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Tera Fowler, 63, who has taught for more than three decades, said she’s ready to leave. “I would like to see a shift in attitude toward teachers as an authority,” Fowler told Fox News Digital. Once, teachers were respected as the guiding authority in classrooms. That has changed.
Doug Kosak, a 24-year veteran teaching in Temecula and Mesa schools, called out the policy he blames directly: “progressive discipline.”
“I can attribute this to the attitudes, the lack of discipline in the schools, inability to hold kids accountable,” Kosak said.
Under the guise of “restorative justice,” schools now prioritize feelings over rules. A disruptive or threatening student is not punished but instead participates in a “community circle,” where peers discuss emotions while the behavior goes unchecked.
A 2026 analysis from the Manhattan Institute found that schools using these programs faced more classroom disruptions and declining math scores. Surveys show three-quarters of California elementary teachers report worsening student behavior—not improvement.
Administrators stripped away the tools that once allowed teachers to maintain order, leaving classrooms increasingly chaotic.
Why Veteran Teachers Are Walking Away
Discipline is only part of the problem.
Nick Pardue, an Army veteran who teaches economics, said administrators are obsessed with tracking student outcomes by race and ethnicity, creating what he calls a “dashboard for certain kids and ethnicities.”
“There’s a lot of politics that got infused into teaching that I think created a lot of problems,” Pardue said.
Jennifer Stoeber, also retiring after 30 years, criticized the curriculum itself. “In our social studies books, we focus more on inclusive issues on other cultures and not so much on our history itself,” she said.
That shift, these teachers argue, amounts to indoctrination rather than education—funded with taxpayer dollars. California has spent over a billion dollars since 2016 trying to fill classrooms, even as policies pushed out seasoned educators.
Gevin Harrison, who spent 14 years teaching after a 24-year Air Force career, recalls when schools and families reinforced the same values. “Teachers used to reinforce the values that you would learn at home,” Harrison said. Now, he warns, children are being taught to question or reject their parents’ principles, leaving teachers in conflict with both students and administration.
A Crisis Created by Policy
The collapse is not accidental. In 2024, Governor Gavin Newsom signed a law eliminating basic skills requirements for teaching credentials—no more tests for reading, writing, or math. New credentials dropped 11% in a single year, even as the state spent over a billion dollars recruiting teachers.
You cannot solve a teacher shortage by making the profession unbearable and then throwing money at it.
A 2025 RAND Corporation survey found teachers report higher stress than other workers, with student misbehavior as the leading cause.
The veterans speaking to Fox News Digital are not burned out from long careers—they are exhausted from battling a system that prioritizes coddling over challenging students, validation over education, and passing students regardless of achievement.
Steve Campos, a teacher of over 30 years, summarized the reality: “It’s just kind of spiraling quickly.”
California’s education leaders created this spiral intentionally, leaving classrooms in turmoil and veteran teachers walking out the door.
