New Data on Early Career Teachers Finds Most Remain In Teaching

The National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) and the Institute of Education Sciences (IES) recently released a new study—Career Paths of Beginning Public School Teachers—identifying key characteristics that influence early career teachers' decisions to stay in or leave the classroom.

The report evaluates responses from 1440 public and public charter school teachers surveyed in the Beginning Teacher Longitudinal Study (BTLS), which began tracking a cohort of new teachers in the 2007-08 school year. Having followed teachers from their first year teaching to their most recent year teaching, this report compares teacher career paths based upon their teacher and school characteristics. Characteristics used include static demographics (e.g. race/ethnicity, sex, etc.), professional supports (i.e. mentors, base salary, and teacher preparation method), and school environment (grade level, students qualifying for free and reduced lunch (FRL), etc.).

Nearly eighty percent of respondents taught for all five years.

The results are encouraging, and somewhat surprising given much of the doom and gloom in the media around “teacher wars,” teacher shortages, and the like. Nearly eighty percent of respondents taught for all five years. Of the 23 percent that did not, one quarter had returned to the classroom within the five year span or intended to return in the future. Demographic factors such as sex, age, and race/ethnicity were generally found to play a negligible role in determining retention and attrition rates. Teachers who participated in alternative certification programs, such as Teach for America, remained in schools at a similar rate as those who did not. And, as found in prior research, the proportion of low-income students in a teacher’s school was not highly correlated with teacher retention or attrition. The only significant difference was that participants trained by alternative certification programs were less likely to plan to return to teaching after leaving.

So what did arise as influencing teachers’ decisions to continue teaching or not? Early professional support and compensation.

Early career professional supports were correlated with high retention rates. Induction programs—additional training provided during the first few years of teaching—significantly improved a new teacher’s likelihood to remain teaching all five years studied: 80 percent of induction participants were teaching five years later, compared with 69 percent of non-participants. Assignment of a mentor was also positively correlated to new teachers’ retention. 80 percent of teachers who were assigned a mentor or master teacher in their first year of teaching chose to stay all five years compared to 64 percent of those who began teaching without a mentor. But, as highlighted in a recent Education Week article, the report also found that teachers in low-income schools were less likely to receive mentors than their peers in more affluent districts.

Higher base salary also greatly improved the likelihood of teacher retention. While the teaching profession tends to be largely motivated by making a difference for students, higher pay may incentivize teachers to stay in the classroom instead of seeking better compensated roles elsewhere in the education sector (which is where many former teachers find employment after leaving the classroom).

More teachers who were “satisfied” with their school were retained than those who were not.

One area to note: More teachers who were “satisfied” with their school were retained than those who were not. While the survey does not dig further into what this means, prior research links teacher satisfaction—and retention—to strong school leadership, staff community and other aspects of positive school culture. So it’s unlikely that professional support and compensation really provide the whole story behind beginning teachers’ decisions to continue teaching or not.

Additionally, further disaggregation of the data by specific school characteristics would enhance what we could learn from the data collected. For example, the sample was collected from both traditional public and public charter schools, yet the results show no differentiation between these categories. And the inclusion of other school characteristics beyond percentage of low-income students—such as geographic location (urban, rural, southern, etc.), principal retention rates, and overall performance—would help paint a fuller picture of the myriad issues impacting teacher retention and attrition.

You might wonder why it’s worth paying so much attention to teacher retention. In any field, there will be turnover, as individuals’ personal and professional goals play out. And some turnover is good—we want to ensure that individuals who don’t enjoy teaching, or who are not able to help students learn, even with sufficient professional support, don’t remain in the classroom and find careers that are a better fit. But in the field of teaching, where turnover has a direct impact on student achievement, we must ensure that we are doing our best to retain educators, particularly our strongest ones.