By Aziah Siid
It’s no secret. Teachers are tired, overworked, overlooked, and flat-out under paid. Although many of the conversations about hiring and retaining teachers — especially Black teachers — were being discussed long before COVID-19, times are particularly tough. Education budgets nationwide are being crunched due to the end of pandemic-era aid from the federal government, and teachers have fewer resources to catch students up — plus students also need high-dosage intensive tutoring, after-school programming, and academic summer school, which teachers end up staffing.
Now a new report from RAND reveals that just like they expressed a year ago, teachers — particularly Black teachers — who once wanted to do nothing more than educate children are saying they’re ready to leave the profession.
For the report, researchers pulled information from the 2024 State of the American Teacher survey, which takes a look at kindergarten through 12th-grade public school teachers. Here are three takeaways from the analysis:
1. Black teachers were less likely to report experiencing job-related stress than white teachers, but they were significantly more likely to say that they intend to leave their school jobs — in addition to reporting lower base pay than their peers.
Despite studies showing Black students benefit from having at least one Black teacher during their K-12 education, Black teachers only make up 7% of the teaching workforce. If the Black teachers we do have quit, the result could be reduced academic achievement, lower self-esteem, higher absenteeism, and a higher likelihood of Black kids being referred to special education.
The impact of Black teachers quitting also shows up financially in majority-Black school districts. For example, among teachers in Philadelphia, “more than 15% of them quit each year, costing a district around $20,000 per lost educator in added recruitment and new training costs, not to mention disruptions to student learning,” according to the Learning Policy Institute.
To top things off, the issue of the ‘invisible Black teacher tax,’ is increasingly becoming a hot topic regarding the treatment and pay of Black teachers, especially in comparison to their white counterparts. Black teachers working in the K-12 public space are often subjected to longer hours, lower pay, and more responsibility, which are some of the reasons they are not only leaving the classroom, but also the profession entirely.
To counter this, organizations like the Center for Black Teacher Development work to help Black teachers stay in the classroom. But according to RAND, Black teachers are still more likely to say they’re walking out the door.
2. Teachers overall reported experiencing about twice as much job-related stress or burnout as comparable working adults and nearly three times as many had a tough time coping with stress.
Teachers feel added pressures to make sure students that are significantly behind academically get up to grade level, are proficient in an academic subject area — and actually graduate. Some of the other sources of stress include the intrusion of political issues, their limited voice in school decision-making, lack of support from administration, and, for some, even physically feeling unsafe at their school site.
Indeed, in states like Florida and Iowa, book bans and restrictions on the rights and freedoms of LGBTQ+ school community members are leaving teachers feeling frustrated, and often confused about what they can do to protect themselves and students.
To counter this, organizations like the American Federation of Teachers have teamed up with educators nationwide to solve the problems causing such chronic levels of stress.
3. Teachers overall desired roughly a $16,000 increase, on average, to consider their pay adequate.
One of the factors leading to high levels of stress and wanting to leave the classroom is inadequate pay. Side hustles like second, and third jobs — as well as sticking around to run after-school tutoring or extracurricular activities — are some ways teachers have tried to pull in extra cash.
According to the National Center for Education Statistics, nearly 60% of public-school teachers supplement their teaching salary with income through other jobs. Despite teachers working longer hours than comparable working adults in other professions, the only way educators feel like their pay is enough is to do more work.
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