Empty Classrooms, Abandoned Kids: Inside The Great Teacher Resignation | NYT Opinion

So many parents refuse to raise their kids right today, no wonder so many leave or retire early. Same issue in my country where issues like the summer pay gap dont exist.

This is what a larger culture of American anti-intellectualism results in on the ground level. We could easily afford to provide more support (financial or otherwise) for public education if we actually cared to do so. But we don't.

Hey NYT the so-called "restrictive" laws that you are referring to are being passed to stop CRT and Drag Queens from coming into the classroom and grooming kids. Typical NYT hatchet job. Demonizing parents and legislators that don't want kids being groomed into becoming sexual deviants.

In NYC American kids have to aid the teachers in helping teach the migrant kids

As a teacher myself, we just need more teachers and smaller classroom sizes. Their behavior is getting hard to manage and when the classroom sizes are over 30 you have no control

Them: we aren't indoctrinating kids.. interviews teacher with LBGTQ flag hanging in class.. I mean - I'm just saying that this what what people are worried about. Waits for attack

Better than having people trying to trans gender kids.

Kids don't give two $4itz if a teacher shows up. They don't see it as abandonment, they see it as a victory that they made another one quit or they got another one fired. The message that is sent directly to the kids is "they are running the school"

In 1966, academia moved from teaching fundamentals to social engineering. Academia has made a mess of things and now the incompetence of teachers, instructors, and professors has come back to haunt them. Academic social engineering has failed everyone, including teachers. The real answer lies in developing alternatives to the teacher-centric academic paradigm. Teachers do not deserve more pay, children deserve a better paradigm.

i am curious if there is any correlation between divorce rates and/or having both parents working full time and the rise in problematic behaviors among children/teens. You can be a loving parent and still be neglectful. nowadays parents expect teachers do everything in addition to teaching and then get upset at teachers for not being able to do the impossible. in fact many parents are just as badly behaved as their kids.

Twenty years ago I was saying that the legislature, school boards, admin, and the testing companies had sucked the joy out of teaching…

Kids' interests changed. Plus, the internet has taken over minds, I think its better too, at home more and safer.

I've been a teacher and I've been a hobo. I preferred being a hobo.

If I were a teacher, I would enter the classroom before my students arrive to the campus. It is how to de-💩for the big annual salary.

I was a second year teacher and I had my first pregnancy that ended in a miscarriage. The admin had been horrible to me and parents weren't disciplining their kids. I was so stressed. I taught a few more years and had 4 more miscarriages then I quit. I rested....then had a healthy pregnancy. I'm home with my 10 month old son now. I have a Master's in Teaching. I could only make $45,000. What a waste. My husband doesn't want me to go back.

Teachers in FL are not being censored…. FL is just too expensive people can’t afford to teach and live there! That’s why there’s a shortage and on top of that so man people are moving here

It is heartbreaking to witness this happening to the US. I really hope democracy will not be lost and that one day the good in the world will win.

I really hope enough people will demand a functioning social system, healthcare, education in return for their taxes. Please don't give up. If everyone just agrees the system is broken nothing will change.

It seems very intentional to me. Uneducated people are easy to manipulate. Companies and the persuit of power and money is what drives the USA. You live in an ant farm and you are being milked.

Yet you have those wanting an endless stream of children. 😳

I substituted at a high school with 3 student teachers. By the next year, one remained and two decided not to teach and found new careers.

I left the school district because of covid. I was doing 3 positions at the school for 25K a year. I left and many others in education at end of 2022 year.

I agree with many of the comments and general points in the video. One thing I don't agree with is that K-12 public education in the US is underfunded.

We're spending $795 billion per year on K-12 education between the federal, state and local levels. This is far and above any of our peer nations and much more than many nations that outperform us on educational results. The overall funding is not the problem. The use and allocation of funding is the problem.

I don't blame the teachers. I blame the administrators and school boards as well as state and federal level bureaucrats for how hundreds of billions of dollars are being mis-spent.

Take my local school district. Average class size is 20 and per capita spending per student is $16,270 = $325,400 per classroom in revenue. The teacher's all in compensation with benefits takes between 1/4 and 1/3 of that total amount, let's say $100,000. That leaves $225,400 of revenue going into that one classroom. So why do teachers need to pay for supplies or other work related items? Where did the other $225,400 go?


When my kids were in school, I did a lot with the local school district, raising money for various programs. I encountered layers of administrators making more money that I was (and certainly more than the front line teachers) asking me to raise money. Superintendents are my favorite example - we had one local superintendent then there were regional superintendents then state level ones. All of them making multiple hundreds of thousands per year then retiring with very nice pensions (at enormous expense).

Meanwhile, we're short on front line teachers, we're short on program funding, we're short on supplies. One of those superfluous superintendents could have funded the school supply budget for the whole school or funded 2 to 4 teaching positions or any number of other useful front line things.

And don't even get me started on the consultants - so much money going to consultants for tasks that we had internal staff to do.

There is little money in teaching but there is a lot of money to be made in education. Until that gets reversed, these problems will continue.

Parents are failing due to the prevailing social culture

Trump loves the uneducated and the GOP and wealthy donors are going to be sure that we have as many as possible. 1984 is here we will be completely controlled soon if the citizens don’t wake up to the con being run on them. Vote blue.

This was good until you guys plugged in the gender crap.

We still have 3 unfilled positions and another teacher broke down in tears last week.

The reasons why I am leaving the classroom at the end of this school year! 😞

Administrators earn six figure salaries meanwhile teachers earn $25K?

I quit in 3 days.

Policians are destroying schools

Teachers are being paid 25k slave wages because parents are complaining about P_N in schools. thanks new york times

No child held accountable

The fall of every empire comes shortly after a decline in education. Our country is on a steep decline.

Kids are so disrespectful. No more consequences and no more listening to teachers and their concerns. 😮 They are addicted to cell phones. The end is nigh.

Despite everything, DeSantis is right. Teachers should teach students Science/Math/English/Social Studies not Gender Studies.

Weak minded adults teaching weak minded kids... great

WRONG! The real loser is this country!

And teachers, Thank You!

Wait a second, teachers are striking/quitting because they’re overworked and underpaid, and then you say a big part of them quitting is because of censorship? No mention of deadbeat parents? Or the overpaid school administrators? Or the overwhelming success of charter schools?

Education system is crumbling because America as a whole is crumbling.

Use technology to teach students

They want subs but teach them like dog mess.

Between the million of hats you have to wear, the lack of backbones in administrators to support their teachers, pay that is not much better than a fast food worker, and parents blaming teachers for their children's lack of responsibility with life, you cannot blame them. My wife and I were teachers 5+ years ago and left for better prospects. If you could feel less stress, make more than double the money, and work from home, why would anyone teach in the current education climate?

I would love to see some republicans try to be teachers. These people (🐘) don't even know basic Biology.

The opinion writer has clearly not been in the classroom in the last 20 years. The problem is not censorship of what we can teach. We have never been allowed to teach all the sexual stuff to little kids and it's been fine. Now this new political movement want TO teach that crap to little kids. No, that's not ok and teachers are not quitting out of frustration with that. It is kids' behavior, parents not parenting, and teachers having to manage behavior while teaching the rest of the class. It's impossible sometimes, and admin needs to step up and support teachers with disruptive students. We aren't getting that help, and it's killing us. That's the problem!
Don't make it about censorship. That's NOT IT.

I went to what is probably the best resourced public schools in Massachusetts( right next to 5 colleges for Christs sake) and we had a lack of teachers, there are literally thousands of education students right next door and we couldn’t get more then one to stay