I’ve been a teacher since before standardized testing became the end-all, be-all measure of student success and teacher effectiveness.
I taught before there were phones in classrooms. I remember handwriting report cards, using duplicating machines, and teaching with overhead projectors. I watched the shift from handwritten grade books and planners to early computerized systems—back when we still had to print everything and send it home with students. I remember the day we got our first classroom computer, the day district email arrived, and the moment they installed the first teacher-only phone line in our classroom (which still couldn’t receive outside calls). All of this has happened in just the last 30 years.
But as technology advanced, something else changed too.
Discipline became a dirty word. Consequences became seen as punitive and unacceptable. Expectations became impossible. Standardized tests began driving everything, while real learning, creative thinking, and handwriting quietly disappeared from the curriculum. Teachers became overloaded with requirements that never stopped piling up. More was added every year—nothing was ever taken away.
Then came the pandemic. And everything that had once felt difficult became unmanageable.
Behavior in classrooms declined sharply. Students who constantly disrupted learning were no longer removed, instead, they triggered class-wide evacuations called “room clears.” Teachers were expected to meet the needs of 30 or more students, including a third or more with IEPs, while tracking behavior charts every 15 minutes for 10 or more students. We were told these were “non-negotiables,” even when they made quality teaching impossible.
We were told to “differentiate for every learner,” but never given the time, support, or resources to do it.
Meanwhile, our planning and grading time was stripped away. We were pulled to cover for absent colleagues without compensation. Many teachers had fewer than 20 minutes to eat lunch—on a good day. And when we got sick? The burden of writing sub plans often meant we came in anyway.
All of this while our pay stagnated—or declined. For six straight years, I saw my take-home pay shrink as insurance premiums rose and salaries stayed flat. And yet the demands kept growing. The level of education required increased. The stress mounted. And the respect for teachers vanished.
Let’s be clear: Teachers don’t choose their students. They don’t control who walks through their classroom door, or how far behind those children might be. But when test scores don’t measure up? Teachers are blamed.
We are asked to do the impossible. New teachers burn out quickly and leave. Veteran teachers hold on until their health gives out, or they retire early, or leave the profession entirely—often taking second jobs just to make ends meet along the way.
The system is collapsing under the weight of unrealistic demands, unfunded mandates, and a legacy of low pay for what was once dismissed as “women’s work.” And no one in power seems willing to make the structural changes needed to save it.
Where does it end?
It’s no mystery why teachers are leaving in record numbers. Or why fewer young people are choosing to enter the profession. They know what we know: It’s not just hard to make a living as a teacher today—it’s nearly impossible.
