Labor Landscape
One in four U.S. public school teachers said they are likely to quit within the next year – as only one third of them feel appreciated and safe, according to a new survey.
Just 35 percent of K-12 educators says “they matter a great deal’’ at their school, while almost one in five (19 percent) say they don’t matter much at all, according to a recent report released by the Walton Family Foundation, Gallup and the Mattering Institute.
Among those teachers who feel like they don’t matter, more than two-thirds (68 percent) described themselves as frequently burned out, and fewer than half planned to remain in education, the survey reported.
“Gone are the days when school was a safe place for teachers and students. Unfortunately, it seems that schools are now easy targets for people who decide that harming others is a legitimate release of their pent-up anger, spiraling depression, or unresolved personal issues,’’ said Paul A, Calabrese, a Pittsburgh consultant and writer.
There have been 27 school shootings this year resulting in injuries or deaths, according to Education Week. There have been 268 such shootings since Jan. 1, 2018. The latest shooting in Oregon killed a 25-year-old teacher and three children students.
Karen Litzinger, owner of Litzinger Career consulting, said she hears more about discipline and fights in the hallways and being assaulted by students as reasons for leaving the profession, than specifically fears of violence from a shooter coming into schools. “I’ve also had many clients who have considered teaching as a field and decided against it because of the changing negative nature of the profession on all counts. Makes me wonder about the future of the education system,’’ said Litzinger.
Nationwide, roughly 406,000 teaching positions are either vacant or filled by under-qualified teachers, which is about one in eight classrooms nationally. Nearly 44 percent of public schools reported having at least one vacancy in recent surveys. Hard-to-staff subjects such as math, science, special education and bilingual education consistently face the deepest shortages, according to Educators Rising, the national career and technical student organization.
The teacher pipeline in California, for example, has dwindled by half – in 2022, the state produced only about 50 percent as many teachers as in 2024, the latest figures available from Educators Rising. To plug gaps, districts have increasingly filled positions with teachers who lack full certification for the subjects they now teach. Alarmingly, 40 percent of California teachers report they plan to leave the profession in the next one to three years.
Educators rising also found that Pennsylvania is plagued by a teacher shortage. At the start of the 2023-2024 year there were approximately 865 teacher positions unfilled statewide. Even when positions are filled, many lack fully certified staff – about 17,000 Pennsylvania teachers were teaching outside their certified subject or grade classification.
The number of teachers nationwide has been dwindling for years, and New Kensington-Arnold Superintendent Chris Sefcheck is heading to Harrisburg to voice his concerns about that shortage to state legislators. Sefcheck will be at the state capital for this year’s Pennsylvania Needs Teacher summit, Nov. 10 by the National Center on Education and the Economy and Teach Plus Pennsylvania. The latter is a national nonprofit with offices in several states focused on education policy and teacher leadership opportunities.
Danielle Kearns Sixsmith, assistant professor of STEM education at DeSales University, said the teacher shortage is like trying to use a bucket to take water out of a sinking boat. “More and more teachers are being asked to manage behavorial issues before they can get down to teaching,’’ said Sixsmith.
Still, the survey by Gallup. Mattering and the Walton Family Foundation survey found that over a third (41 percent) of educators with low investment scores said they were likely to leave the profession, compared with 24 percent with moderate investment scores and just 12 percent with high investment scores.
To improve safety for teachers, security experts say a key thing to consider is installing panic buttons. These systems will alert other members of the staff, or even the police or other organizations that an issue has occurred, and help a teacher or staffer raise the alarm without leaving the classroom. Across some states in the United States, Alyssa’s Law has meant that these systems are mandatory.
The law is named for Alyssa Alhadeff, a 14-year-old student at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla. She was a victim on Feb. 14, 2018 when a former student killed 17 people in a mass shooting.
“I retired early from teaching because I just could not stand the violence and fear of being bullied myself as a teacher,’’ said Margie Wolfe of West Alexander, Pa. “Teaching is a mine field of problems today. It is a sad situation that our most valuable resource of educating tomorrow’s generation is circling the drain,’’ she said. “I am home schooling my grandchildren.’’
