Why Are Teachers So Unhappy?

Originally appeared in Word in Black By Joseph Williams A new survey finds teachers at high-poverty (read Black) schools are dealing with far more than assigning lessons and grade papers. Four years after a global pandemic completely disrupted their profession, a new survey of the nation’s public school teachers found disturbingly high, across-the-board percentages of them who are stressed out or upset about nearly every aspect of their career, from work-life balance to institutional support and low pay. But the Pew Research Center survey also found even higher levels of frustration among teachers working in high-poverty schools, which tend to have large percentages of Black and Latino students. “The vast majority of teachers say that the overall state of public education has gotten worse.”- LUONA LIN, PEW RESEARCH CENTER Besides dealing with poverty, chronic absenteeism, and mental health issues in the classroom, those teachers say they also must manage disengaged parents, student disruptions that sometimes become abusive, and school administrators who they believe don’t really support them, according to the survey.  And, like their colleagues in more affluent districts, they wouldn’t recommend the job to anyone. “Teachers are really not happy with their jobs,” says Luona Lin, a Pew research...