compared with during the 1980s, a phenomenon that predates the pandemic. ‘My prediction is that we’re going to see a big surge,’ says Richard Ingersoll, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania who conducted that research. ‘And it’s going to be turnover- and attrition-driven shortages.’ 

“Luckily for schools, not everyone who thinks about quitting will actually leave. But some of them will, and their colleagues who stay will suffer an even greater blow to morale. What this means for the next generation of teachers is unclear, but even in 2019, just before the pandemic, teacher preparation programs were graduating about 25 percent fewer students than they were a decade ago, according to federal Title II data.

“As recently as a few years ago, researchers were sounding alarm bells about declining enrollment and interest in the profession, and some colleges of education have already reported double-digit enrollment declines since the pandemic began. All this indicates that prospective teachers are starting to rethink their options—and have been for a while—which is a troubling prospect for a field where more than 40 percent of new teachers leave within the first five years. 

“If conditions are so bad for teachers, why don’t more of them quit, instead of just thinking about it? The short answer may be that to quit a job at all—even one that ravages your mental health—is a privilege that you may not be able to afford if, say, you’re a teacher who is behind on bills, a single parent, or caring for a loved one with a health condition. In a country where nearly one in five teachers work second jobs, quitting requires a backup plan, especially for those without a safety net. 

“Other teachers, especially those who have never worked outside education, simply get used to the high levels of stress and difficult working conditions, explains Michelle Kinder, a licensed professional counselor who co-authored a book, WHOLE, about how schools can help lower chronic stress for teachers. ‘Your baseline shifts,’ she says. ‘You start to feel like what you’re experiencing day to day is normal. And for some people, the idea of shifting into a circumstance where they could better take care of their mental health is scarier because it’s unknown.’

“But those who don’t quit—even when they want to—put themselves at risk for any number of mental and physical problems. That’s what Jennifer Moss found when researching her book The Burnout Epidemic, which examines a broad spectrum of professions, including teaching, and identifies the condition as a sort of workplace depression. 

“Drawing on the work of the Swedish psychiatrist Marie Åsberg and others, Moss concluded that burnout often starts small and builds over time. As burnout snowballs, so do its effects. ‘You can suffer from high levels of anxiety, depression, PTSD,’ she says. ‘You see increases in suicide rates at that point. It’s pretty catastrophic. It’s a serious, consequential thing. It’s not a whiny, ‘I want more work-life balance’ problem.’

“In a study published last year of more than 300 current teachers, researchers identified the top factors contributing to pandemic-era burnout, including anxiety over getting sick, communicating with difficult parents, and dealing with overdemanding administrators. Burnout was prevalent—and consistent—across demographics including ethnicity, location, years of experience, and whether you taught face-to-face or virtually.

“‘It didn’t matter if you were a brand-new teacher or a veteran of 30 years, we saw no difference between those teachers when it came to their burnout scores,’ says the study’s author, Tim Pressley, an assistant professor of education at Christopher Newport University in Virginia. ‘Covid just put everyone on the same playing field to say, ‘This is tiring. This is burning us out.’”

“For teachers, burnout looks a little different than it does for other professions. In fact, one of the nation’s foremost experts on teacher dissatisfaction, Doris Santoro, who chairs the education department at Bowdoin College, rarely uses the term at all. She prefers ‘demoralization.’ Since teachers don’t enter the profession for the pay, they require other rewards to sustain them, and lately they’ve been dealt precious few wins. ‘Many teachers are going into the work looking for a kind of moral satisfaction,’ says Santoro, whose pre-pandemic book Demoralized profiled more than a dozen teachers who found themselves caught in an unforgiving system resistant to change. ‘If we can’t find a way for them to pursue it through teaching, they’re going to find a way to pursue it elsewhere.’…”   -by Stephen Noonoo, K-12 editor at EdSurge