Greenwood Commonwealth. July 1, 2022.
Editorial: Teachers Tell Why They Left
The Mississippi Legislature came through for public school teachers this year, approving a $5,000 salary increase that for once elevated the state above the average Southeastern pay for educators.
That was a good move by lawmakers, one that should not be discounted. But a report on the Mississippi Today website says a lot of teachers left their jobs at the end of the 2021-22 school year. Interviews with a few of them make it clear that higher pay is just one of many challenges the education field faces.
Mississippi Today cited state Department of Education figures that said 5,800 teachers — accounting for 17% of the state’s education work force — left their school district at the end of this year.
That overstates the turnover rate because the data does not specify whether these teachers took a job in a different school district, found different work or retired. But even if only a small percentage of those teachers actually left the business, it will compound the state’s existing problem of teacher retention.
Just last December, the Department of Education said that the state had more than 3,000 openings for certified teachers — meaning that about 10% of the state’s 32,000 education jobs were either vacant, filled by a substitute or by someone without the proper certifications.
The most relevant information in the story came from teachers themselves, who told why they left their jobs. Broadly speaking, they felt disrespected and burdened with extra responsibilities. They disliked staff meetings that took away from their lesson-planning time, and were disappointed in a lack of freedom in their work — by having to “teach to the test” instead of being able to try something different and creative.
One teacher, who left after seven years, put it this way: “I found myself with nothing left to give to the people who are supposed to matter the most to me. I was looking for a work-life balance that all people are trying to grasp, but nobody is respecting teachers enough to give them.”
Another teacher left a high-performing district because she found it impossible to get her work done in a reasonable amount of time: “I wasn’t willing anymore to sacrifice my free time and my mental well-being, unpaid, for a job that doesn’t celebrate our achievements.”
A 15-year teacher left her job in DeSoto County for another school in next-door Memphis, where she makes more money and gets paid twice a month. Mississippi teachers get paid once per month. She said twice-a-month pay would help teachers with budgeting their money.
Student loans are a factor, too. A group called Mississippi First reported in January that college debt puts pressure on teachers, as it would with people in any job, to seek work that pays better. In a curious aside, this report said that 25% of teachers in F-rated school districts owe $100,000 or more in student loans, while only 5% of those in A or B districts do.
The message is that the big pay raise helped, but money is not the only issue for teachers. The state and its school districts can address some of the other problems teachers cited. If a few changes convince more of them to stay on the job in Mississippi, it will be worthwhile.
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Tupelo Daily Journal. July 2, 2022.
Editorial: MDOT Commissioner John Caldwell’s petty protest wastes valuable time
There is no good excuse for Northern District Transportation Commissioner John Caldwell to have held up $100 million in federal infrastructure spending across the state — including $32.4 million in north Mississippi.
Caldwell was the lone “no” vote Tuesday on spending the Emergency Road and Bridge Repair funds. Because of state law, which still governs how these particular federal funds are spent, the three-member transportation commission must unanimously approve the projects before the funds can be spent.
Caldwell received the plans a week before the vote, but he said he needed more time to consider them. He also made some handwaving statement about “internal communications issues” but refused to explain what that meant.
We are not sure how the other two commissioners could have been prepared to vote, but Caldwell could not. Perhaps there were extenuating circumstances for which anyone could sympathize. However, when your vote is crucial to $100 million worth of projects getting started across the state, there really are no excuses for an elected official to not be prepared.
The more prominent reason, however, seems to be that Caldwell was trying to make a political statement. We understand there is tension between Caldwell and some staff at the Mississippi Department of Transportation, perhaps even with other commissioners. However, playing politics like this hurts our communities and the people who will be doing these jobs.
Politics being at play is further substantiated by the fact that Caldwell did not give any notice prior to the vote that he needed more time.
“The results of that scoring process were provided to the three commissioners, the advisory council and others a week ago,” MDOT Executive Director Brad White said. “And Commissioner Caldwell was the only one who expressed a need for more time — and he didn’t do that to me until today.”
Caldwell said he will likely vote to approve the projects at the next commission meeting.
“I don’t expect too much of a delay,” Caldwell said.
Bu with inflation and supply chain issues, even a two-week delay can be costly for these projects. In fact, the new list of projects is a lot smaller than the original list because of how prices have changed over just a few months.
We expect better from our elected officials. This kind of petty politics hurts the people he serves. It should not happen again.
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