Preview of Article:
Teaching’s Revolving Door
New teachers leave the profession at an alarming rate — and there's no single reason or easy solutions
Illustrator: Barbara Miner
In 2001, in the middle of the day in the middle of the year, Elaine* walked off her job as a 7th-8th grade science teacher with the Chicago Public Schools. Elaine, who had a master’s degree from Loyola University, had been with the Chicago schools for more than two years and had planned on being a teacher for life. She originally taught at a middle-class white school on the north side where test scores were exemplary and resources were plentiful — so plentiful that she had science textbooks not yet officially on the market.
At the same time, she felt unfulfilled, isolated, and sidetracked from her vision of working in a diverse, urban setting. She asked to be transferred.
Elaine was unprepared for the conditions at her new school, however. The problems were not with the African American, low-income neighborhood — Elaine herself was African American and had grown up on the city’s south side, where the school was located.
But she hadn’t expected that the students and teachers at the school would have so few resources and so little support from district administrators. What’s more, she found she had little hope that district policy makers would rid themselves of the racist assumptions she believes were at the heart of the school’s lack of resources and cavalier attitude toward student learning.
