Most Recent in Texas Politics:

1If Not Now, When? Dems’ Fight for the House Will Shape Texas Politics for Years

2The Long Tail of Voter Suppression

3Lulu Seikaly Wants to Flip One of Texas’ Most Conservative Suburban Districts

4Democrats Seek to Undo San Antonio Senate Slip-up

5Trump’s Favorite Texas Sheriff Faces Re-Election Amid a Spike in Deaths at His Jail

6Erika Andiola Says Dreamers Know How to Push Biden

Most Recent in Environment:

1One Texas-Sized Loophole is Letting Lone Star Polluters Off the Hook

2Houston, Let People Walk

3Claiming Major Superfund ‘Success,’ Trump EPA Focused on Completing Cleanups, Not Climate Planning

4The Wasteland Underwater

5Running from the Storm

6A Coral Reef Sanctuary in the Gulf of Mexico Could Triple in Size

Most Recent in Border:

15,000 People Contract COVID-19 While In ICE Custody, Including This Father Of 5

2Mexico Turns To Television And Radio For Remote Learning

3New Engineering Report Finds Privately Built Border Wall Will Fail

4El ducto del coronavirus

5The Coronavirus Pipeline

6El Paso Remembered

Most Recent in Criminal Justice:

1I Left My Friends in Prison in a Pandemic. Here’s What It’s Like For Them.

2After the Deaths of Two Soldiers at Fort Hood, the Navajo Nation Wants Answers

3Trump’s Favorite Texas Sheriff Faces Re-Election Amid a Spike in Deaths at His Jail

4Researcher Howard Henderson on Reimagining Policing in the U.S.

5When Asthma in Jail Becomes a Death Sentence

6In Harris County, A Group is Working to Expand Voting Access in Jails

Most Recent in Education:

1Texas Has the Widest Digital Divide in the Nation. What Does that Mean for the School Year?

2The New Ensemble

3Raise a Glass to the Class of COVID-19

4Tough Decisions Ahead for School Leaders in Rural Texas

5‘Almost Akin to a Political Coup’: Houston Teachers Fight Back Against State Takeover of HISD

6The Creature of Martin Creek Lake Won’t Die

Most Recent in Health Care:

1I Left My Friends in Prison in a Pandemic. Here’s What It’s Like For Them.

2Achieving Vision Zero in Houston Isn’t Going To Happen One Intersection at a Time

3State Officials Tried to Cut Women’s Health Care During a Pandemic. It’s a Clear Reflection of Priorities.

4Conception Deception

5Portraits of the Pandemic

6El ducto del coronavirus

Most Recent in The Interview:

1Researcher Howard Henderson on Reimagining Policing in the U.S.

2Texas Observer Founding Editor Ronnie Dugger Reflects on 65 Years of Publication

3How Katharine Hayhoe Stays Hopeful as the Planet Warms

4Author William Lopez on How Immigration Raids Inflict Long-Lasting Trauma

5Why a Texas Gun Control Activist is Optimistic About the Chances for Reform

6American Health Care is Broken, Especially in Texas. What Can We Do About It?

Most Recent in Books:

1Remembering a Jewish Upbringing in Meyerland, Texas

2How Texas Women Delivered the Nineteenth Amendment

3A New Short-Story Collection Imagines a Texas Town’s Secession

4Improbable, Prophetic Houston

5Announcing the 2020 Insider Prize Winners

6‘A Saint From Texas’ Gets the Lone Star State Right

Most Recent in Features:

1Young Texans Keep Spelling Bees Going From Home

3San Antonio Embraces Mandaean Refugees

4The Ghosts of Jefferson

5Little Arthouse on the Prairie

6The Clothes that Make the Man

Most Recent in Essay:

1What the Black Lives Matter Protests Mean for East Texas

2Raise a Glass to the Class of COVID-19

3What’s a Bookstore for?

4Lessons on the Long Game from Goose Island’s Whooping Cranes

5In a Pandemic, Poor Defendants Could Pay With Their Lives

6Loneliness in the Age of Coronavirus

Most Recent in Eye on Texas:

1Eye on Texas: The Black Yearbook

2Eye on Texas: Border Tuner

3Eye on Texas: The Broken Wheel Ranch Project

4Eye on Texas: Spike Johnston

5Eye on Texas: Loren Elliott

6Eye on Texas: Charlotte Moore

Most Recent in Poetry:

1Author Saeed Jones on Empathy, the Power of Memoir, and Growing up Gay in North Texas

2Remembering W.S. Merwin, Honorary Texan

3Lost in Limbo in the Hays County Jail

4Houston Poet Analicia Sotelo’s Debut Smashes Latino Stereotypes

5Parallel Planes

State of Texas: Low Pay and Greater Expectations Have Texas Teachers Singing the Blues

Joanna Wojtkowiak

Patrick Michels Oct 1, 2014, 8:00 am CST

While school was out this summer, teachers across Texas were sounding off about why their jobs have become so hard. Years of high-stakes testing, chronic under-funding and news stories about failing schools have made classrooms an especially thankless place to work. Last year, the Texas Legislature commissioned a survey to get teachers’ honest opinions about their jobs. Fewer than a fifth of the state’s teachers bothered to reply—a signal, some unions said, of just how deep teachers’ mistrust for lawmakers runs.

Sources: Texas Education Agency, Dallas Morning News, TELL Texas Survey, and National Center for Education Statistics.

Illustration by Joanna Wojtkowiak

Do you think free access to journalism like this is important? The Texas Observer is known for its fiercely independent, uncompromising work—which we are pleased to provide to the public at no charge in this space. That means we rely on the generosity of our readers who believe that this work is important. You can chip in for as little as 99 cents a month. If you believe in this mission, we need your help.

Patrick Michels, a former Observer staff writer, is a reporter at the Center for Investigative Reporting.

You May Also Like:

Texas Has the Widest Digital Divide in the Nation. What Does that Mean for the School Year?
As schools reopen, some families face potentially life-threatening options. by Yasmine Askari
The New Ensemble
Texas’ best high school mariachi bands take the stage. by Robyn Ross
Raise a Glass to the Class of COVID-19
Maybe they will help build a post-pandemic world (or so I hope). by Lise Olsen