The Teachers: A Year Inside America's Most Vulnerable, Important Profession

Teachers deserve a safe working environment in which violence is not tolerated from students, parents, or staff, and educators can report it and other transgressions without fear of retaliation.

Teachers deserve a well-defined, realistic job description and enough protected school day planning time to fulfill that job within their paid contracted hours.

Teachers deserve to helm every committee determining school operations rather than policymakers who proclaim what should happen in the classroom despite never having taught in one.

The pandemic further exposed the nation’s shameful mistreatment of teachers, which remains underaddressed. As school staff fled the profession, districts ordered teachers to take on additional roles, such as substituting for other educators during their lunch and planning periods or supervising students from other classes alongside their own. By 2022, when there were 567,000 fewer public school educators than before the pandemic, a National Education Association (NEA) survey found that three-quarters of its members were handling extra responsibilities and/or covering for coworkers.

Madam, that is not part of the job and I resent that,” Miguel said. “You’re implying that teachers aren’t supposed to feel safe on the job and that’s completely uncalled-for.

What if the premise of teacher burnout is a myth, a convenient fiction that blames teachers for not being able to cope rather than faulting school systems that set both teachers and students up to fail? Instead of presenting the problem as “teachers have the highest burnout levels,” we should reframe the issue: “School systems are the employers worst at providing necessary supports and resources for employees.

Maryland’s largest school district grants teachers a ridiculously paltry two days of paid maternity leave—zero employer-paid days for adoptive leave, paternity leave, or other family leave issues—and actively opposed a state bill to improve paid family leave.

By the fall of 2021, schools across the country had lost a staggering number of teachers, paraeducators, substitutes, bus drivers, and other staff who quit, retired early, got sick, or died because of the pandemic. In September 2021, 30,000 public school teachers gave notice. Florida had 67% more teacher vacancies than the previous year. California's largest school district had five times the number of teacher vacancies as in prior years; Fort Worth, Texas, was close behind with four and a half times the number of vacancies. A small Michigan district lost a quarter of its teaching staff, while statewide there was a 44% increase in midyear teacher retirements. Lacking enough staff to operate, some schools across the country temporarily closed; hired students to serve lunch during school hours; grouped classes together in the cafeteria, where building services workers or untrained parent volunteers supervised hundreds of students; and/or asked the National Guard to fill in as bus drivers and substitute teachers.