Teachers in Los Angeles are burned out and priced out: report

Public school teachers in California are at their breaking point with more than 50 percent considering leaving the education profession altogether, as the country experiences a national teacher shortage that’s been decades in the making.  

Burnout, low wages and inflation are making teachers’ jobs even harder to do, and United Teachers Los Angeles (UTLA) published a new report saying that 70 percent of teachers within the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) have seriously considered leaving the profession. 

It’s a stark figure because LAUSD is the second largest public school district in the country that serves more than 600,000 students from kindergarten through high school at more than 1,000 schools. 

Three factors were identified to be driving the crisis: increased expectations, state-imposed standardized testing and inadequate wages. 

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Many teachers end up dealing with the repercussions of the job market’s low wages and a skyrocketing housing market through students they see during the day, as many of their parents end up taking on multiple jobs just to afford basic living expenses. That can create a burdensome responsibility for teachers, as UTLA found even before the pandemic that there were more than 17,000 unhoused students enrolled at LAUSD. 

Increasing standardized testing has also made teachers’ jobs more challenging, with UTLA arguing state and federal requirements have drained school budgets, wasted instructional time and sapped teacher and student morale. 

At LAUSD, officials have added even more standardized testing that is not required by the state or federal government. By grade six, an LAUSD student will have taken more than 100 standardized tests. 

All schools in the U.S. require states to rank their public schools according to their standardized test scores and those whose results did not improve on a separate list, which could result in school closure — known as the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001. 

States must require schools to implement standardized testing in math and English every year from third grade to eighth grade and then once in ninth through 12^th grade to receive federal funding —but many states tack on additional standardized testing requirements as a way to measure school systems and provide data to create more equitable systems. 

Wages are another glaring issue for UTLA, which found LAUSD teachers earned between $74,000 to $79,000 during the past five years, while other college degree workers earned between $94,000 to $101,000. 

That’s a gap of about 22 percent and something Los Angeles teachers are unable to get by on. 

“The costs of living have outpaced my salary and my priority is now my second job in order to make ends meet. Nearby districts pay more for the same positions are leading the push for my exit,” said one teacher in UTLA’s report. 

This isn’t a problem unique to Los Angeles, as a separate report from the Economic Policy Institute found that from 1996 to 2021, weekly wages of public school teachers adjusted for inflation increased just $29. 

However, California still pays more than other states, like Virginia, Florida, Arizona and Minnesota, which all were found to pay teachers on average less than $60,000 annually for the 2020-21 academic year. 

UTLA outlined solutions to its teacher crisis, starting with increasing pay with scheduled raises over two years, lowering class sizes, ending over-testing of students and increasing equity among schools and communities.  

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