Lisa Wolfe says she could “no longer participate in a system that is failing students and teachers to such a degree.” Courtesy of Lisa Wolfe Lisa Wolfe, 56, wanted to be a teacher for as long as she can remember. As a child, she owned a set of Little House on the Prairie books that accidentally included a duplicate copy; she was thrilled she had an extra book to annotate and play teacher with. She recalls her own education fondly, describing how she loved being creative in school. “I wanted to come back and teach,” she tells Fortune . She did exactly that in 2002, taking a break in 2011 after becoming a mother. She returned to the classroom three years later, but it slowly morphed into something far from the one she once fell in love with. Based in Colorado, Wolfe re-entered the workforce to teach a concurrent enrollment program that allows high school students to receive college credit for courses. But the program was eventually shut down, and Wolfe transitioned to teaching at a middle school. She says it was her most high-stress job yet, describing the new school as “soul crushing” in a post-pandemic landscape. Students were reading way below grade level and the teachers received no professional assistance, such as extra prep time or training to help bridge the learning gap, she adds. Indeed, students worldwide are reckoning with a pandemic learning loss . The average math and reading scores plummeted to 1990 and 2004 levels , respectively, per the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) . “We’re failing our students miserably,” Wolfe says, describing how she’d wake up at 2 a.m. to start paperwork and grading tests because she was so stressed out. After teaching for 19 years, she walked out the door of […]
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