Linda Darling-HammondLeib SutcherDesiree Carver-Thomas
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Over the last three years, thousands of news stories and dozens of studies from LPI and other organizations have documented teacher shortages across the country. Yet some critics argue that turnover is not generally a problem and shortages may not even be real. In this blog, Linda Darling-Hammond, Leib Sutcher, and Desiree Carver Thomas break down the research and explain that solving turnover and shortages is not a pipedream; it’s a policy question.
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By Jiawen Wang | How are students impacted by teacher turnover and shortages? Oakland High School junior and guest blogger Jiawen Wang, a student leader with Californians for Justice (CFJ), discusses how she and her classmates experience these issues and why a strong and stable teacher workforce is key to creating relationship-centered schools.
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Across the country, districts and schools continue to struggle to meet the growing demand for qualified teachers. Since 2012, when Recession-era layoffs ended, the teacher workforce has grown by about 400,000, as districts have sought to reclaim the positions they had previously cut and replace teachers who have left. But even with intensive recruiting both in and outside of the country, more than 100,000 classrooms are being staffed this year by instructors who are unqualified for their jobs.
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High teacher turnover—or churn—undermines student achievement and consumes valuable staff time and resources. It also contributes to teacher shortages throughout the country, as roughly 6 of 10 new teachers hired each year are replacing colleagues who left the classroom before retirement. This tool is designed to help policymakers and stakeholders estimate the cost of teacher turnover in a school or district and to inform a local conversation about how to attract, support, and retain a high-quality teacher workforce.
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High teacher turnover is costly for schools and districts and can undermine efforts to improve academic opportunities and outcomes. This blog post outlines the causes and impact of turnover and speaks to the need for schools and districts to understand their local costs and begin a conversation about how to improve retention and build a strong and stable teacher workforce.
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Although the number of minority teachers more than doubled between 1987 and 2012, high turnover rates have undermined efforts to diversify the teacher workforce. Improving school organization, management, and leadership can support improved retention of minority teachers, according to this report, which examines and compares the recruitment, employment, and retention of minority and nonminority teachers over the past quarter century.
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Without changes in current policies, U.S. teacher shortages are projected to grow in the coming years. Teacher turnover is an important source of these shortages. About 8% of teachers leave the profession each year, two-thirds of them for reasons other than retirement. Another 8% shift to different schools each year. In addition to aggravating teacher shortages, high turnover rates lower student achievement and are costly for schools. This brief examines turnover trends and causes and concludes that policies to stem teacher turnover should target compensation, teacher preparation and support, and teaching conditions.
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As students return to school this year, many will be in one of the more than 100,000 classrooms across the country staffed by an instructor not fully qualified to teach. This shortage of qualified teachers is almost entirely due to teachers leaving the profession and about 2/3 of teachers who leave do so for reasons other than retirement. This study looks at who is leaving, why, who is impacted, and policy considerations.
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When students return to school in the upcoming weeks, many will enter one of the more than 100,000 classrooms across the country staffed by an instructor who is not fully qualified to teach. This is because many districts, facing ongoing teacher shortages, are hiring underqualified candidates to fill vacancies. While shortages tend to draw attention to recruitment issues, a new report, just released by the Learning Policy Institute (LPI), finds that 90% of the nationwide demand for teachers is created when teachers leave the profession. Some are retiring, but about two thirds of teachers leave for other reasons. Addressing early attrition is critical to stemming the country's continuing teacher shortage crisis.
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Black teacher turnover rates are significantly higher than those of other teachers in the United States. A chapter in the new book Black Female Teachers: Diversifying the United States’ Teacher Workforce, reports on what causes these higher rates and what policy interventions might bring Black teachers back into the profession, including teacher residencies, loan forgiveness, mentoring and induction, and principal training programs.
