Letters to the Editor: Big changes are needed in public education to hold on to teachers

To the editor: As a former high school teacher, I can attest to the fact that teacher morale started to decline well before the COVID pandemic (“Survey reveals almost 50% of California teachers may quit teaching soon,” March 10). The state of California lost tens of thousands of teachers in the midst of the Great Recession. Immediately following that financial disaster was a sudden increase in attitudes that place the failures of public education on the shoulders of classroom teachers.

Lastly, as this article mentioned, the movement toward restorative justice left classroom teachers with little to no support when it came to disciplinary issues. The confluence of these three events brings us to where we are today, with more than 10,000 unfilled teaching positions statewide. Unless there is fundamental change in public education, the teacher shortage will only get worse and the entire system is doomed to collapse.

Jason Y. Calizar, Torrance