We are losing experienced teachers, but we are not training new ones.
Retirement has always removed our most experienced teachers, but those losses have been offset each year by newly certified teachers entering the profession. That traditional equation is no longer in balance.
When teachers talk about abandoning the profession, they cite low pay, poor working environment, and lack of respect.
"Listening to the Front Lines,” a 2013 survey of teachers and administrators in NC, found a serious crisis in morale as described by the teachers themselves:
Today, attrition through retirement continues, but many mid-career teachers are also leaving. Some are taking their talents to states where they are paid better and respected more. Some, often reluctantly, are abandoning what looks more and more to them like a dead-end career.
“Teacher morale is low at my high school. We had the highest turnover record since I’ve been here with 35 positions changing. The best teachers I know are leaving. I am leaving.”
Worse still for North Carolina, the accelerated loss of active teachers is accompanied by a dramatic reduction in the number of people even considering a career in teaching. Applications to University of North Carolina schools of education are in serious decline.
"We have a looming crisis here in North Carolina and in other states as well. Last year, enrollment in UNC schools of education fell by 12 percent over the previous year. It has plummeted by a staggering 27 percent over the past five years. At the same time, we are losing our veteran teachers at an alarming rate. This is a recipe for disaster."
“Just as many of my colleagues are, I, too, am deflated by the condescension towards and lack of respect for teachers.”
“Teachers in NC are discouraged… I would discourage up and coming teachers from teaching in this state. Sad thing is, I love being a teacher.”
“I feel in my heart that most educators are teaching because they love children and truly enjoy seeing them grow and learn. The decisions being made have made a career that in times past was respected and valued feel minuscule and worthless.”
President Tom Ross
The University of North Carolina
"The erosion is steady. That's a steady downward line on a graph. And there's no sign that it's being turned around."
It is heartbreaking, but not uncommon today, to hear a teacher say, “I love teaching. Teaching is what I have always wanted to do. But I am realizing that I simply have to be looking at other options in my life.”
Dean Bill McDiarmid
The University of North Carolina School of Education
