8/17/20
Coming back this year was different. It was Thursday, Aug. 6, the same day that the Houston area reported its new single-day high for deaths from Covid-19. Instead of gathering, we all tuned into a Zoom meeting from our separate classrooms. There was no buzz in the air, and we weren’t hugging and chatting. We were talking about how long we had: a few weeks of virtual teaching before students returned to our classrooms on Sept. 8. Or maybe sooner. We’ve been told our start date is subject to change at any time. We asked about short- vs. long-term disability plans on our insurance. We silently worried about a colleague who has an autoimmune disease. We tried not to react from inside each of our little Zoom squares as we began to realize there was no way of maintaining true social distancing when school reopened. I invite you to recall your worst teacher. Mine was my 7th grade science teacher, whose pedagogical approach consisted of our reading silently from our textbooks. She sent a message loud and clear: “I really, really don’t want to be here.” We are about to see schools in America filled with these kinds of teachers. Even before Covid-19, teachers were leaving the profession in droves.
You would think states would panic upon hearing this. You would think they’d take steps to retain quality teachers and create a competitive system that attracts the best, brightest and most passionate to the profession. That’s not what they do. They slash the education budget, which forces districts to cut jobs (increasing classroom size), put off teacher raises and roll back the quality of teachers’ health care. So, a lot of good and talented teachers leave. When state leaders realized they couldn’t actually replace these teachers, they started passing legislation lowering the qualifications, ushering under-qualified people into classrooms. This has been happening for years. We’re about to see it get a lot worse. And then the education secretary, Betsy DeVos, told us — while Covid numbers continued to surge — to get back in the classroom. Already, I’ve learned of some of the most treasured teachers in our building turning in their resignation letters, and I worry that more of my colleagues may make the gut-wrenching decision to walk away. If we force teachers to return to schools at their own peril, I don’t know how many will stick around. The politicians know they can’t replace us. But they’ll lower teaching qualifications until they do.
