Teaching Feels Like a Dead-End Job. Here’s How Schools Can Change That. – EdSurge News

Within public education, growth options are almost entirely outside the classroom, either through administration, teacher education or curriculum development. One common path that some teachers will take to advance is to go back to school and pursue an administrative credential to become a principal or vice principal, but it is a significant pivot and career change.

While I also have incredible mentors in teaching, when I asked my closest mentor for constructive professional feedback before she went on a sabbatical, the only thing she did was implore me not to get pulled away from the classroom and into leadership, most likely due to the aforementioned ways teachers attempt to advance and move through the field of education.

Clearly, there is very little formal growth inherent or possible within teaching, which I believe impacts the retention of a highly skilled and diverse educational workforce. Bringing my perspective as a young professional to a high school, I have been endlessly frustrated with the disparity between what I want and am inspired to accomplish and what the system allows me to reasonably get out of any effort I put in.

Feeling Stuck

Another thing I’ve found difficult about this issue is that simply being a teacher doesn’t really say much about your job description; it doesn’t give any information about your particular working conditions, responsibilities, expectations or compensation because these vary so much from school to school, not to mention across the country.

Though I’ve only worked at one school, I have had the opportunity to collaborate with math and science teachers nationwide. From the poorest rural schools to the most elite boarding schools, I have become increasingly vexed by the lack of incentive structure or clear avenues of professional growth within the teaching profession that I could verbalize in a meaningful way in a resume or cover letter.

Other fields offer structured opportunities for career growth in several ways, including but not limited to some sort of organizational hierarchy in which promotions lead to increased compensation and different responsibilities. While this sort of promoting-from-within and workforce investment and development is not the case for every corporation or industry, in the teaching career, it is practically nonexistent.

Public school teachers are often limited geographically by pensions, so moving across state lines means forfeiting your hard-earned retirement benefits. In some states, there are required portfolios or observations teachers must complete to receive tenure, but pay bumps are not always a guarantee. Once you have taught for a certain number of years, eager teachers can work incredibly hard for at least a full year to receive National Boards Certification, but first, they have to pass the test — and, yet again, the reward may differ by state. California has a stipend for those who achieve this distinction but not an actual raise; in many states, it is a purely symbolic title with no financial compensation.

Meanwhile, in my previous job industry, many of my colleagues were able to seek out a more supportive environment where they could be competitively compensated and grow in their careers. Clearly, not all companies or other jobs have these opportunities, but even the ability to switch employers for upward career mobility is complicated for teachers. All of these hidden factors baked into the decentralized educational system can prevent teachers from the same level of fluid movement between schools and districts that their similarly educated peers in professional industries are used to. Ultimately, this hinders educators’ ability to navigate an employment landscape in a way that promotes their overall career growth and professional development.

Putting Your Money Where Your Labor Is

Many industries operate on the basic principles of rewarding talent for positive, sustained performance. In the many fractured systems that make up the overall U.S. education system, talent and effort often only lead to heartwarming notes, the occasional staff pizza party and more responsibilities with an ever-shrinking margin of effective compensation. With the lack of growth opportunities in this career, is it any wonder that recruiting and maintaining a diverse teaching workforce is an issue for our schools today?

There is no one-size-fits-all approach to addressing this issue. Districts and schools, whether public, private or charter, are all funded differently and have different methods for allocating their budgets. But in considering how to fix schools or taking stock of the current state and future of public education in the US, policymakers and stakeholders with any ability to make a change in their schools or districts should not discount the effect of developing a stronger route of professional advancement for teachers.

If we don’t build a better system, one that rewards extra labor and additional roles that come with being a teacher, we risk further creating the feeling that being a teacher feels like a dead-end job, and while some educators have come to this conclusion and left the field, I hope myself and other colleagues can feel the growth and necessary support we need in our careers to stay in the classroom.