http://m.chronicle.augusta.com/news/education/2016-01-08/georgia-teacher-year-says-school-environment-drives-professionals-away#.VpCfjJNH9NU.facebook&gsc.tab=0

Georgia Teacher of the Year says school environment drives professionals away

Georgia's Teacher of the Year for 2016, Ernie Lee, teaches history in the Savannah-Chatham School System. He says teachers are being driven out of the profession by student behavior, standardized tests, cellphones in class and other factors. Parents just don't understand how things have changed since their day, he said.

ATLANTA — Things in schools have changed vastly since most taxpayers were students, according to Georgia’s Teacher of the Year, Ernie Lee, who said Friday the public doesn’t realize what teachers put up with.

“When people look at it, they are comparing what they experienced in school as being the same thing,” Lee said. “Folks, it is not the same thing. It is radically different.”

Lee, a one-time lawyer who turned to education when the recession crippled his real estate law practice, said the current school environment is a major reason teachers leave the profession.

The Savannah-Chatham County history teacher shared his observations during a conference for reporters from across the state held by the Georgia Partnership for Excellence in Education.

“Phones in the classroom is a real issue,” Lee said, adding that students use them to photograph tests for friends or to text answers during exams.

Student discipline is one of the aggravations he listed, along with paperwork, mandatory student tests and teacher pay.

He pointed to the $37,000 beginning pay in the Savannah-Chatham County Public School System as being too little to support his stepdaughter on her own.

“Why are people leaving? It’s dollars and cents,” he said. “You’ve got to pay the bills.”

State school Superintendent Richard Woods told the same conference that he supports increased funding for public schools and is trying administratively to reduce the number of standardized tests that teachers must give.

“If we’re going to make any difference in education, it’s not going to be about some test,” Woods said. “It’s going to be about making a difference for children.”

A survey the Department of Education released Thursday of 53,000 current and former teachers listed standardized tests as the top reason educators leave the profession. Methods for evaluating teachers and compensation were the next two reasons.

“It really is a good reflection of what teachers are feeling,” Lee said.

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