Capitalists always have and always will fear the masses being educated. Educated people challenge. This is by design, and it's working.

I left for a plethora of reasons. Here I note a pay issue that stuck in my craw. The pay is poor, but perhaps what bothered me most about the pay is there is no stratification based on skill, hard work, and accolades, only how long you have stuck it out (public teacher in the US). The best teachers in a school are compensated the same as the worst. Perhaps this is a failing of my own psychology, but I grew tired of working hard to earn praise and accolades from administration, parents, and students, yet making less than the slacker next door because they were there before me. I was a STEM teacher and when I left I quickly tripled my salary as an engineer. In general I am super pro-union, but I can't stand behind the policy that pay is entirely divorced from efficacy and ability. All this said, there were very rewarding aspects of the job and I may go back part-time in the twilight of my career for partial retirement (at which point compensation will be of little consequence).

This isn't just a US problem either. In Australia they are scratching their heads trying to figure out how to attract and retain teachers. Instead of reducing workload and ensuring teachers are ready to teach out of uni, let's offer monetary rewards system to make them compete against each other and increase extra work they have to do to stay qualified. I left due to lack of support for my subject area (music) lack of opportunity to get out of primary school teaching, and mostly lack of support when it came to behaviours both from parents and the school heirarchy.

Why l don't quit teaching (for now)? Because we're approaching, at least in Europe, a really nasty recession and l have a permanent contract that'll allow me to weather it. Otherwise l'd quit tomorrow. Low pay, a lot of unpaid overtime, actual harassment from parents, and a general lack of respect on the basis that we get too many vacations. I'm, however,. exploring other options to quit as soon as l can. When we all quit and y'all have to homeschool your own kids you may start realising what we do. And if you don't l don't give af, anyway.

I really want to be a teacher when I'm older (Kindergarten-2nd grade age) and reading stuff like this is really sad. I'm still going to pursue it, but I really hope I don't quit after a year or two due to the challenges teachers face.

I taught college as an adjunct to see if I'd enjoy it. I hated it. The entitlement of students these days is insane. I had one student threaten me because she failed my class and couldn't graduate. She never came to class on time, her homework was always subpar with little effort, and she rarely turned anything in on time. I was up front with every student about expectations for attendance and assignments based on the college's requirements, not my requirements. Another student rated me horribly on the teaching review because "I didn't give enough time or support on group projects." I offered to stay after class so groups could work together or ask me questions after every class. 95% of the students hightailed it out of there when class was over then complained the assignments were too hard. It wasn't worth my time or the measly pittance I was paid.

I had to resign from my primary (elementary) school teaching role because the long hours combined with a fibromyalgia left me so exhausted- all my energy was spent preparing for lessons and keeping them differentiated and engaging, I had little energy left for behaviour management. Then I moved into kindergarten (preschool) teaching as I could have better hours. After 5 years I was again exhausted, plus anxious (partly from dealing with parents) and I was required to do a body of work to get my 'full registration' which was very stressful. Now I work in afterschool care where I have much less responsibility and I enjoy my job more.

I’m a para and I was put in a room with no teacher for 2 weeks, left to fend for myself but when I asked other teachers or anybody for a lesson plan or access to the sites we used was pushed aside and I’d have quit but I was all they had

I like the Veteran idea kinda' ....let's just fast track the next step and have the military be responsible for all public education. They have the budget and lack the patience for your problem child and garbage parents. They also have plenty in the budget to accomplish this. Seriously though, Republicans and parents simply don't respect teachers.