“I have a nine-year-old son, and I walked away from a desk job to study education because I can’t imagine doing anything else besides teach,” a Mitchell College education student told legislators. “My salary starting out in the classroom may not even match what I was making at my last job though, and I’ll have student loans to pay back. It’s hard on my family.”
The Mitchell student was one of a dozen CEA Aspiring Educators to share their story with Education Committee Co-Chair Rep. Jennifer Leeper and Co-Vice Chair Rep. Kevin Brown at a recent meeting at CEA headquarters.
The aspiring educators stressed how difficult the path to teaching is today with costs that mount during unpaid student teaching and low salaries once they finally enter the profession and begin to pay back student loans.
“My cooperating teacher is 28, and she told me that if it wasn’t for her fiance’s financial support she’d have to live with her parents,” a Quinnipiac master’s degree student said.
While early-career educators struggle financially, the same is true for students in education preparation programs who must work for free while student teaching.
“I’m at school from 7:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. every day, I live with roommates, and I have had to pick up two part-time jobs to make ends meet,” the Quinnipiac student said.
The aspiring educator said she doesn’t want to have to rely on her parents’ financial support as a master’s student but acknowledged she is fortunate to have family she can turn to if necessary—a luxury many education students don’t have.
“I’m working as a building sub this entire year, and I can’t do the things that other recent college grads with normal jobs do—things like getting a coffee on the way to work in the morning or not gritting my teeth while I pump gas.”
She continued, “If I didn’t have to work night jobs after my day job, I could plan with my cooperating teacher and talk to my principal. I don’t think three jobs as a master’s student should be necessary.”
Several undergraduate aspiring educators pointed out that, because they are student teachers, they are not allowed to be left unsupervised with students. This leads to the absurd situation where, when their cooperating teacher is absent, the student teacher takes over teaching duties for the class without receiving any remuneration while a substitute teacher is paid to sit in a corner and simply watch the class.
“Watching someone else get paid to simply watch the class while I work for free feels so disheartening,” a UConn student said.
Beyond the lack of pay for student teaching, the aspiring educators said they also face burnout due to large class sizes and inadequate supports for students
A University of St. Joseph student who taught in a third-grade class last year said her cooperating teacher had seven students with IEPs in the classroom and no support. The aspiring educator helped those students the five weeks she was at that school, but the teacher later told her that the district never hired a para for her class.
“One of the students was hard of hearing and would shut down. The teacher had to call the office for help every day,” the aspiring educator said.
A Quinnipiac student reported that in a general education classroom she’s worked in, the teacher has five students with IEPs and no para. The principal requires the teacher to pull seven small groups a day.
“She can’t leave those five students in their seats doing independent work while she pulls students for groups. We need more special education teachers and paras in our schools.”
“I’m student teaching in a district that does have smaller class sizes, but I’ve still seen how hard it is for teachers to meet students’ diverse needs without adequate support,” the Mitchell student said. “Lots of teachers have volunteers come in because they can’t manage three small groups at a time otherwise. Without support, some students are just sitting there and staring at their paper.”
“When you’re in a seventh-grade classroom with 25 eleven- and twelve-year-olds, several with IEPs, you feel like you’re just putting out fires,” a UConn student said. “You need at least two adults to help things move along. Without that you run into health and safety issues—at that age, the kids are almost as tall as you are. In my first year in the classroom, there was a student who the teacher I was working with had to call the dean for every day. The teacher had to physically block him from the classroom to protect the other kids.”
“We’re bleeding potential educators,” another UConn student said. “We lose four out of 10 members of our Aspiring Educators Club every semester. When you’re in a classroom and trying so hard to help kids but you don’t have the time to help everyone you end up feeling so helpless, and that helplessness drives people away from the profession.”
Legislators respond
Rep. Brown, a CREC social studies teacher, told aspiring educators that he has faced many of the same situations and frustrations that they shared during the meeting.
“My burnout led me to decide to run for office,” he said.
Legislators need to give careful consideration to what laws will look like when they’re implemented in the classroom, Brown said.
“What looks good on paper doesn’t always play out well. There can be lots of unintended consequences.”
Brown said there are now 10 educators in the legislature and that having elected officials with firsthand classroom experience is important to enacting better education laws.
“Know that I’m there for you and will continue to push and advocate for the issues you’ve raised,” he said.
While educators in the legislature and many members of the Education Committee understand the challenges teachers face, Brown stressed that aspiring educators need to share their personal stories widely.
“Your lived experience goes a long way. We’ve seen it shift opinion and move people on certain issues,” he said. “Whether at the legislature or at your local town board of education, go and be persistent. Be a voice to share your story and move the needle. It may move slower than you’d want it to, but you really do have power to make change.”
“Getting involved with your local board of education is so instrumental,” Rep. Leeper said. “So much of what impacts schools day-to-day happens at the local level. Also know who the state representatives and senators are for where you work and live—make sure they’re hearing from you. Your elected representatives need to know what the consequences are if we do not act.”
