Teachers and Teaching - Teacher Turnover

Nationwide, about 20% of teachers leave the profession after 5 years. In the 1993-94 school year, 212,908 teachers left the profession (up from 172,645 in the 1987-1988 school year).¹⁴ How are school districts responding? John Merrow, a public television commentator, in an article for Education Week, likened the teaching workforce to "a swimming pool with a serious leak." Merrow states: "'You wouldn't expect that pouring more and more water into the pool would in time fix the leak, but that's precisely the approach we are taking to the so-called teacher shortage. We're misdiagnosing the problem as 'recruitment' when it's really 'retention.' Simply put, we train teachers poorly and then treat them badly — and so they leave in droves'" (Borsuk).

The chart above shows the top reasons teachers left the profession in 1993-1994. The data were originally taken from the Schools and Staffing Survey and the Teacher Followup Survey administered by the National Center for Education Statistics. The surveys encompassed a total of 6,733 teachers (most still in the teaching profession, but 1,962 who left). The numbers in the bars are the rankings.

Overall, the top reason given for leaving the teaching profession was low salary. However, among teachers in urban, high-poverty schools, lack of student motivation ranked first, with half of those leaving citing this as the top reason for quitting the profession.

Poor salary ranked second among teachers in this group. Student discipline ranked third, overall. Next came inadequate administrative support and insufficient time to prepare. Teachers in urban, high-poverty schools feared for their safety and complained about lack of advancement. In small private schools, inadequate administrative support ranked second behind low salaries — followed by inadequate time to prepare, lack of student motivation, and large classes. Teachers in small, private schools indicated that large class size ranks high as a reason for leaving the profession. This is interesting. Private schools tend to have smaller pupil-teacher ratios than do public schools. And, yet, in urban, high-poverty schools, where class size tends to be higher than average, this class size ranked 10^th in reasons given for leaving the profession.

As we saw in the previous panel, many districts zero in on financial incentives to attract and to retain their teachers. Big money "out there" lures many teachers from the profession. Other reasons have to do with student motivation, behavior, administrative support, time management, and the school environment (safety, class size). Not much information is available to show that school districts are paying much attention to these other problems. But Hawley Elementary School in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, provides mentors for first-year teachers to help them cope with job pressures. Hawley started this program after learning from a federal study that teachers are nearly twice as likely to quit after their first three years if they don't have mentoring at the start of their careers. Universities and colleges also are responding. There's a drive to make teacher training more practical. More classroom training helps first-year teachers feel less ill prepared.

The next panel will focus on the top reason for teacher dissatisfaction: low salaries. Are teachers really underpaid?

Sources: Ingersoll, Richard M. Center for the Study of Teaching and Policy. University of Washington. Teacher Turnover, Teacher Shortages, and the Organization of Schools, January 2001. Alan J. Borsuk. "Halting teacher turnover remains challenge at MPS." Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, March 2, 2000.