Pressure to Push Up & Pushout in an Urban Public School

• In Event: Teachers in Crisis, Teaching in Crisis: Unpacking Individual and Systemic Teacher Deprofessionalization and Dehumanization

Abstract

Objectives
Research over the last 20 years highlights recruitment and retention challenges in schools serving socially marginalized populations (Berry, 2004 ; Amrein-Beardsley, 2007 ; Cherng & Halpin, 2016).Teacher attrition is unequally distributed, with disproportionate attrition in “hard to staff” schools and among teachers of color (TOC) (Achinstein et al. 2010). This auto-ethnographic case study highlights experiences of a “highly qualified” former urban middle school teacher of color.

Perspective(s)
Research on teacher burnout and working conditions (Madigan & Kim, 2021; Maslach, 1999) notes the roles of school and policy reform (Miller, 1999; Rodriguez et al. 2020), (de)professionalization (Farber, 1999; Milner, 2013; Wronowski & Urick, 2021), and administrative support (Carver-Thomas & Darling-Hamond, 2019; Margolis & Nagel, 2006) on attrition decisions. TOCs face particular challenges including a disproportionate sense of alienation and lack of support by administration, despite the value TOCs place on community and belonging (Mawhinney & Rinke, 2019; Simon & Johnson, 2015). TOCs, often given more challenging teaching assignments than white peers, consistently felt they had to prove their competence leaving them exhausted, depressed, and distressed (Raucher & Wilson, 2017).

Methods & Data
This case study is an auto-ethnographic (Chang, 2016) counter-narrative (Milner IV & Howard, 2013; Milner et al., 2020) reflection using critical incidents (Bruster & Peterson, 2013) to examine specific teaching push-out factors and challenge reductionist narratives of teachers in urban schools.

Key incidents & Impact
I had excelled in my teacher preparation program and was excited to start teaching in an urban, culturally and linguistically diverse district where I had student taught. Before the first day of school, I was voluntold by a colleague to lead a racial-ethnic affinity club. An administrator looked at my classlist and said directly, “These kids shouldn’t be together in a class after lunch.” My sixth period class was so challenging that I cried every day for the first four months of school. My first year, I was the only teacher in my small teaching cluster (of four teachers sharing the same 125 students) to stay the entire school year. Yet, I remained deeply invested in teaching and in the relationships I had made with students and families.
In my ten years teaching, I had 4 principals. Starting my third year, despite feeling like I still had so much to learn, I began to be assigned teacher and instructional coaching roles and was asked to pursue administration. I was told consistently that I could “make a bigger difference” outside of the classroom even though my heart was in teaching.
My last year of teaching, a beloved student died suddenly on campus just before spring break. After two days of grief counseling on site for students, everyone was expected to go back to “business as usual” the Monday after break. Seeing the lack of care and compassion for my colleagues and our students from our principal and district administration, including no support for a staff member who held our student as he took his last breath, broke me. It was time to leave teaching.

Author

• Betina Hsieh, University of Washington