Staff Retention and Turnover

This report analyzes the retention problem in the United States through documentation of recent teacher turnover data, and reviews the research on the factors that contribute to teachers’ decisions to remain in the
classroom.

This paper examines the impact of teacher turnover on education systems. Teacher turnover is quite costly, and primarily has negative consequences for school operations, staff collegiality, and student learning.

This report documents broadly the research that addresses the prevalence of principal turnover, the factors associated with a principal’s decision to leave, the consequences of principal turnover for teaching and learning, and evidence-based strategies for improving principal retention.

Research on teacher turnover has led to the identification of retention strategies to help advance the profession and improve the recruitment, preparation, and support of teachers. This report summarizes available research on these strategies and discusses potential barriers and research on their relative cost-effectiveness.

This paper is the first attempt to test the community amenity hypotheses in a multivariate framework using administrative data on teacher employment patterns.

This research examines the issue of teacher compensation. The author finds that teachers earn significantly less than they could make working in other comparable fields. 

State-level policy support for teacher induction programs can help teachers realize their full potential, keep them in the profession, promote greater student learning, and save money. Higher education institutions and school districts must work together to provide high-quality and well-designed induction programs. 

This study uses statewide completer survey data from North Carolina to assess whether perceptions of preparation quality and opportunities to learn during teacher preparation predict completers’ value-added estimates, evaluation ratings, and retention.

The purposes of this research were to quantify trends in three components of teacher turnover and to investigate claims of excessive teacher turnover as the predominant source of teacher shortages.

The aims of this study were to investigate whether and how teachers' perceptions of social–emotional learning and climate in their schools influenced three outcome variables—teachers' sense of stress, teaching efficacy, and job satisfaction—and to examine the interrelationships among the three outcome variables.

The aims of this study were to investigate whether and how teachers' perceptions of social–emotional learning and climate in their schools influenced three outcome variables—teachers' sense of stress, teaching efficacy, and job satisfaction—and to examine the interrelationships among the three outcome variables.

Though policymakers are increasingly concerned about teacher shortages in U.S. public schools, the national discussion does not reflect historical patterns of the supply of and demand for newly minted teachers.

While anecdotal accounts of substantial teacher shortages are increasingly common, we present evidence that such shortages are not a general phenomenon but rather are highly concentrated by subject and in schools where hiring and retaining teachers are chronic problems. We discuss several promising, complementary approaches for addressing teacher shortages.

The costs associated with teacher turnover in Alaska are considerable, but have never been systematically calculated,1 and this study emerged from interests among Alaska education researchers, policymakers, and stakeholders to better understand these costs.

This study is the first to examine these teachers’ retention nationwide, asking whether, when, and why they voluntarily transfer from their low-income placement schools or leave teaching altogether.

This report analyzes the retention problem in the United States through documentation of recent teacher turnover data, and reviews the research on the factors that contribute to teachers’ decisions to remain in the
classroom.

This paper examines the impact of teacher turnover on education systems. Teacher turnover is quite costly, and primarily has negative consequences for school operations, staff collegiality, and student learning.

This report documents broadly the research that addresses the prevalence of principal turnover, the factors associated with a principal’s decision to leave, the consequences of principal turnover for teaching and learning, and evidence-based strategies for improving principal retention.

Research on teacher turnover has led to the identification of retention strategies to help advance the profession and improve the recruitment, preparation, and support of teachers. This report summarizes available research on these strategies and discusses potential barriers and research on their relative cost-effectiveness.

Policy makers are concerned about reports of teacher shortages and the high rate of attrition among new teachers. Prior studies indicate that mentor-based induction can reduce the numbers of new teachers leaving schools or the profession

The authors fit multilevel logistic regression models to a large state administrative dataset in order to examine (1) if the percentage of SWDs a teacher instructs was associated with turnover, (2) if this association varied by student disability, and (3) how these associations were moderated by special education certification.

To evaluate the impact of comprehensive teacher induction relative to the usual induction support, the authors conducted a randomized experiment in a set of districts that were not already implementing comprehensive induction.

This report provides nationally representative data on attrition and mobility of beginning teachers in public elementary and secondary schools.

This study hypothesizes that school working conditions help explain both teacher satisfaction and turnover. In particular, it focuses on the role of effective principals in retaining teachers, particularly in disadvantaged schools with the greatest staffing challenges. 

This article critically reviews the recent empirical literature on teacher recruitment and retention published in the United States.

This study examines the characteristics of elementary schools that experience chronic teacher turnover and the impacts of turnover on a school’s working climate and ability to effectively function. 

Eric Hanushek and Steven Rivkin examine how salary and working conditions affect the quality of instruction in the classroom.

This volume is the third report in a series on the potential, promise, experience, and needs of career changers who are teaching in America’s classrooms today. It is based on a survey of a cross-section of such individuals conducted by Hart Research Associates in 2009.

The purpose of this study was to examine the workplace factors that positively and negatively impact Black K12 teacher retention. This study utilized a mixed-method approach to examine the qualitative and quantitative data.

In this essay, we present a typology of teacher turnover measures, including both measures used in existing teacher turnover literature as well as new measures that we have developed. 

This report summarizes a series of analyses that have investigated the possibility that there are other factors—tied to the organizational characteristics and conditions of schools—that are behind school staffing problems.

This report utilizes the nationally representative Schools and Staffing Survey (SASS) to examine changes in the elementary and secondary teaching force in the United States over the quarter century from 1987–88 to 2011–12.

This study examines the magnitude, destinations, and determinants of the departures of mathematics and science teachers from public schools.

This report summarizes the results of an exploratory research project that investigated what trends and changes have, or have not, occurred in the teaching force over the past three decades.

This review critically examines 15 empirical studies, conducted since the mid 1980s, on the effects of support, guidance, and orientation programs— collectively known as induction — for beginning teachers.

This brief summarizes the results from a study of the recruitment, employment, and retention of minority k-12 teachers. The study examines the extent and sources of the minority teacher shortage—the low proportion of minority teachers in comparison to the increasing numbers of minority students in the school system.

This research evaluated the impact of structured and intensive teacher induction programs over a three-year time period, beginning when teachers first enter the teaching profession. The current report presents findings from the second year of the evaluation and a future report will present findings from the third and final year.

To identify and better understand the experience of these teachers, the authors started by studying 90,000 teachers across four large, geographically diverse urban school districts

The Literature Review considers research that provides insight into problems of teacher shortage and turnover, offers a comprehensive explanation for why some able teachers leave the classroom prematurely, and suggests current strategies for increasing retention rates.

the authors build on this body of work by further examining how working conditions predict both teachers‘ job satisfaction and their career plans.

This policy brief summarizes the available evidence on the policy relevant factors that affect teacher turnover.

The objective of TFS is to provide information about teacher mobility and attrition among elementary and secondary school teachers who teach in grades K–12 in the 50 states and the District of Columbia.

This study present some of first evidence on the implementation and subsequent effect of discretionary layoff policies, by studying the 18th largest public school district in the nation, Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools (CMS).

This study is among the first to address the empirical limitations of prior studies on organizational contexts by leveraging one of the largest survey administration efforts ever conducted in the United States outside of the decennial population census.

This quantitative study examines the relationship between teachers’ perceptions of their working conditions and their intended and actual departures from schools.

Using California teacher survey data linked to district data on salaries and staffing patterns, this study examines a range of school conditions as well as demographic factors and finds that high levels of school turnover are strongly affected by poor working conditions and low salaries, as well as by student characteristics. 

In this paper, the authors use value-added methods to examine the relationship between a school’s effectiveness and the recruitment, assignment, development and retention of its teachers.

This research summary focuses on aspects of the study’s results that are likely to be most useful for policymakers and school leaders as they strive to maintain and manage an effective teacher workforce.

The authors offer a new vision of teacher career pathways for the 21st century that holds promise for recruiting and retaining excellent teachers who further student learning. They showcase recent initiatives at the local, state, and national level that promote teacher role differentiation and create different models of teacher staffing and teacher career continuums.

The objective in this review was to summarize and critique empirical research on the impact of beginning teacher induction on teacher retention and teacher quality (particularly studies in which teacher effectiveness was evaluated by using student achievement measures).

This brief describes: (1) The need for more and better principal professional development to improve principal effectiveness, decrease principal turnover, and more equitably distribute successful principals across all schools; (2) The research on the importance of principals and how professional development can improve principals' effectiveness; and (3) Options and examples for leveraging current policies to revisit and refocus efforts concerning principal professional development.

This study examines the relations between school context variables and teachers’ feeling of belonging, emotional exhaustion, job satisfaction, and motivation to leave the teaching profession. Six aspects of the school context were measured: value consonance, supervisory support, relations with colleagues, relations with parents, time pressure, and discipline problems.

The purpose of this paper is to integrate statistically the results of the literature on teacher expectations. 

This paper examines research on what we know about the causes and impact of principal turnover.

This study asks how schools respond to spells of high teacher turnover, and assesses organizational and human capital losses in terms of the changing composition of the teacher pool. 

This paper reviews the research literature on new teacher mentoring, focusing on issues of definition, why teachers quit, and the effects of mentoring on retention. 

This book examines issues pertaining to making effective hiring decisions. The authors present a research-based interview protocol built on quality indicators.

This review of teacher induction4 literature is designed to summarize current research on the practices, policies, and programs intentionally developed to support novice teachers.

This book describes the research undertaken during the Teaching Competence Project, a two-year research project funded by the Gatsby Charitable Foundation. There were five interlinked studies in the research.