Survey reveals almost 50% of California teachers may quit teaching soon

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California teachers have slightly better morale on average than their peers in other states, but more are planning to leave the profession in the next decade, according to Education Week’s annual The State of Teaching report.

Teacher morale dipped slightly across the country this year, after some improvement last year, according to the survey of 5,802 U.S. teachers.

 “There’s a lot of evidence that indicates that teacher morale has been declining nationwide and is at, by some measures, the lowest point in recent memory,” said Holly Kurtz, director of the EdWeek Research Center. 

California teachers scored 16 on the Teacher Morale Index, which is based on three questions from the Education Week survey. The morale score for U.S. teachers overall was 13. The scale measures teacher morale from -100 to +100.

Nearly half of California teachers who were surveyed plan to retire or quit in the next 10 years. Nationwide, an estimated 35% of teachers plan to leave the profession in the next decade, Kurtz said.

The findings are similar to a survey released in January by the California Teachers Association. It found that while a majority of teachers are satisfied with their job, 40% are considering leaving education within the next few years — nearly half for financial reasons.

Teacher morale is increasingly important as states continue to struggle with teacher shortages, especially in hard-to-fill jobs like special education, science, technology, math, engineering and bilingual education. 

Low teacher morale directly affects students, said Alex Robins, a social science teacher at Terra Linda High School in San Rafael. Teachers with high morale create a positive environment that helps students to enjoy learning, he said. 

Educator morale began to decline during the pandemic when teachers struggled with distance teaching, Kurtz said. The additional difficulties they faced when they returned to the classroom also contributed to the loss of morale. 

Teachers who took part in the 30-question survey said that the ability to take mental health days, smaller class sizes, more planning time, four-day work weeks and improved student behavior would make them feel better about their jobs.

More planning time tops wish list

Additional planning time would most improve teacher morale, according to the survey results. This was particularly important for younger teachers.

“Getting more planning time and being paid for it, and being supported in it — that’s only going to help teachers feel more prepared, and I imagine feel more comfortable and confident in the classroom,” Robins said.

Teachers listed improved student behavior as the second most important factor for improving teacher morale. Three-quarters of elementary school teachers, 61% of middle school teachers and 54% of high school teachers surveyed said student behavior is getting worse.

Discipline problems were the result of a perfect storm of factors that worsened when students lost socialization during the pandemic and when schools shifted to restorative justice models of discipline that weren’t always communicated well to teachers or implemented with the necessary resources, Kurtz said.

More than half of the teachers who took the survey said improving student behavior would boost their morale. They called for restrictions on students’ use of cellphones and other personal devices, tougher consequences for students who misbehave, limits on parents’ ability to undermine those consequences and instruction for parents on teaching their children to behave in school. 

“Perhaps because they report larger class sizes, California teachers are somewhat more likely than colleagues in other states to say that smaller class sizes would have a major positive impact on their students’ behavior and ability to manage their classroom,” Kurtz said. 

California class sizes are some of the largest in the nation, averaging about 29 students, while the national average is 25, according to the survey. Overall, the teachers surveyed agreed that 19 is the ideal number of students in a classroom. California teachers said class sizes should be between 20 and 24 students. 

Schedule more important than pay

Work schedules seemed to be even more important to teacher morale than pay, with a 36-point gap in the morale score between teachers who felt they had a better work schedule than their family and friends, and those who did not.

Teacher pay has been a central issue in contract negotiations in California this year, where teachers have the highest average pay in the nation, according to the National Education Association. In 2025, the average starting salary for a California teacher was $58,409, and the average salary was $101,084, according to the NEA. 

More than a third of California teachers surveyed by Education Week said their salaries were better or about the same as those of their family members and friends.

Researchers did not find a correlation between salary and morale, Kurtz said.

“One thing we did find a correlation with is whether or not you think your salary is better or worse than the salary of the people you’re close to,” Kurtz said. “People who felt like their salary was better or the same as their family or friends tended to have higher morale.”