Why Teachers Are Dropping Out; by Jennifer Berkshire

Jennifer Berkshire, expert education journalist and co-author of A Wolf at the Schoolhouse Door, writes in The Nation about the forces driving teachers out of the schools. Some teachers site " Arne Duncan's bad teacher” narrative -- his insistence that teachers be evaluated, based on their students’ test scores, which is both ineffective and inaccurate. His and Obama’s “Race to the Top” was deeply demoralizing to teachers, accomplishing nothing.  Says one teacher, "Teaching is a job that takes from you, takes from you, and takes from you; Post-pandemic, it’s been a lot of take. Teaching has not just become harder; it was a worse job than when he’d started six years ago. In 2017, Republicans took control of the state and immediately moved to strip public employees, including teachers, of most of their collective bargaining rights."