Surveying Former Teachers at New America

“The pay was too low, and I couldn't feed my family with the salary,” said one respondent to my survey of former teachers at New America. It was in response to the question “Why did you choose to pursue another career?” Teachers are given the most important job there is and are underpaid, overworked, and underappreciated. I conducted this survey to get further insight into the conditions of teacher burnout and to hear from former teachers what would have made a difference. The answer was complicated; it is not as simple as only cutting the workload or raising pay. The responses vary, but what’s clear is that there needs to be a systematic change.

Teacher burnout matters because it impacts the future of education. Right now, there is a lingering teacher shortage which the pandemic enhanced. A 2021 survey by Frontline Education found that two-thirds of surveyed school districts were experiencing a teacher shortage. The recent teacher walkouts in Oklahoma and other states bring even more attention to the issue.

The idea to send out this survey to New America’s education policy team began when I was informally interviewing former teachers who work here. I realized that their teaching experience differed so much, and I was interested in adding even more perspectives. One former teacher mentioned that they chose to pursue another career because they wanted to make a great impact, which prompted the question of how many others felt the same. So, I developed a survey and sent it to all staff members on our education policy team requesting that former K-12 teachers respond, and the research began.

The survey consisted of nineteen questions, and there were eleven responses. Since the survey size was small, there are similarities between most respondents. Most of them taught at urban public schools for five years or less. Respondents taught a wide range of grade levels K-12.. The survey began with just demographic questions and slowly got into questions about what led them to teaching and their experiences with stress and needed support on the job. The limitations were that everyone who took the survey has left the career to pursue education policy, so my sample is not representative, but it was also a strength of the survey as it gathers a unique perspective from those who are still impacting the education system although they are no longer in the classroom.

Going into the survey, I thought a rise in pay was the easiest response to flaws in the education system. According to a 2018 Education Week article, “Teaching has long been viewed as a low-paid job.” Pay is in fact one problem with teaching as a career, there is research pointing out dissatisfaction with pay and even the link between dissatisfaction with pay and dissatisfaction with the job. However, respondents also focused on support from administration or time to collaborate with other teachers as important things they needed to succeed, showing that there are several ways to improve support for teachers. When the former teachers were asked what they needed most to be successful as a teacher, common themes were quality professional development, guidance, adequate planning time, and support from administration.

One response elaborates on the need for an equitable work environment, stating that, “I was only one of 3 teachers of color, and I came from a significantly lower socioeconomic background than my coworkers. I faced discrimination every day, and it hindered my ability to do my job.” Less than 20 percent of public school teachers are teachers of color, which may be related to the teaching environment. An article on the experiences of teachers of color notes, “The teachers believed their race and cultural background influenced their work in a way that was beneficial for students and the larger school community. But they also believed that those same attributes impeded their professional growth and created extra stress and obstacles.” This is in the form of extra responsibilities and expectations that contribute to teacher burnout.

Another response notes the need for professional development, stating that they needed “professional learning that supported my own development as an educator and the trust to implement it in my classroom.” One possible way to address the need for professional growth and recognition opportunities is with micro-credentials. As Melissa Tooley and Joseph Hood’s blog post notes, “micro-credentials could change the check-the-box culture of teacher professional learning by focusing less on the act of gaining information and more on the act of implementing that information to better serve students.” By allowing teachers a way to receive applicable training, they can be better prepared and more confident about their experiences in the classroom.

No one strategy can fix teacher recruitment, retention, and equity. But we can do much better. To create a better learning environment for students in the future, creating a better space for teachers should be prioritized. This survey may have addressed a few brief questions, but further research needs to be done to figure out what teachers need in order to be supported. An environment created by equity, targeted professional development, and collaboration should be the goal as we move forward.

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