Joanne Jacobs
Jun 242 min
"Teachers don't want 'combat pay'," says Robert Pondiscio, an American Enterprise Institute fellow. "They don't want combat."
Raising teacher pay is unlikely to to improve student outcomes he said in testimony to the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions last week. "Higher pay does not make a hard job easier to perform. It lifts no burden off a teacher’s shoulders, nor does it add hours to a teacher’s day."
If teachers feel overwhelmed, frustrated, disrespected, unsupported -- and sometimes endangered -- changing working conditions will do more than a pay bump to keep them on the job.
Teachers went on social media to respond to an Education Week story on anti-bias training focused on getting teachers to send fewer students to the office.
“You can’t classroom manage your way out of poor parenting and severe behavioral issues relating to special needs," writes Julie A. "And schools have left teachers with very little in the way of consequences and rewards.”
Sending disruptive students to the office is "does nothing," several teachers said.
Stress, student behavior and pay are the primary reasons Missouri teachers contemplate quitting, according to a recent union survey.
Soft-on-consequences discipline and out-of-control student behavior are driving teachers out, argues Daniel Buck.
Increasingly, teachers feel unsafe, reported the National Education Association in 2022.
Alabama has passed a Teachers' Bill of Rights that lets teachers remove students from their classrooms "for reasons ranging from disorderly conduct, to the intimidation of students or the teacher, to the use of abusive or profane language," reports Education Week.