Many school districts have unethical and unprofessional practices for firing employees. A glance at the Facebook pages of most districts and a brief call to the local teacher unions reveal two truths: they are desperate to recruit and retain teachers, and the administration continues to pink-slip experienced professionals at an alarming rate, especially in the face of a national teacher shortage.
These practices have resulted in inconsistency, tepid teacher-student relationships, overwhelmed and anxious teachers, and, in some cases, weak pedagogy and a lack of content knowledge. Meanwhile, districts continue to slide into a shameful state of mediocrity and complacency.
Unrealistic Expectations
As you may have seen in the news, fewer people are choosing to become teachers. The expectations placed on teachers are far greater than those placed on most other professionals, particularly in terms of the level of education, compensation, and emotional investment. While employees in all professions are subjected to micromanagement and abuse, few jobs offer such minimal downtime throughout the workday and require such extensive preparation time outside of work hours.
Yes, teachers receive generous holiday and summer breaks, but having evenings and weekends free from work duties is far more therapeutic and beneficial for the families of teachers than summers off. (Keep in mind that teachers must also attend meetings and training during the summer.) This may be the reason that fewer people are entering the profession despite its rewarding nature.
The Pool is Dwindling
Matriculation is down at teacher colleges throughout the country, and some colleges and universities have dropped their certification programs due to a lack of interest. As a result, many districts are resorting to emergency certification and pulling staff from their central offices to cover classes. Meanwhile, schools continue to pink-slip experienced and developing teachers, usually because they aren’t a “good fit.” This is a common excuse in an at-will state, but we must seriously consider what this means for teachers and students.
Just this morning, NPR posted a story online with the following subheading: “If you see someone being harassed or attacked, what can you do?” Well, if you’re an employee at your typical American school, you look the other way for fear of reprisal. This level of toxicity is insidious enough to erode any lingering trust and sense of community within the faculty and staff, as well as the student body. It is perhaps inevitable that word of staff changes will spread quickly, but students often learn about firing decisions before the affected parties themselves. Many districts replace more than half of their faculty every few years. To this end, it’s not uncommon to have only a couple of tenured teachers in each department.
Hostile Work Environments are Common
Veteran teachers are often subjected to a hostile work environment in which their considerable content knowledge and professional expertise are regularly challenged. This negative treatment can extinguish a teacher’s passion and destroy careers. Most teachers are eager to serve their community and give back to the places where they first developed a love of learning and were mentored by other outstanding educators. Yet complicity and complacency tend to be the guiding sentiments of your average public school.
These problems aren’t specific to one school or district. Perhaps a significant part of the problem is that many administrators are unaware of how much more challenging teaching has become in recent years. While teaching is a difficult profession, it has become even more demanding because, regardless of the content area, one must teach reading, writing, speaking, and listening skills to students who have lost valuable instructional time during the COVID epidemic. How does a high school English teacher teach Shakespeare to students with limited English proficiency or who were reading at the fourth-grade level as freshmen?
The Loss is Great
Of course, experience alone does not make a good teacher, but consider what is lost when a qualified educator leaves the classroom. Any teacher will tell you that it often takes years to learn how to manage a classroom, motivate students (as opposed to merely demanding compliance), and master one’s content. Research has shown that many teacher-education programs aren’t entirely effective in preparing educators for the increasing demands of the profession, and many teachers would undoubtedly agree that a seasoned colleague or mentor provided their strongest preparation. When teachers are fired before they have had a chance to master their craft, the faculty and students suffer.
Misdirected Anger
Staff reduction is understandable due to financial cuts (or, in the rare instance, that a teacher is entirely ineffective in the classroom). The problem is that administrators tend to make such personnel decisions based on political, philosophical, or social differences. Instead of mentoring new teachers with positivity and a sincere desire to help them improve, far too often administrators saddle them with unrealistic expectations (such as heavy grading loads, multiple preps, and large classes) and refuse to renew their contracts when they are unable to work miracles. Parents and students may become frustrated with this hypocritical and futile system, and their anger is often misdirected at struggling teachers rather than at short-sighted administrators who are overly focused on building a staff of browbeaten followers who are terrified of disrupting the status quo, rather than on student achievement. Just ask any of the teachers whose contracts were terminated over the last few years or who left under duress about the pushback they received when they attempted to present fresh ideas, promote progressive instructional methods, or advocate for underserved students.
Almost comically, teachers are often told during their first year of teaching that their school has very high expectations for students, but how could that be true when there is usually a lack of a serviceable curriculum and many of the instructional methods are archaic at best and inequitable at worst. (For example, what is considered an innovative answer to low student achievement is simply a form of the gradual-release model. While this is a sound instructional method, it isn’t the only one, nor is it always the most effective approach to every lesson. Furthermore, far too much emphasis is placed on Lexile levels, which have been largely discredited as a means of helping students access meaningful texts through which they can develop key skills.)
Silencing of New Voices
Part of the problem is that administrators silence new voices and don’t keep progressive-minded teachers around long enough for them to expose their colleagues to fresh ideas. The irony, of course, is that the test scores reflect the growing disparity between what is in the best interest of students and what is easy and comfortable. Yet, teachers who ask the hard questions about equity and diversity are quickly regarded as troublemakers. The result is an overburdened staff who feels professionally undermined and undervalued. With such low morale, they aren’t precisely positioned to tackle the increasingly lofty demands that are placed upon them by rising poverty levels, shrinking resources, and a changing workforce.
These are challenges that are plaguing schools nationwide, and many districts are going to great lengths to find innovative ways to meet the needs of a diverse group of students within a polarized social sphere. Suppose school administrators continue to place the onus of student achievement solely on teachers and offer them little chance for improvement within a nurturing environment. In that case, the result will be an understaffed and underachieving district. Our students deserve happy, well-rounded, intellectually curious teachers who feel confident in their abilities as well as their students’ potential. Furthermore, one of the most important lessons one can learn as a teacher is that most people, unless they are particularly confident or competitive, won’t continue to do something if they don’t feel like they are good at it. This is true of both our students and our teachers. It isn’t necessarily the workload or low pay that has been driving the mass exodus from teaching over the last few years, but the lack of respect. All of the team-building exercises and staff rewards in the world cannot offset the damage done by a reactionary leader who doesn’t trust or value his employees.
An Uncertain Future
Of course, some students continue to thrive, especially those with personal connections to administrators, but these students would likely do well in any learning environment. Inequity reigns, and school boards can no longer rest on the achievements of a small group of privileged students if they want to produce successful leaders and critical thinkers. The impact of this selfish bias on the community and its workforce will be devastating. Our kids are facing an uncertain future within a changing cultural landscape and job market, and as such, need a chance to thrive within a learning environment that affords them confidence, stability, consistency, and decency. Unfortunately, many schools are presently failing them on most counts.
Many schools have a toxic culture that can be attributed, at least in part, to the superintendent’s practice of pitting employees against one another and fostering a culture of suspicion and fear. Many teachers compromise their values to appease certain members of the community and protect their jobs. It isn’t easy being a principal who is not permitted to lead in a manner that honors their values, but we cannot ignore their complicity. There are stories of mean-girl tactics, backstabbing, and covert efforts to destroy careers at multiple schools. Tales of verbal abuse, unfounded accusations, and shady evaluation practices that resulted in a hostile work environment that is not conducive to professional growth are familiar. Rather than providing teachers with constructive feedback and support to improve, they subject them to embarrassing, got-ya-style walk-throughs, evasion, and derision.
The Expense of Progress
We cannot continue to remain silent while some of our favorite teachers are bullied and disempowered for fear of losing our jobs. We have learned to embrace mediocrity at the expense of progress. Schools need new leadership at the top, but at the very least, the school board must implement policies that recruit and retain quality educators who are dedicated to meeting the needs of all their students through intentional and innovative practices, even if the change is jarring to some. Every school has the potential to be high-performing, with caring teachers who are lauded for their unwavering commitment to progress and justice. The alternative is an antagonistic work environment that denigrates the teaching profession and stifles the passion of teachers who have invested a great deal of time, money, and energy in serving the needs of their students. And this, unfortunately, is how many schools currently operate.