The Cost of Compliance: How Bureaucracy is Breaking Teachers

We are losing good teachers, not because they can’t handle kids, but because they can’t handle the bureaucracy.

Ask a teacher why they’re considering leaving; you won’t just hear about pay. You’ll hear about paperwork, micromanagement, and constantly changing mandates from people who have never stepped foot in their classroom.

Education policy often prioritizes compliance over creativity. Teachers are expected to follow scripts, meet unrealistic timelines, and collect mountains of data—all while being told to “differentiate” and “engage” at every turn.

The irony? Many of these top-down mandates don’t improve learning. Instead, they erode morale, narrow the curriculum, and push educators to the brink.

Reform shouldn’t mean more rules—it should mean more trust. Trust teachers to know their students. Trust schools to collaborate with communities. And trust that the best learning doesn’t always fit neatly into a spreadsheet.

If we want to retain teachers and raise outcomes, we must stop piling on policies that suffocate the very people doing the work. It’s time to simplify, support, and let educators lead.