Deb McCarthy followed a family path into public education, becoming a fifth-grade teacher in the same small coastal Massachusetts town where her mother taught for more than 50 years.

But after 25 years, she walked away from the classroom last year. For McCarthy, it was a singular issue that prompted her to leave the job: the state’s over-reliance on high-stakes testing to gauge teacher and student performance.

“It was probably one of the hardest decisions I’ve ever made,” she said. “I’d planned to be a teacher for the rest of my life. But I went into this profession to be an educator, not a test proctor.”

Over the past two months, reporters from CNHI Newsrooms nationwide have sought to examine the growing shortage of teachers in some geographic regions and some subject areas and to identify the issues that may be driving it for this multi-part special report, “Leaving the Classroom.”

McCarthy, now the vice president of the Massachusetts Teachers Association, said over-testing is only one of the many issues prompting veteran educators to walk away from the classroom. Other issues include low pay and benefits, dwindling financial resources for public schools, stressful working conditions and a general lack of respect for educators.

A 2022 poll conducted by the National Education Association found that “educator burnout” was the top reason for teachers considering leaving the profession, with 90% of more than 3,600 respondents saying it was a “very serious” issue for them.

That included residual stress from the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as unfilled job openings that led to more work for remaining teachers, the union’s pollsters found.

Sally Stanhope, a social studies and world history teacher at Chamblee High School in Georgia, said teacher workloads seem to be a huge factor in burnout among teachers. She knows of teachers who have left the job because they’ve been pushed to the limit with the requirements of the job.

“You can work 24 hours a day and you can still have something to do, and you would still be blamed,” she said.

Leaving earlier than planned

More than half, or 55%, of respondents to the NEA poll said they are more likely to leave or retire sooner than they had planned.

When he retired at age 55, former English and humanities teacher Norman “Doug” Mullins felt overwhelmed. He started teaching at Mankato (Minnesota) East Senior High School in 2003 and made a decision to leave last June after feeling increased pressures of the job.

“I just didn’t know how much longer physically and mentally I could keep teaching, so because I had that safety valve, I took it,” he said.

Rachel Aufman, an educator from Johnstown, Virginia, recently walked away from teaching after a decade. She said the job left her “worn out,” and she cited a lack of civility among students, with some bringing bad attitudes into the classroom.

Betsey Vastbinder left her job as a middle school social studies teacher in Warsaw, Indiana, at the end of the 2020 school year for a job in the local teen court system. Vastbinder, who was named her district’s teacher of the year in 2014, said she left over pay, state policies that assess teacher quality based on standardized tests and concerns about school shootings.

“I was thinking, ‘I could get shot for this?’” she said. “If you’re going to ask me to put my life on the line, you’ve got to let me do work I believe in that’s worth that level of sacrifice.”

Pay was the primary concern for Nicole Fain Mundi, who taught at the Kokomo School Corporation in Indiana for 18 years before she left in 2021 for a third-shift job at an automotive plant. The single mother of three said she wasn’t making enough money as a teacher to pay for own her children’s postsecondary education.

“That’s what it boils down to,” Mundi said. “I mean, I still have student loans I have to pay for because the reality is that my pay didn’t come anywhere close to keeping up with inflation.”

Staying vs. leaving

Despite increasing pressure on teachers, some say they plan to stay in the classroom.

Mary Henry, who teaches English at Peabody High School in Massachusetts, left a successful job as an attorney 25 years ago to become a teacher. She was willing to accept the cut in pay, but said she understands why so many are leaving the profession.

“Teaching is a much harder job than people think,” she said. “It’s always been a difficult job, but it’s changed so much in recent years. There’s a real lack of respect for teachers nowadays.”

Henry said pay and benefits that don’t keep up with the rising cost of living and record high inflation has squeezed many younger teachers.

“We got a 3% raise this year, but the inflation rate was double that, and health insurance premiums go up,” she said. “If you’re constantly losing money every year, people are going to go find jobs in other professions. You can’t blame them.”

One educator considering other professions is Evan Baker, who teaches Spanish in the Southbridge School District in Massachusetts, which has one of the largest turnover rates in the state among educators.

The district went into state receivership five years ago because of its low academic performance, and teachers have been departing in droves, he said.

Baker said he never intended to teach for more than 10 years, but after three years on the job, he’s considering changing professions.

He cites rigid curriculum and education policies that he says stifle innovative teaching methods.

“What I’ve seen over the past three years really made me reconsider my choice,” he said. “It’s unfortunate, but I don’t plan on staying in this profession much longer.”