What Patrick gets wrong about teachers

When I hear and read what Texas Lt. Gov Dan Patrick says about teachers, I get in my feelings, as the kids say.

I’m angry and sad. I liked school and loved my teachers so much I worked a stint as a teacher, returning to this newsroom a few years ago. Teachers, with all their skills, education and sacrifice, don’t deserve this.

I’m incredulous. I don’t believe Patrick. He’s lying.

What Patrick gets wrong about teachers is all of it. What he says and does to attack teachers and their students and schools is shameful.

Take what he said about teachers who quit.

“They’re leaving because they’re told to teach some things they don’t want to teach about sexuality to kids in the third grade. They don’t like the

pornographic library books that are in their school libraries,” he said.

Of course, his statement is blatantly false.

How can Patrick, who is married to a longtime school teacher, the son-in-law of a teacher and the father-in-law of a teacher, who claims to value teachers, disaparage them with blanket accusations and zero proof ?

I wonder what his teachers would say.

“I know the impact that a great teacher makes on the development of a child. We all remember the teachers who

made a significant impact on our lives,” he said in a news release about Senate Bill 9, which would have provided inadequate one-time teacher raises. That bill didn’t even pass, despite the state’s $32.7 billion surplus.

Instead of investing in Texas schools and teachers, there is an incessant push for private school vouchers that would take our state backward.

There have been quite a few studies on why teachers quit. Raise Your Hand Texas’ 2023 report found Texas teachers working 57 to 60 hours a week. It referenced the Charles Butt

Foundation’s 2022 Texas Teacher poll report, “Persistent Problems and a Path Forward” that found 77 percent of Texas teachers are considering leaving the profession, and 93 percent have taken concrete steps to do so.

But remember, the Texas Education Agency did its own study, which I shared in March.

In that column, I wrote about how in the report, “Developing a Thriving Teacher Workforce in Texas,” the Texas Teacher Vacancy Task Force focused upon three main policy category recommendations — compensation, training and support, and working conditions. Compensation ranked first.

Teachers aren’t paid nearly enough for the work they do.

The Raise Your Hand Texas report found the average starting salary for Texas teachers in the 2019-20 school year was $44,582. It found Texas ranked 35th in teacher pay, with teachers earning an average wage that is 78 percent of what other Texas college-educated professionals make.

But enough about reports our GOP lawmakers ignore. Let’s hear from teachers who quit this year.

A May 27 Facebook group post from a teacher who resigned offers insight.

“Alright. I’m out. Resigned after 13 years of doing everything for my district with not so much as a thank you. I feel completely exploited and taken advantage of. The only thing I know is that I will never go back.”

The former teacher said they’d rather stock groceries than work 80-hour weeks promoting inequities and paying for lip service to bureaucracy.”

Another former teacher replied: “Same. Last day was yesterday. I can’t even explain the relief I felt after turning in my keys and badge!”

And a different former teacher said: “I resigned after 23 years…with only 6 years left until retirement. It’s just too much!”

Former teachers. There’s quite a few of them. But teachers don’t leave because they don’t want to teach the standardized state curriculum. And it isn’t because they don’t love their students.

Teachers are exhausted. They’re tired of the lies. They know they aren’t valued.

Marvin Pfeiffer/Staff photographer What Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick says and does that disparages and attacks teachers and their students and schools is shameful.