Trust the Data, Not the Vibes (Part II)

Actions speak louder than anecdotes and surveys...

The Wall Street Journal published a piece this week titled, “Teachers Are Burning Out on the Job.” It notes:

Teacher exit rates reached new highs in the past two years, according to data from several states. In Texas, thousands more teachers left the classroom in 2022 and 2023 compared with the years before the pandemic.

Note the carefully worded phrases here? None of it is wrong, per se, but it’s also carefully glossing over the trajectory of the data. Let’s follow the links.

The first link goes to a WSJ story from earlier this year showing that teacher turnover rates were down last year in all ten states for which they could find data. Things were getting better.

The second link takes you to this Texas data. Take a moment to look at this chart:

Now, you could look at this data and tell a few different stories. You could note, as the WSJ did, that things were still worse in 2023-24 than they were pre-pandemic.

Or, you might just be astounded at the sheer size of the raw numbers. Over 45,000 Texas teachers left their school district last year. That’s a lot of teachers those schools needed to replace. Everything is bigger in Texas! But if you take this option, you should also note that Texas schools have more teachers than ever and they have lower student-to-teacher ratios than they did pre-pandemic.

But you could also choose to focus on the directionality of the trends. Texas hit modern highs¹ in teacher turnover and hiring rates in the 2022-23 school year, but both of those came down last year down.

If you read this far, you might be bored with me writing this same story. After all, it was only last week that I wrote about how, despite some negative survey results, schools have more teachers than ever, salaries are starting to rise, and the teacher pipeline is growing again.

I have some pet theories about why the vibes around the teaching profession are so much more negative than what the objective data is telling us. I may even come back to those theories in future posts. But when in doubt, trust the hard data over anecdotes and vibes.

1. You could also note that a “modern high” with turnover rates of 10-13% still isn’t particularly high compared to most other industries or occupations.