Teachers leaving profession in droves

Stephan Goyne entered teaching as a “fight the good fight” kind of guy, taking a job in East Oakland right out of college.

“I come from a family of teachers. It wasn’t even a question of whether to do that,” Goyne said. “The question was whether to do elementary, middle or high school.”

But after six years in the trenches — transferred from campus to campus, forbidden from organizing field trips and ordered to teach math only after lunch — Goyne left the profession.

Now he works in real estate and runs a Brazilian jiujitsu studio in Oakland.

“That last year, I had enough of it,” said Goyne. “The biggest skill you’re applying is crowd control. You’re not really having a say in the curriculum or what goes into it.”

Teachers stifled by bureaucracy and blocked from making decisions in their own classrooms are leaving teaching in droves, according to a new study by Cal State University’s Teacher Quality Institute.

Nearly 22 percent of California teachers leave teaching after four years, according to the Public Policy Institute of California. With this type of exodus, the Center for the Future of Teaching and Learning projects a 33,000-teacher shortage in California by 2015.

At high-poverty schools, one in 10 teachers leaves each year, either for a different campus or a new occupation entirely.

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Teachers leaving profession in droves
Contra Costa Times