Why Public School Teachers Don’t Want to Work in Indiana Anymore

Valerie Strauss has an article in today’s Washington Post about a big problem facing the state of Indiana. Evidently, educators aren’t too keen about teaching there these days. According to Strauss, the problem has become so acute that some schools have had a difficult time finding teachers to cover classes for the new school year. She noted that some state legislators want a committee to discuss the teacher shortage.

  

In addition to Indiana, teachers are also leaving others states as well. Strauss provided the reasons for the teacher shortage in some parts of this country:

What’s going on? Pretty much the same thing as in Arizona, Kansas and other states where teachers are fleeing: a combination of under-resourced schools, the loss of job protections, unfair teacher evaluation methods, an increase in the amount of mandated standardized testing and the loss of professional autonomy.

I think Strauss is right.

Strauss pointed out one of the things that happened in Indiana recently. She said that Governor Mike Pence and the Republican leadership “showed their respect for teachers by working very hard this year to strip power from Indiana Superintendent of Public Instruction Glenda Ritz, a veteran educator who won election to the post in 2012…Oh, by the way, she is a Democrat.  David Long, the Republican president of the Indiana Senate, said while explaining why the legislature would want to remove Ritz as chairman of the state Board of Education: 'In all fairness, Superintendent Ritz was a librarian, okay?'”

Perish the thought that a veteran educator/media specialist who won teacher of the year awards at two different schools should have any power as the Superintendent of Public Instruction!  

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Click on the the link to read Strauss's article Indiana’s got a problem: Too many teachers don’t want to work there anymore.