Teacher Attrition and Retention

This qualitative study was conducted to discover the reasons why teachers stay or leave Our Lady of Fatima Academy of Davao, Inc. (OLFAI) after a few years. The researchers gathered data from 15 teachers who are in the beginning of their teaching career and have been working in OLFAI for the past 3 years. The data from the intensive semi-structured interview were then interpreted using thematic analysis. Results revealed that the school administration’s efforts may be classified in terms of workplace atmosphere, physical and mental well-being, remuneration, supervision, and professional development. They provide workshops, team-buildings, and special events in cultivating positive workplace atmosphere, allocate substitutions for sick employees who have to be absent, provide satisfactory salary with exclusive incentives like honorariums and the RVM retirement commission, supervise them through observations, and enhance their professional capabilities through in-school and out-school seminars. Moreover, the motivations of teachers primarily revolve on the environment of the workplace, particularly in terms of its management, the presence of appreciation among co-workers and administrators, and the distribution of workloads. Furthermore, it was also discovered that they have used the private schools as training grounds to gain work experience.
Keywords: teachers, private schools, school administration, motivation, retention

Most public school teachers in the United States now leave the classroom before reaching retirement. Research on teacher attrition has tended to focus on novice teachers, using human capital or organizational theories to understand trends in teacher exit. This study examines the accounts of certified, experienced teachers who left teaching after making significant investments in the career. The accounts of these invested leavers are examined through a lens of resistance, illuminating issues of power as well as the ideals of teaching that may be expressed through the decision to leave.

Though there is a growing field of research on what makes teachers leave, little research includes an analysis of narratives written directly by teachers. Yet, amidst a growing body of teacher writing and a surge in digital media, there has emerged a new genre of teach-ers' public resignation letters, many of which go " viral " when posted online. This research is contextualized by literature on teacher attrition and neoliberalism and framed within theories of teacher agency and teacher resistance.

Within a context where the letters themselves are becoming more popular and the rates of teacher attrition continue to rise in troubling ways, this study explores a new genre by investigating the content and strategies employed in public resignation letters from teachers around the United States.

This research employed a qualitative design, drawing on methods of content analysis, to analyze 23 publicly available resignation letters. Conclusions: I argue that these letters represent a new form of public discourse. This discourse allows teachers to exercise their personal and professional agency in the form of resistance to dominant narratives about what public education is and should be and what current neoliberal reforms are doing to teachers and students. These among other reasons I uncovered through thematic coding are linked to contextual factors rather than individual ones, pointing to the limits of retention in a climate that does not support teachers' agency. Further, the majority of reasons for leaving are explicitly or implicitly tied to current neoliberal educational policies. According to their letters, teachers left the profession because (1) neoliberal reforms and policies threatened learning conditions and (2) these reforms had negative consequences for teachers' working conditions and beliefs. Specific neoliberal reforms and policies that were mentioned in the letters include: increased standardized testing and restrictions on curriculum , which teachers argued reflected a lack of care for students' socioemotional needs; decreasing pay/benefits; and punitive teacher evaluation systems. In addition, the consequences of these reforms meant that teachers felt: a lack of time, a mismatch between their beliefs and the reality of teaching in today's educational climate, and a lack of trust and respect for their profession, and a lack of control over their working conditions.

On a typical day, pre-COVID 19, educators are pulled in many directions, making hundreds, if not
thousands, of quick decisions. Today those dynamics are heightened with varied and additional competing needs. However, what has not changed is the essential role of an educator. Caring for students in a time of such uncertainty seems critical. However, while there is serious and necessary demand for caring for the students and families, one population that is gravely being overlooked are the helpers. The educators. Less emphasis is being placed on the wellness and self-care of those who are offering those needed social-emotional supports. For a myriad of reasons, it is clear that emphasis must be placed on tending to the needs of Kansas educators’ well-being. In an effort to maintain educator passion and performance, messages around self-care, building social-emotionally competent classrooms and school climates are addressed.

Teacher turnover has been a persistent challenge; while the national rate has hovered at 16% in recent decades, more teachers are leaving the profession, contributing to teacher shortages in hard-to-staff subjects and schools. Higher attrition rates coupled with disproportionate teacher movement away from schools in economically disadvantaged communities has resulted in inequitable distributions of high-quality teachers across schools. Teacher turnover is quite costly, and primarily has negative consequences for school operations, staff collegiality, and student learning. Turnover rates are highest among minority teachers working in high-need schools, beginning teachers, and those who are alternatively certified; higher rates are also found for those teaching math, science, and English as a foreign language, and for special education teachers. Teachers are less likely to be retained in schools with poor working conditions, particularly those led by principals perceived to be less effective, and in schools where they are paid less. Teacher retention may be improved with combinations of targeted financial incentives and improved working conditions (e.g., better principal preparation), and through better supports for early career teachers through effective induction and mentoring programs. Linking financial incentives with enhanced leadership opportunities and career paths also offer potential for retaining effective teachers in classrooms where they are most needed.

Despite the expressed need for bicultural teachers, research on teacher attrition has demonstrated that a growing number of bicultural educators are leaving the classroom. Bicultural male teachers, in particular, experience high rates of teacher attrition. Schools, unfortunately, are contexts in which Latino male teachers are constantly experiencing dilemmas related specifically to both their gendered and racialized positionality as males of color.
Grounded in Antonia Darder’s critical bicultural framework, this autoethnographic study explored the complex factors that drive Latino male teachers out of the classroom, through an in-depth and grounded examination of a Latino male teacher who left the classroom. The study contributes to the conversation on bicultural teacher attrition, gendered relations, and their relationship to both teacher preparation and the education of bicultural students.
Furthermore, the study explored how racism, sexism, classism, trauma, and heteronormativity mitigate the experiences of Latino male teachers, and how these manifest themselves through the hidden curriculum, asymmetrical relations of power, gendered essentialism, policing of behavior, the culture of silence, conditions of isolation, and disabling cultural response patterns. The implications of such factors in the life of one Latino male teacher are carefully analyzed and discussed, in an effort to consider their significance in rethinking teacher preparation programs, with respect to the needs of Latino males. Moreover, the study offers an engagement with critical autoethnography as a significant tool of reflection in the educational process and emancipatory process of bicultural teachers

With this paper, I explore the impact of teacher attrition on Teach For America's (TFA) ability to produce more long-term, systemic educational change. I do so via my application of critical race theory and Gloria Ladson-Billings' concept of the "education debt" to TFA's consistently high rates of attrition. I begin with a general discussion of long-term educational change, paying particular attention to how and why teacher attrition matters. Next, I present the four components of Ladson-Billings' (2006a) conception of the "education debt," after which I explore just one factor that I believe may prevent the realization of TFA's goal of ending educational inequity (teacher attrition) in both practical and moral terms. Using critical race theory as an additional level of analysis that is consistent with Ladson-Billings "education debt" framework, I conclude that TFA's concrete materiality falls short of its intention to end educational inequity, especially concerning the longevity of its recruits. This, I contend, suggests the need for educational resources to be equitably redistributed, in part, via high quality educators for our most under-served youth populations, including those currently taught by TFA.

For most teachers in the United States, teaching is no longer a career-long occupation.  This article examines the stories of a particular group of leavers, former teachers who made significant investments in their teacher training and who taught for at least three before making the decision to exit.  The narratives of these invested leavers are used to look at workplace change as a motivating factor for teacher exit, particularly changes in classroom authority that occur after teachers have begun to feel competent.

Attrition of up to thirty per cent in the initial years of a teaching career has led to a high level of disillusionment in teaching as a desirable and rewarding profession. Although many nations have responded with substantial investments in pre-service teacher education, these efforts have failed to dissuade newly qualified teachers from leaving the profession. An important factor in professional membership is a sense of identity to both a particular group of people and a set of established practices. This article examines the initial identity of pre-service science teachers who belong to the science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) cohort of teachers in the primary and secondary initial education programs at an Australian university. We consider the alignment of participants’ initial professional identity, including career commitment, with their concerns about entering the teaching profession. Recommendations are made for actions that might reduce the early career e...

The Teaching Across Specialisations (TAS) Collective Symposium was intended to provide opportunities for researchers and educators to collaborate on issues associated with teachers who teach in specializations for which they have no qualification, often called “out-of-field” (OOF) teaching. The Collective focuses specifically on the issues for mathematics and science, however, anybody with an interest in the issues relating to TAS are invited to be part. The TAS Collective is an email community that designed to share research and practice. It emerged as a way of being in touch others. TAS is a worldwide practice that is named or not named in different ways, so finding others who are exploring the same issues in their contexts has been valuable in both understanding the problem worldwide but also enabling both greater insight into our local conditions that perpetuate the practice, as well as raising possibilities for research and action.
A key action of the TAS Collective has been the decision to ‘meet’. The 1st TAS Collective emerged as an opportunity for face to face sharing of research and practice. Represented at the Symposium were 15 representatives from Australia, Germany, South Africa, Ireland, England and South Korea. The Symposium consisted of presentations relating to the themes of:
• The current state around the world
• Responding to the issue
• Exploring the complexity of out-of-field teaching
• Developing a research agenda
In addition, a number of working sessions enabled focused attention on developing a group response to the issue. This group response has contributed to the “Agenda for Research and Practice” at the end of this volume.
This is an open and inviting group of people. The email list began as two, and now contains 30 members (as of December 2014).  We have a website that is currently being developed. At the very least it contains the list of members on the list, and advertises activities of the Collective, and a list of references relating to TAS.

Matching the availability of teachers to demand constantly evolves. During recessions schools are forced to layoff teachers. As economic times improve, schools acquire resources and rehire personnel. Currently, American schools are faced with the most severe shortages in special education; science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM); and bilingual education. Shortages vary across the country and are most acute in areas with lower wages and in poor schools. Starting in the 1980’s schools began filling vacancies with under-qualified personnel hired on emergency or temporary credentials to meet needs. A 35% drop in pre-service enrollment and high teacher attrition currently impact the supply. Candidates and veteran teachers are influenced to leave teaching due to low compensation, stressful working conditions, and a perceived decline in respect. The demand side is influenced primarily by fluctuations in population, finances, and education policy. Matching supply to demand is a challenge but can be accomplished through better planning, procuring less volatile funding sources, and improving working conditions through improved pay and effective training.

The Problem. The US is currently experiencing a shortage of K-12 science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) teachers, especially in high-poverty communities. The shortage can be explained by both low teacher recruitment and high teacher turnover; however, the reasons why teachers leave the profession are complex. The Solution. We argue that teacher professional development programs are often focused on how teachers can meet the needs of their students but ignore how teachers can build their own professional resilience. We draw from research in both teacher self-efficacy and ecological adaptive capacity to propose a revised Teacher-Centered Systemic Reform Model that identifies adaptive capacity as an outcome goal for individuals and school systems. School environments are dynamic (e.g., new policies, student needs, and changing administrators), and as a result, teachers need skills to adapt, enabling them to be resilient while still meeting students' needs. The Stakeholders. Professional development, teacher educators, human resource development (HRD) practitioners, K-12 STEM teachers.

Studies related to reasons why teachers stay are far less frequent than those reporting reasons to leave. This study assessed the factors that satisfied PE teachers and the motivators to stay in PE teaching. Physical educator stayers (N = 139) responded to a 'PE Teachers' Career Intentions Questionnaire', 'Basic Satisfaction Needs at Work Scale' and an open-ended question to ascertain retention motivators. Basic needs satisfaction for competence, autonomy and relatedness support, along with satisfaction for 'professional interaction', 'participation in decision -making', 'organisation of teaching', and 'respect' predicted retention. PE teachers gain work-related motivation from their expertise, the opportunity to implement ideas collaboratively, but also the sense of efficacy to control their pedagogy and student outcomes of focus. Supportive policy and actions; not just the absence of career-thwarting stimuli, appear vital for teacher self-efficacy, leading to career fulfillment. Quality mentoring programs may serve to enhance PE teacher satisfaction and are worthy of further investigation.

Our pan-Canadian research study examined the differential impact of teacher induction and mentorship programs on the early-career teachers’ retention. This article details the stories from our interview participants (N=36) in relation to what their lived experiences were during their first years of teaching and how they dealt with the requirements, expectations, and challenges. Their narratives were analyzed through the lenses of early career teacher attrition, retention, and development. Our findings showed that despite geographic, contextual and policy differences, there were striking similarities in teachers’ lived experiences and in the impact of these experiences on their decisions to stay or leave and predispositions towards personal and professional development as teachers.

Attrition of up to thirty per cent in the initial years of a teaching career has led to a high level of disillusionment in teaching as a desirable and rewarding profession. Although many nations have responded with substantial investments in pre-service teacher education, these efforts have failed to dissuade newly qualified teachers from leaving the profession. An important factor in professional membership is a sense of identity to both a particular group of people and a set of established practices. This article examines the initial identity of pre-service science teachers who belong to the Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) cohort of teachers in the primary and secondary initial education programs at an Australian university. We consider the alignment of participants’ initial professional identity, including career commitment, with their concerns about entering the teaching profession. Recommendations are made for actions that might reduce the early career e...

Attrition of up to thirty per cent in the initial years of a teaching career has led to a high level of disillusionment in teaching as a desirable and rewarding profession. Although many nations have responded with substantial investments in pre-service teacher education, these efforts have failed to dissuade newly qualified teachers from leaving the profession. An important factor in professional membership is a sense of identity to both a particular group of people and a set of established practices. This article examines the initial identity of pre-service science teachers who belong to the science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) cohort of teachers in the primary and secondary initial education programs at an Australian university. We consider the alignment of participants’ initial professional identity, including career commitment, with their concerns about entering the teaching profession. Recommendations are made for actions that might reduce the early career e...

This article examines the professional integration of beginning teachers in French-speaking Belgium and the factors predicting an exit from the profession during the first years of their careers. The analysis of four successive cohorts of new teachers indicates that exit rates are very high during the first year but show a gradual decline afterwards. The exit rates are also much higher in secondary education than at preschool and primary levels. According to the international literature, this research also shows that teachers with training in education are much more stable than their peers without teacher qualification. Concerning the work environment, the data indicate that the school's socioeconomic level is not linked to the risk of leaving the profession. Finally, one of the main results of this study is the demonstration that over and above the influence of teachers' and schools' characteristics, a very close relationship is observed between job conditions over the first year in the profession and exit rates. These results argue for paying greater attention to the institutional conditions of career management in future research on teacher attrition and migration.

International attention to improving learning outcomes has increasingly focused on the impact of teachers, those that directly implement national education goals. For small, resource-poor countries where communities have minimal schooling experience, the role of the teacher in building academic knowledge and skills is even more valued, to both support that community and the nation as a whole. Yet governments and other stakeholders may not know much about their teachers’ lives: why they teach, what keeps them motivated and what makes the education system vulnerable to teacher attrition. This paper seeks to understand the lives of the teachers, in this case, in Timor-Leste. This paper reports on the findings from a recent survey of Timorese primary school teachers, finding while the challenges are many, there is a strong sense of personal contribution to the nation’s development evident in teachers’ work, something that the local education ministry might consider in supporting the work of its teachers.

This essay presents a dialogue between a new teacher and a former professor, generated when the teacher decided to leave the classroom after two years. Contextualized within the literature of teacher attrition and offering implications for teacher education, the essay explores what it means to be (a) a novice educator in the era of accountability and (b) a teacher educator tasked with preparing new teachers for this challenging climate. The authors share their perspectives in the hopes of starting a discussion about an important issue that remains relatively unexplored in the research literature: the stories of teachers who leave and their former professors who watch them go.

Con el propósito de conocer los factores que influencian la retención y deserción de los docentes                              durante sus primeros años de servicio, se llevó a cabo un análisis documental para comprender las relaciones entre el fenómeno de la retención y deserción docente así como sus determinantes, familiarizarse con los conceptos que han servido para organizar el conocimiento del tema y clarificar la importancia del fenómeno y sus consecuencias. Los principales resultados y conclusiones a los que se arriba, es que la retención y deserción de docentes son fenómenos complejos influenciados por factores que se encuentran en distintos niveles de análisis anidados, en los que diversas variables de tipo personal, contextual y externo se entrelazan, interactúan e inciden en la satisfacción laboral y determinan sus decisiones de permanecer o abandonar la profesión docente. Fue posible establecer que las principales estrategias para mejorar la permanencia y reducir las tasas de deserción docente son: reclutar a candidatos adecuados, brindarles apoyo sensible y diferenciado, programas de inducción, tutoría y redes colegiadas de colaboración, incentivos salariales, reconocimientos, recompensas materiales y evaluación formativa por parte de agentes externos, motivación constante enfocada en sus resultados y elevar el prestigio de la profesión.

The purpose of this study was to investigate Australian physical education (PE) teachers’ career intentions and factors influencing their intentions. A sample (N = 234) of Western Australian PE teachers responded to a questionnaire determining PE teachers’ work and the primary motivators for intention to leave the profession. Half (51.3%) of the respondents wanted a change from their current PE teacher job and 39.8% were intending to leave PE teaching. The most frequent reasons for wanting to leave PE related to: non-use of expertise, workload, school administration, and lack of opportunities for personal and professional development. Consideration should be given to mediation strategies that serve to elevate physical educators’ needs satisfaction for teaching autonomy, competence and relatedness. Personal and professional advancement in schools to help maintain all teachers, particularly experienced teachers, appears warranted. PE teachers’ workload is considerable and worthy of review with the intention to extend their use-by-date and retain their experience-enriched expertise.

Attrition of up to thirty per cent in the initial years of a teaching career has led to a high level of disillusionment in teaching as a desirable and rewarding profession. Although many nations have responded with substantial investments in pre-service teacher education, these efforts have failed to dissuade newly qualified teachers from leaving the profession. An important factor in professional membership is a sense of identity to both a particular group of people and a set of established practices. This article examines the initial identity of pre-service science teachers who belong to the Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) cohort of teachers in the primary and secondary initial education programs at an Australian university. We consider the alignment of participants’ initial professional identity, including career commitment, with their concerns about entering the teaching profession. Recommendations are made for actions that might reduce the early career e...

The issue of early-career teacher attrition is a pressing concern across a variety of educational settings. Re-search in predominantly anglophone contexts has shown that rates of foreign language teachers leavingthe profession are particularly high. Noting the important role that well-being plays in fostering teacherretention, this study examines factors affecting the well-being of early-career foreign language teach-ers in the United Kingdom and Austria, and the subsequent possible consequences for their decisionto leave or remain in the profession, drawing a comparison across the 2 settings. In-depth, semistruc-tured interviews were conducted with 14 early-career foreign language teachers at secondary schools inAustria (n=6) and the United Kingdom (n=8). Inductive data analysis revealed an interplay amongintrapersonal, societal, and contextual factors in relation to well-being, which might contribute to shap-ing participants’ decision to remain or leave the profession across the 2 settings. These factors includeperfectionism, self-efficacy, work–life spillover, self-regulation, relationships within the school, and for-eign language teacher status. Our findings suggest the need for systematic approaches toward improvingteacher well-being, not only for surviving in the profession but also for flourishing and thriving in the long term.

Our pan-Canadian research study examined the differential impact of teacher induction and mentorship programs on the early-career teachers’ retention. This article details the stories from our interview participants (N=36) in relation to what their lived experiences were during their first years of teaching and how they dealt with the requirements, expectations, and challenges. Their narratives were analyzed through the lenses of early career teacher attrition, retention, and development. Our findings showed that despite geographic, contextual and policy differences, there were striking similarities in teachers’ lived experiences and in the impact of these experiences on their decisions to stay or leave and predispositions towards personal and professional development as teachers.

One of the cause’s célèbre in the field of education has been teacher attrition; Physical education (PE) is no different. Some PE teachers are leaving the profession because they encounter stress and dissatisfaction in their profession. The purpose of this study is to determine the aspects that keep PE teachers happy and remaining in the profession. Seven job satisfaction factors were identified with principal component analysis and logistic regression models used to study the likelihood of teachers’ intention to stay in the profession. Those PE teachers who intended to stay in teaching were more satisfied with the resources, work community, their own expertise, recognition of teaching, manageability of work, students, as well as the quality of work. It was also found that satisfaction and commitment to teaching were strong predictors for staying in the profession. For early career teachers, manageability and quality of work were the factors that were strongly related to their inten...