Unsplash / Kenny Eliason
Officials with the Texas State Teachers Association blamed low morale on Gov. Greg Abbott's continued attacks against public school educators.
Roughly 65% of teachers surveyed in the Texas State Teachers Association's biennial moonlighting and morale survey said they seriously considered leaving the profession as the 2023-24 school year closed out last spring.
"I don't know how many of these teachers actually quit or retired early, because their responses were anonymous," TSTA President Ovidia Molina said in a statement released this week in conjunction with the survey. "But I fear many of them have left the classroom or will be leaving the classroom soon if our state leaders don't start supporting public education and educators and stop making political attacks against schools."
Texas teachers cited a lack of support from state leaders and low pay as their primary reasons for weighing a departure, according to the poll.
Conducted for the TSTA by faculty at Sam Houston State University, the 2024 survey recorded the second-highest percentage in the survey's 40-year history of teachers saying they considered leaving the profession. The highest was in 2022, when 70% of teachers said they wanted to quit.
TSTA's Molina attributed the low morale to Gov. Greg Abbott's continued attacks against public school teachers.
Indeed, the Republican governor spent the better part of the 2023 legislative session trying to ram school vouchers through the Texas Legislature while passing a diversity, equity and inclusion, or DEI, ban on college campuses. The Lone Star State also faces the second-highest number of book bans, with nearly 1,500 titles banished from libraries and campuses, according to an Axios report.
"Gov. Greg Abbott and his legislative allies have spent several years undermining the morale and reputations of teachers with inadequate school funding, proposed book bans, attacks on classroom diversity and laws imposing political restrictions on what teachers can teach," Molina said.
Abbott's continued attempts to dismantle public education could be why 87% of teachers surveyed said they either disagreed or strongly disagreed with the statement that legislators and other state leaders have a positive opinion of them, according to the TSTA.
The other key reason Texas teachers are heading for the exits is low pay, according to the survey.
The average pay of the 840 TSTA teacher-members included in the survey was $62,553 — far below the national average teacher salary of $71,699.
According to the survey, 33% of teachers took extra jobs during the school year. Of those moonlighters, 74% said their side hustle negatively affected their performance in the classroom but they need the extra money to survive.
Despite Texas posting a $33 billion surplus last year, Texas public school teachers spent an average of $856 of their own money on school supplies and another $405 monthly on health insurance, according to the TSTA.
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