Why Millenials Are Quitting Teaching

By Drew Nelles,  Newser Staff
Posted Aug 9, 2009 12:53 PM CDT
Why Millenials Are Quitting Teaching
Students at KIPP DC KEY Academy in Washington are rewarded on Fridays for behaving well, doing their homework or making academic gains. Rewards include wearing jeans on Fridays.   (AP Photo/Susan Walsh)

Sarah Fine arrived to teach at an inner-city school 4 years ago, ready to “‘give back’ after spending 22 years in a suburban, Ivy League bubble,” she writes in the Washington Post. Now, like so many other young teachers, she’s leaving—not just because she’s burned out, but also because she’s frustrated with how her profession is seen. In today’s ambitious generation, “it's unfathomable that anyone with real talent would want to stay in the classroom for long.”

“We are not used to feeling consistently defeated and systemically undervalued,” Fine says of her fellow Millenials, and until society considers teachers on par with doctors and lawyers, it’s the students who will suffer. “A teacher with experience is not always a good teacher,” she writes, “but a good teacher is always better after a few years of experience.”
(More teachers stories.)

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