What Is the Most Effective Way to Keep Teachers

ABSTRACT The analysis of the Teacher Follow-up Survey conducted by the National Center for Education Statistics reveals the three most effective steps that former teachers think schools should take to encourage teachers to remain in teaching. Providing higher salaries tops the three most effective steps, followed by dealing effectively with student discipline and giving teachers more authority in school. The results provide significant implications for policy interventions aimed at retaining teachers. Keywords: teacher attrition, educational policy INTRODUCTION Teacher shortages have often received great attention in education because schools chronically experience an inability to staff classrooms with qualified teachers. About half of the new teachers eventually leave teaching within the first five years (Wise, Darling-Hammond, & Berry, 1987). Reports from the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) revealed that the proportion of public school teachers who left the profession increased in the 1999-2000 and 2000-01 school years, compared to that in the 1990-91, 1991-92, 1987-88, and 1988-89 school years (Luekens, Lyter, & Fox, 2004). The problem of teacher shortage has recently become more prominent because two demographic trends are expected to exacerbate the problem in the United States. Many teachers from the baby boomer generation will retire in the near future; and student population will increase in the meantime. The National Center for Educational Statistics projects that student enrollment in kindergarten and first through twelfth grades will reach approximately 56.7 million by the year 2013. About 47.7 million teachers will be needed to meet the demand for the increased student enrollment (Gerald & Hussar, 2003). It is predicted that there will not be enough teachers to meet the demand from the increased student enrollments (Darling-Hammond, 1984; Gerald & Hussar, 1998; National Academy of Sciences, 1987). The education community has now come to realize that this much-publicized teacher shortage does not stem from insufficient teachers in the general population but rather from high teacher turnover. Teacher turnover has historically hovered around fourteen percent, which is higher than that of other professions. Teachers move in and out of schools as if through a revolving door, which continuously creates excessive demand for replacement teachers (Ingersoll, 2001). Since the early 1990's the number of teachers who exit the teaching profession has surpassed the number of teachers who entered the profession. Schools are always fighting an uphill battle to staff classrooms with qualified teachers (Darling-Hammond, 2003). Policy interventions have traditionally used sign-on bonuses and shortcut licensing to increase teacher supply. These measures alleviate the symptoms but do not resolve the problem. A growing body of evidence indicates that teachers who go through alternative certification to become teachers lack adequate training to be successful in their new profession, and that they are more likely than other teachers who graduate from regular teacher education programs to leave the teaching profession (Darling-Hammond, 2003). A better approach to resolving the problem of teacher shortage would be to retain teachers in education and decrease the demand for replacement teachers (Ingersoll and Smith, 2003). So there is a strong need to find effective ways to keep teachers. The former teachers who left the teaching profession may hold the answer to the question. They knew firsthand what deterred them from having a fulfilling career in education and what could otherwise have been done to keep them in teaching. Although former teachers may have left the teaching profession for a variety of reasons, summarizing their opinions can uncover some common concerns that provide clues to what should be done to improve their professional commitment. …