America’s teachers are stressed, burned out, and underpaid

The survey, from the nonprofit Rand, found that teachers feel all three pain points at about twice the rate of comparable working adults, defined as ages 18 to 64 with a bachelor’s degree and at least a 35-hour work week. And nearly three times as many teachers report difficulty coping with work-related stress.

They say most of their stress stems from managing student behavior, administrative work outside of teaching, and low salaries—low salaries of about $70,000 compared to $88,000 for similar colleagues, making only 36% of teachers consider their base salary adequate. compared to 51% of other working adults.

That’s especially frustrating considering the long hours required, with teachers reporting that they work nine more hours a week than similar working adults, an average of 53 hours a week.

The fourth annual Rand State Teacher Survey is a nationally representative, annual survey of 1,479 K-12 public school teachers across the US, sponsored by the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) and the National Education Association (NEA) and presented using the findings. from a separate 2024 American Life Panel survey of 500 working adults.

‘Conditions, Compensation, and the Culture Wars’

Among Rand’s findings:

• Women reported significantly higher rates of work-related stress and burnout than male teachers, a pattern that has not changed since 2021.
• Black teachers are less likely to report experiencing work-related stress than white teachers—but they are more likely to say they intend to leave their jobs at their schools.
• Teachers may say they intend to leave their jobs as working adults.

“Teachers enter this field because of their deep commitment to helping children learn and succeed. They, supported by their unions, threw themselves into the work of helping students to recover academically, socially and spiritually. They should be respected, admired and supported,” said Randi Weingarten, president of the AFT. Good luck.

“But this report also shows that conditions, compensations and culture wars have made their lives more stressful than their peers,” he adds. “Teachers do all the other work. It is past time to stop the inadequate funding, political attacks, low wages and substandard conditions and give them a real voice. When that happens, we begin to see our efforts bear fruit—as schools become places where parents want to send their children, teachers want to work and children grow well.”

Sy Doan, the lead author of the report, commented in a press release about the survey, “While the health of teachers appears to be stable at pre-pandemic levels, our data raises questions about the sustainability of the work of black teachers and female teachers. respectively.”

The findings are similar to those of the recent Pew Teachers Survey, which also found that teachers are less satisfied with their jobs than other workers—33 percent of teachers and 51 percent of all American workers expressed “high satisfaction.” It also found that: 77% of teachers say that their work is often stressful for them, 68% say that it is confusing, 70% say that their school is understaffed, and 52% say that they would not advise a young person starting today to become a teacher.

The recent results of this survey—especially that student behavior, non-teaching administrative work, and low salaries are the biggest contributors to teacher stress—certainly ring true for therapist Molly Lane. A former school social worker, she founded Teacher Talk to provide virtual therapy sessions specifically for teachers after she found herself drawn into “the sudden therapy sessions of teachers in the hallways” and realized that “they weren’t getting support, and they deserved more.” that I could give them in 5 minutes between classes.”

But the one who is at the top of the list of pressures on teachers, says Lane, “he feels pressured by families, by administrators, by many different people in many different ways,” he says, “and sometimes he feels that they can’t do a good job.” in any way.”

In his experience, teachers love their work and want to do a good job and be there for their students, but there are endless obstacles to that. “Inside, they put a lot of pressure on themselves. Then there’s the structure and the environment that makes it challenging for them to do the job to the best of their ability.” But that lack of control, he adds, can cause severe anxiety and depression.

That resonates deeply with Kate, a high school teacher in New York City who feels a special commitment to low-income students, especially recent immigrants who often struggle with academic and behavioral problems. He is called by his first name for privacy. He says: “Just this year we lost two students,” one to gang-related violence Good luck. Some live in foster homes or foster homes or on parole.

He says: “I’m really worried about them at the weekend. “And their behavior is terrible,” much of it still coming from COVID, when many children are losing their social skills. Add to that basic responsibilities—teaching, doing homework twice a week, grading work, and now she’s preparing for a new bilingual program in the fall where she only speaks English, and, she says, “It’s very stressful.” And that’s just his work life.

“One thing we sometimes forget,” Lane noted, “is that teachers are people too, with their own lives.” And the usual worries at home can be compounded by the stress of work—especially when teachers are still working, in many ways, in the long shadow of the pandemic.

“Those challenges helped us see the importance of teaching, and many thought that once things returned to normal, things would be better,” said Lane. Instead, what he revealed about teaching is that “at its core, it’s very stressful.”