Teacher’s Resignation Letter After 25 Years Describes ‘Disturbing Era’ in Public Schools

Susan Sluyter has been a teacher for more than two decades. One can imagine that she’s seen and adjusted to her fair share of change within the educational system during her 25 years in the field, but the more recent shift in requirements was so dramatic that she resigned last month.

“In this disturbing era of testing and data collection in the public schools, I have seen my career transformed into a job that no longer fits my understanding of how children learn and what a teacher ought to do in the classroom to build a healthy, safe, developmentally appropriate environment for learning for each of our children,” Sluyter wrote in her resignation letter to the Cambridge Public School District in Massachusetts in February.

“In this disturbing era of testing and data collection in the public schools, I have seen my career transformed into a job that no longer fits my understanding of how children learn and what a teacher ought to do in the classroom to build a healthy, safe, developmentally appropriate environment for learning for each of our children,” Sluyter wrote in her resignation letter to the Cambridge Public School District in Massachusetts in February.
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