research on teacher attrition

Academia.edu no longer supports Internet Explorer.

To browse Academia.edu and the wider internet faster and more securely, please take a few seconds to  upgrade your browser .

Enter the email address you signed up with and we'll email you a reset link.

• We're Hiring!
• Help Center

The Factors of Teacher Attrition and Retention: An Updated and Expanded Meta-Analysis of the Literature

Building on a previous meta-analysis of the literature on teacher attrition and retention by leveraging studies with longitudinal data and a modern systematic search process, this updated comprehensive meta-analysis synthesizes findings from 120 studies on the factors of teacher attrition and retention. We find the research on teacher attrition has grown substantially over the last thirteen years, both on the factors that are examined as well as the increased specificity and nuanced operationalization of existing factors. Consequently, we expand the conceptual framework to include four new categories of these factors and organize existing and new categories into three broad groups of factors, namely personal, school, and external correlates. We discuss our findings of how these factors are associated with teacher attrition and contrast them with previous findings. We also discuss the policy implications of our findings.

Related Papers

David Grissmer

RAND is a nonprofit institution that seeks to improve public policy through research and analysis. Papers are issued by RAND as a service to its professional staff. Their purpose is to facilitate the exchange of ideas among those who share the author's research interests; ...

Gema Barkanic

Online Submission

Carla Salley

education policy analysis archives

Belinda flores

Teacher attrition is a significant problem facing schools, with a large percentage of teachers leaving the profession within their first few years. Given the need to retain high-quality teachers, research is needed to identify those teachers with higher retention rates. Using survival analyses and a large state dataset, researchers examined teacher data to identify those teacher and school variables associated with attrition. Unique to this study was the investigation of testing era (basic competency vs. higher standards based), school districts’ yearly ratings based on state-mandated testing, and charter school status. Analyses revealed that teacher attrition was greater during the high stakes-testing era, at low-performing schools, and for charter schools; however, beginning teacher age, gender, and school level moderated several attrition rates. Implications for public policy are discussed.

Mediterranean Journal of Social Sciences

Mercy Ogbari

International Journal of Multidisciplinary: Applied Business and Education Research

NOLAND II SANTIAGO

The significant role of education in human development is universally recognized. More than anybody else in the education sector, teachers play a vital role in the development of an individual. However, it becomes a tremendous struggle for the school administrators on how they can retain their teachers, especially those whose services are much needed. This study determined the possible factors that cause the high teachers' turnover, which can be used as a basis for the retention program among faculty members. Thirty-seven (37) teachers from three different schools were given a survey questionnaire to determine the factors that affected their decision to leave the academic institution. The descriptive research design was utilized for this study. The study yielded the following findings which showed why teachers decided to leave the school where they work. The personal factors were considered to a moderate extent, with the change of environment most impactful. Likewise, the instit...

Advances in Social Research 2 (1), 29-32

Ruth Ortega-Dela Cruz

The study focused on the factors that influence teacher attrition decision in comparison between public and private institution. The study used descriptive research design. A total of 30 teachers participated in answering the survey questionnaires based from Herzberg Hygiene Theory. Descriptive analysis shows slight difference in the extent of how each factor influences teacher's attrition decision. T-Test revealed a significant difference in the attrition between private and public school teachers (p = .000 < 0.05). This further implies that factors that influence attrition decision of the movers are different from those who came from private and public institution. Truly, teacher attrition burdens educational institutions with added recruiting and hiring costs. Concern over student and school performance also pushes this issue forward. Thus, a strategic response is needed and efforts to stem teacher attrition must center on the school site and on the factors that support good teaching. For where the good teaching environment is, there will also be a better learning environment that fosters educational success.

Joshua Flores

Teacher attrition is an ongoing issue in the United States and more specifically in the state of Missouri. This dissertation, using a three-tiered analytical approach, offers suggestions, recommendations, and strategies, aside from raising salaries or increasing benefits packages, that schools, their districts, and leaders can implement to bolster teacher retention. The findings are based on the practices of successful districts, buildings, and leaders. The first level of research included semi-structured interviews with district level personnel to offer guidance and recommendations that can be implemented at the local school district level. Similarly, the second level of research utilized the same research method to uncover practices, programs, and policies implemented at the building level that increase teacher retention according to school leaders. For the third level of research, teachers in public schools that participated in the other levels of research completed an anonymous ...

Dissertation

Kimberly Collins

Teachers’ attrition is a factor which disrupts the educational progress in public schools in Arkansas; therefore, the purpose of this research study was to explore teachers’ perceptions of turnover in the state. The following research questions were used for the study: a) How do teachers who left schools perceive attrition in Arkansas? b) What factors affect teachers’ decision to leave schools in Arkansas? c) What educational policies do teachers recommend for retaining teachers? d) What suggestions do teachers have to reduce teachers’ turnover? A qualitative method with a case study design was used to explore this topic. Fifteen participants were interviewed and five teachers participated in a focus group discussion. The participants were teachers who left the teaching profession or who taught in more than one K-12 school during their teaching career in central Arkansas. Significant themes for interviews were: (1) teachers’ attrition as a problem in public schools in central Arkansas, (2) unrealistic and relentless expectations as attrition factors, (3) problems with district level administration as the most significant factor, (4) pay raises and bonuses as observed retention strategies, (5) increased and comparable pay as policy suggestions, (6) trust and collaboration among teachers and building level administrators as retention practices, and (7) initiating self-care practices as retention suggestions. Significant themes for focus group discussion were: (1) poor working conditions as attrition factors and (2) support from administration as suggestions. Recommendations for educational leaders and future researchers were provided. Keywords: teachers’ attrition, teachers’ turnover, Arkansas teachers, teacher working conditions, teachers’ retention, veteran teachers’ attrition

Loading Preview

Sorry, preview is currently unavailable. You can download the paper by clicking the button above.

RELATED PAPERS

ADRRI JOURNAL OF ARTS AND SOCIAL SCIENCES

Africa Development and Resources Research Institute ADRRI

Pamela Harrell

iJSRED Journal , Albert C Bulawat

Teacher Turnover Impact

John "Jack" States

Susanna Guarino

Brooks Applegate

Jack Spears

Aaron Pallas

Randall Davies

Teacher Retention Analysis

Joshua Alejandro Hernández Flores

Teacher Retention

Teaching and Teacher Education

Gladis Kersaint , G. Meisels

Teachers and Teaching

Cheryl Craig

British Educational Research Journal

Vincent Dupriez

RELATED TOPICS

•   We're Hiring!
•   Help Center
• Find new research papers in:
• Health Sciences
• Earth Sciences
• Cognitive Science
• Mathematics
• Computer Science
• Academia ©2024

An official website of the United States government

The .gov means it’s official. Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

The site is secure. The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

• Publications
• Account settings

Preview improvements coming to the PMC website in October 2024. Learn More or Try it out now .

• Advanced Search
• Journal List
• SAGE - PMC COVID-19 Collection

Teacher Attrition and Mobility in the Pandemic

Dan goldhaber.

American Institutes for Research

University of Washington

Roddy Theobald

We contextualize the magnitude of teacher attrition during the pandemic, including from the 2020–2021 school year to the 2021–2022 school year, using longitudinal data on teachers in Washington since the 1984–1985 school year. The teacher attrition rate after the 2020–2021 school year (7.3%) increased by almost one percentage point from the attrition rate after the 2019–2020 school year (6.4%), but these rates are well within the range of turnover rates observed during pre-pandemic years. The increase in turnover during the pandemic was also smaller than pre-pandemic differences in turnover between high- and low-poverty classrooms in the state, and these inequities in turnover between high- and low-poverty classrooms decreased during the pandemic relative to pre-pandemic years.

T eacher attrition is squarely in the policy spotlight. Major news outlets such as CNN , the New York Times , Newsweek , NPR , the Wall Street Journal , and the Washington Post all have featured recent stories highlighting the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on teacher shortages. All these news outlets point to teacher attrition as a primary culprit, using phrases like “mass exodus,” “in crisis,” and “Great Resignation” to describe the current state of affairs in the teacher labor market. Below is a small sampling of their characterization of the situation:

Burned out teachers are leaving the classroom for jobs in the private sector, where talent-hungry companies are hiring them—and often boosting their pay—to work in sales, software, healthcare and training, among other fields. ( Dill, 2022 ) 55% of [teachers] say they will leave teaching sooner than they had originally planned, according to a poll of its members by the nation’s largest teachers union. ( Kamenetz, 2022 ) The educator profession—a critical cornerstone of American life—is in crisis. ( Maxouris & Zdanowicz, 2022 ) A mass exodus could worsen existing staff shortages in schools and cripple the education system in the U.S. ( Rahman, 2022 ) The coronavirus is vastly exacerbating that shortfall, experts say, by prompting many teachers to leave the profession or take early retirement. ( Singer, 2021 )

But the evidence of increased teacher attrition in these media reports is thin, as they cite anecdotes from specific former teachers or surveys about what current teachers say they might do in the future. Moreover, recent evidence from data collected before the pandemic ( Nguyen et al., 2022 ) finds that only about a third of teachers who report an intent to leave actually do leave their position at the end of the year. So, what do we know at this point about rates of teacher attrition during the pandemic? Contrary to the definitive takes from press reports, the existing large-scale, quantitative evidence suggests that teacher attrition after the first year of the pandemic (i.e., after the 2019–2020 school year) dropped relative to the preceding school years (e.g., Bacher-Hicks et al., 2021 ; Diliberti & Schwartz, 2021 ; Goldhaber & Theobald, 2022 ). This likely reflects teachers hunkering down after the 2019–2020 school year in the midst of the uncertainty of a pandemic ( Ayaita & Stürmer, 2020 ; van Huizen & Alessie, 2019 ).

However, there are reasons to think that things could be different after the 2020–2021 school year and coming into the 2021–2022 school year. For example, surveys of teachers highlight the considerable challenges of teaching during the pandemic (e.g., Diliberti et al., 2021 ; Kraft et al., 2021 ), and teacher attrition rates also tend to be inversely related to unemployment rates ( Eagan et al., 2022 ; Goldhaber & Theobald, 2022 ). In 2021, the economy continued to improve, labor markets were tight, and, arguably, there was less COVID-related economic uncertainty ( Baker et al., 2020 ). All of this suggests that we might expect to see teacher attrition increase coming the 2021–2022 school year. Moreover, given mounting evidence that the COVID-19 pandemic disproportionately impacted learning gains for historically marginalized student groups ( Goldhaber et al., 2022 ), we should be particularly attuned to teacher turnover across different schools serving different populations of students.

In this brief, we explore teacher attrition during the pandemic, including from the 2020–2021 school year to the 2021–2022 school year, using publicly available data on the public teaching workforce in Washington. This dataset, the S-275, includes a snapshot of the state’s public school workforce (including teachers and other certificated personnel) from October 1 of each school year since 1984–1985, and does not include data on late teacher hires or short-term substitute teachers. Teacher attrition and mobility data from the last year of available national data of teacher turnover (2011–2012; Goldring et al., 2014 ) suggest that teacher turnover rates in Washington in this year (15.0%) are comparable to the national estimate (15.8%). The state introduced new employment categories in 2021 to 2022 for teachers funded by federal special purpose aid related to the coronavirus pandemic (i.e., ESSER funds); we consider these as “teachers” for the purposes of this analysis (i.e., teachers who move into one of these ESSER-funded positions not counted as moving into a non-teaching category), though we note that the funding of these positions may be temporary.

The stacked bar plots in Figure 1 show the proportion of teachers in different years who at the end of the year: (a) left their schools and the state’s public school workforce entirely (black), (b) left their current teaching position for a nonteaching position (e.g., administration or instructional coach; dark gray) within the state’s public school system, or (c) left their school for another public school teaching position in the state (light gray). We present these three statistics separately because they address different policy questions. From the perspective of the state, the overall attrition rate (i.e., the black and dark gray bars) represents the number of teachers who need to be replaced for the next school year, though attrition from the workforce altogether (black bars) is likely a larger problem than movement into noninstructional positions (dark gray bars) that also play important roles in public schools. But from the perspective of an individual school, all teachers who leave the school (i.e., also including teachers in the light gray bars) need to be replaced next year, so school mobility is also an important factor in terms of school teaching stability and hiring demands. The total teacher turnover rate (i.e., the sum of these three proportions) is shown at the top of each bar.

Selected teacher turnover rates in Washington, 1984–1985 through 2020–2021 school years.

Consistent with findings from other states from the first 2 years of the pandemic—for example, from Arkansas ( Camp et al., 2022 ) and Massachusetts ( Bacher-Hicks et al., 2022 )—the overall takeaway from Figure 1 is that the teacher attrition rate after the 2020–2021 school year increased from the attrition rate after the 2019–2020 school year, but these rates are well within the range of turnover rates observed during pre-pandemic years. Specifically, Figure 1 shows four important points:

• The attrition rate of teachers from the public school workforce after the 2020–2021 school year (7.3%, last set of bars) increased by almost one percentage point from the attrition rate after the 2019–2020 school year (6.4%, next-to-last set of bars), and is also higher than the last pre-pandemic year (6.7%, fourth set of bars). The proportional increases in attrition were relatively consistent for early- and late-career teachers, as well as for teachers of color and White teachers (not shown in Figure 1 but available upon request).
• Combined with the increased movement of teachers into non-teaching positions in public school districts (which increased from 2.0% after 2019–2020 to 2.7% after 2020–2021), the percentage of teacher “leavers” as defined by federal reports increased by about 1.6 percentage points, which represents a nearly 20% increase in the proportion of teacher leavers compared to the first pandemic year.
• Rates of school-to-school mobility also increased by nearly a percentage point (to 7.8% from 6.9%). Thus, the total teacher turnover rate (17.8%) increased by 2.5 percentage points in the second pandemic year relative to the first—this is the second largest change in teacher turnover rates seen since 1984 to 1985—and was over one percentage point higher than in the average pre-pandemic year (16.7%, first set of bars).
• The overall teacher turnover rate after the 2020–2021 school year is well within the range of turnover rates observed during pre-pandemic years (second and third sets of bars), and the rate of attrition from the workforce is the highest since the 2006–2007 school year.

Do these statistics support recent assertions of a “Great Resignation” or “Teacher Exodus” from public schools ( Rahman, 2022 )? These terms are, of course, in the eye of the beholder, but it is simultaneously true that (a) teacher attrition in Washington increased substantially after the second year of the pandemic, resulting in hundreds of additional open teaching positions relative to previous school years and (b) even these increased attrition rates are not inconsistent with what we have seen in past years.

The first point is important, as teacher attrition really does predict district staffing challenges. To show this in more concrete terms, we calculate teacher turnover rates by district and compare them to recently collected data by Goldhaber and Gratz (2022) on school district teacher vacancy rates in October 2021. We find that the relationship between district attrition rates after the 2020 –2021 school year and the percentage of open teaching positions in the district in October 2021 is positive and statistically significant ( r = 0.23, t = 3.11). In other words, districts that had more teachers leave the workforce after the 2020–2021 school year also had more difficulty hiring teachers by the start of the 2021–2022 school year. And there is no doubt that these staffing challenges are of concern given evidence that teachers hired late tend to be less effective ( Papay & Kraft, 2016 ) and that staffing challenges have led schools to have to close (e.g., Velez, 2021 ).

But it is also important to keep this increase in teacher turnover in perspective. Not only are teacher turnover rates after the 2020–2021 school year lower than turnover rates from the mid-2000s, but the increase in these overall turnover rates is actually smaller than the average difference in turnover rates between high- and low-poverty classrooms in Washington state in a typical school year. To illustrate this, we use data from the three most recent school years to calculate the turnover rates in high-poverty classrooms (defined as the top quartile of the percentage of students in the classroom receiving free or reduced-priced lunch [FRL]) compared to turnover rates in low-poverty (bottom quartile FRL) classrooms. We present these rates in Figure 2 . In the most recent pre-pandemic year, the difference in turnover rates between high- and low-poverty classrooms was 3.4 percentage points, a larger difference than we observed in turnover rates between the two pandemic school years.

Teacher turnover rates in Washington by classroom poverty level, 2018–2019 through 2020–2021 school years.

Figure 2 shows that teacher turnover rates from both types of classrooms increased after the second pandemic year. But it is also notable from Figure 2 that the increase in teacher turnover we document after the second pandemic year was driven disproportionately by increased attrition rates from relatively advantaged classrooms in the state. In other words, consistent with evidence from Massachusetts ( Bacher-Hicks et al., 2022 ), inequities in turnover between high- and low-poverty classrooms decreased during the pandemic relative to pre-pandemic years; in fact, after the most recent year of the pandemic, the difference in overall turnover rates between high- and low-poverty classrooms was less than one percentage point. These trends are consistent for other measures of classroom and school disadvantage (e.g., based on the percent of students of color; results available upon request).

In sum, the trends in teacher attrition during the pandemic in Washington suggest that many of the recent media stories about rising teacher attrition rates are accurate in direction but, arguably, not in magnitude. In particular, while there was clearly an uptick in attrition in Washington and other states, we would not characterize the attrition rates in Washington after the second year of the pandemic as a “mass exodus” of teachers. But these results should only be generalized to these contexts, and importantly, they do not imply that we should be unconcerned; we agree with Will (2022) that we should take reports of teacher burnout and dissatisfaction seriously, even if they do not lead to attrition. Instead, we would argue that some of the recent reporting on teacher attrition has mischaracterized the extent to which teacher attrition is driving staffing challenges and has not done enough to highlight some of the long-term issues of differential attrition in different school and classroom settings. The lack of nuance in some media reports is problematic to the degree that policymakers react to these reports, rather than crafting solutions to more specific staffing challenges that have existed in the teacher labor market long before the pandemic.

DAN GOLDHABER, PhD, is the director of the National Center for Analysis of Longitudinal Data in Education Research (CALDER) at American Institutes for Research, and also the director of the Center for Education Data and Research (CEDR) at the University of Washington. His research focuses on issues of educational productivity and reform at the K–12 level, the broad array of human capital policies that influence the composition, distribution, and quality of teachers in the workforce, and connections between students’ K–12 experiences and postsecondary outcomes.

RODDY THEOBALD, PhD, is a principal researcher in CALDER at American Institutes for Research. His research focuses on teacher education, teacher licensure, special education, and career and technical education.

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding: The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This research was supported by the National Center for Analysis of Longitudinal Data in Education Research (CALDER), which is funded by a consortium of foundations. For more information about CALDER funders, see www.caldercenter.org/about-calder . We wish to thank the State of Washington Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction (OSPI) for collecting and providing the data we utilize, as well as Matt Barnum for comments that improved the brief. All opinions expressed in this paper are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of our funders or the institutions to which the author(s) are affiliated.

Contributor Information

Dan Goldhaber, American Institutes for Research. University of Washington.

Roddy Theobald, American Institutes for Research.

• Ayaita A., Stürmer K. (2020). Risk aversion and the teaching profession: An analysis including different forms of risk aversion, different control groups, selection, and socialization effects . Education Economics , 28 ( 1 ), 4–25. [ Google Scholar ]
• Bacher-Hicks A., Chi O., Orellana A. (2021). COVID-19 and the composition of the Massachusetts teacher workforce . Boston University. [ Google Scholar ]
• Bacher-Hicks A., Chi O., Orellana A. (2022). Two years later: How COVID-19 has shaped the teacher workforce . Boston University. [ Google Scholar ]
• Baker S. R., Bloom N., Davis S. J., Terry S. J. (2020). Covid-induced economic uncertainty (No. w26983). National Bureau of Economic Research. [ Google Scholar ]
• Camp A., Zamarro G., McGee J. (2022). Changes in teachers’ mobility and attrition in Arkansas during the first two years of the COVID-19 pandemic . University of Arkansas. [ Google Scholar ]
• Diliberti M., Schwartz H. (2021). The K-12 pandemic budget and staffing crises have not panned out—Yet . RAND Corporation. [ Google Scholar ]
• Diliberti M., Schwartz H., Grant D. (2021). Stress topped the reasons why public school teachers quit, even before COVID-19 . RAND Corporation. [ Google Scholar ]
• Dill K. (2022, February 2). Teachers are quitting, and companies are hot to hire them . The Wall Street Journal . [ Google Scholar ]
• Eagan J., Hwang N., Koedel C., Ladd H., Sorensen L. (2022). Teacher attrition and the business cycle. Teachers College Record . Advance online publication. [ Google Scholar ]
• Goldhaber D., Gratz T. (2022). School district staffing challenges in a rapidly recovering economy (CALDER Flash Brief No. 29-0122). National Center for Analysis of Longitudinal Data in Education Research (CALDER). [ Google Scholar ]
• Goldhaber D., Kane T. J., McEachin A., Morton E., Patterson T., Staiger D. O. (2022). The consequences of remote and hybrid instruction during the pandemic (No. w30010). National Bureau of Economic Research. [ Google Scholar ]
• Goldhaber D., Theobald R. (2022). Teacher attrition and mobility over time . Educational Researcher , 51 ( 3 ), 235–237. [ Google Scholar ]
• Goldring R., Taie S., Riddles M., Owens C. (2014). Teacher attrition and mobility: Results from the 2012-13 teacher follow-up survey . U.S. Department of Education. [ Google Scholar ]
• Kamenetz A. (2022, February 1). More than half of teachers are looking for the exits, a poll says . NPR . [ Google Scholar ]
• Kraft M. A., Simon N. S., Lyon M. A. (2021). Sustaining a sense of success: The protective role of teacher working conditions during the COVID-19 pandemic. Journal of Research on Educational Effectiveness , 14 ( 4 ), 727–769. [ Google Scholar ]
• Maxouris C., Zdanowicz C. (2022, February 5). Teachers are leaving and few people want to join the field. Experts are sounding the alarm . CNN . [ Google Scholar ]
• Nguyen T., Bettini E., Redding C., Gilmour A. F. (2022). Comparing turnover intentions and actual turnover in the public sector workforce: Evidence from public school teachers (EdWorkingPaper: 22–537). Annenberg Institute at Brown University. [ Google Scholar ]
• Papay J., Kraft M. (2016). The productivity costs of inefficient hiring practices: Evidence from late teacher hiring . Journal of Policy Analysis and Management , 35 ( 4 ), 791–817. [ PMC free article ] [ PubMed ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Rahman K. (2022, February 17). America’s teacher exodus leaves education system in crisis . Newsweek . [ Google Scholar ]
• Singer N. (2021, January 19). Pandemic teacher shortages imperil in-person schooling . The New York Times . [ Google Scholar ]
• van Huizen T., Alessie R. (2019). Risk aversion and job mobility . Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization , 164 , 91–106. [ Google Scholar ]
• Velez M. (2021, November 9). Seattle and Bellevue schools cancel classes for students Friday due to lack of staff . The Seattle Times . [ Google Scholar ]
• Will M. (2022, February 25). Will there really be a mass exodus of teachers? Education Week . [ Google Scholar ]

•   Institutional Repository Home
• Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The Theories and Determinants of Teacher Attrition and Retention

Files in this item.

This item appears in the following collection(s):

Your vanderbilt.

• Current Students
• Faculty & Staff
• International Students
• Parents & Family
• Prospective Students
• Researchers
• Sports Fans
• Visitors & Neighbors

Support the Jean and Alexander Heard Libraries

Gifts to the Libraries support the learning and research needs of the entire Vanderbilt community. Learn more about giving to the Libraries.

Quick Links

• Staff Directory
• Accessibility Services
• Vanderbilt Home
• Privacy Policy

• Request Info
• Current Students
• Collaborators
• Faculty & Staff

Working paper: Reviewing the evidence on teacher attrition and retention

In a blog post for the Brown Center Chalkboard, Springer and a colleague summarize recently published results of a meta-analysis examining factors that affect teacher attrition.

A new meta-analysis by Matthew Springer and colleagues illuminates some of the factors that most affect teachers’ decisions to leave their schools.

Springer, the Robena and Walter E. Hussman, Jr. Distinguished Professor of Education Reform, co-authored with Tuan Nguyen of Kansas State University a post for the Brown Center Chalkboard , a platform for educational research working papers hosted by the Brookings Institution. In the post, Springer and Nguyen tease out the main findings of their meta-analysis of 120 studies regarding what drives teachers to leave a particular school. Lam Pham and Michael Crouch, both students at Vanderbilt University, were other co-authors of the study.

“Decades of research have shown that teachers are the single most important school-based factor in student achievement,” Springer and Nguyen wrote in the Chalkboard post. “The research base on teacher attrition continues to grow as teacher turnover remains a salient issue for many schools, particularly in economically disadvantaged districts. A high level of turnover is negatively associated with student achievement and there are monetary (and human capital) costs of replacing teachers.

The meta-analysis examined three primary categories of factors that affect teacher attrition and retention:

Personal correlates , such as age, race/ethnicity and gender. Among other things, the analysis found strong evidence that teacher satisfaction plays an important role in teacher decisions to stay in the profession.

School correlates , which describe school organizational characteristics and resources. The analysis found that various measures of school organizational characteristics, such as student disciplinary problems, administrative support, and professional development, strongly influence teacher turnover.

External correlates , such as accountability and school improvement efforts. The analysis found many external correlates are associated with teacher attrition and retention. Springer and Nguyen added: “Interestingly, being evaluated, even for accountability purposes, does not seem to increase teacher attrition. In fact, the odds of attrition for teachers who are assessed are somewhat smaller than those who are not.”

Topline findings

Among the findings to emerge from the analysis:

Areas for further study

The authors said there is a need for more study of the effects of “relational demography,” such as race-matching between teachers and principals, or between teachers and students, as there are only a few studies between relational demography and teacher attrition. Constance Lindsay, who joined Carolina’s School of Education this year, has conducted this kind of research. She co-authored a widely cited study that found when black students had even one black teacher, they were less likely to drop out of high school and more likely to aspire to college.

Other work is needed, Springer and Nguyen said.

“While there is an ever larger proportion of studies using quasi-experimental techniques to estimate causal effects of programs and policies on teacher attrition and retention, we need to further explore policy levers that can positively impact the teacher labor force and improve the educational opportunities for students from traditionally marginalized backgrounds,” they wrote.

“In an effort to propel this dialogue, our meta-analysis offers nuance to many commonly held beliefs on teacher turnover while providing new suggestive evidence of what we can do to positively impact the profession. It is now time for policy, practice, and future research to push our understanding and impact further.”

December 11, 2019

By Michael Hobbs

For the Media

• Email Morgan Ellis
• (919) 843-0307

Related Topics

• Educational Policy
• Educational Research
• Leadership & Organizational Change

Related People

• Constance A. Lindsay

Related Programs

• Policy, Leadership, and School Improvement (PLS)

The relationship between teacher intentions, turnover behavior, and school conditions

Subscribe to the brown center on education policy newsletter, erica harbatkin and erica harbatkin assistant professor - florida state university, affiliated faculty, education policy innovation collaborative - michigan state university. tuan d. nguyen tuan d. nguyen associate professor, school of education - kansas state university.

October 19, 2023

• Research using statewide administrative data has shown teacher turnover climbed in 2021 and 2022 in several states, raising concerns that the worst could be yet to come.
• Teachers who say they plan to leave their schools—either to transfer or leave education—typically do leave their school within three years.
• Teacher intentions—and, to a lesser extent, eventual turnover—are largely driven by school organizational conditions and organizational commitment.

The COVID-19 pandemic sounded alarms about the precarity of the teacher workforce as teachers reported high levels of burnout , stress , job dissatisfaction , and intent to leave teaching .

In early 2022, a survey from the National Education Association showed that 55% of teachers were thinking about leaving teaching “sooner rather than planned,” further stoking existing fears of an impending teacher shortage. While this high level of attrition did not materialize immediately, research using statewide administrative data has shown teacher turnover climbed in 2021 and 2022 in several states , raising concerns that the worst could be yet to come.

Concerns are amplified in high-poverty schools and districts because they face considerable challenges recruiting and retaining teachers, experience some of the most detrimental effects of teacher turnover, and grappled with especially challenging conditions during the pandemic.

Though the state data above, combined with national data on teacher shortages, paint a troubling picture about the future of the teacher workforce, the extent of the pandemic’s effects on turnover at the school level and attrition from teaching altogether remains unknown. A related open question is how district and school leaders wanting to retain the teachers in the building can do so—especially in schools and districts with the greatest staffing needs.

Our recent research speaks to both of these questions. Drawing on statewide administrative data from Michigan linked with unique teacher survey data on teacher intentions to leave and perceptions of school organizational conditions, our research examines (a) the extent to which teacher plans to leave are predictive of actually doing so, and (b) the factors that contribute to teachers’ intended and eventual turnover behavior.

Relationship between teacher intentions and behavior

Using descriptive analyses with four years of teacher survey data merged with statewide administrative data, we find that intention to leave is a significant predictor of actually doing so. About 30% of teachers who reported plans to leave their school did so the next year, consistent with prior work drawing on national survey data .

But we also find that turnover behavior often lags behind turnover intention . Figure 1 below compares the differences in teacher turnover rates between those who say they plan to leave compared with those who say they plan to stay. Each bar cluster corresponds to teachers’ stated intentions in a survey taken one, two, or three years prior to the observation of actual behavior, and the length of the bars represents the percentage of actual turnover behavior. Figure 1 shows that those who state an intention to leave do, indeed, turn over at higher rates than those who do not indicate plans to stay. Further, the figure shows that nearly two-thirds of teachers who stated an intention to leave their school (either to transfer, leave education, or retire) did so within three years.

Though not shown in the figure, there were some differences between those intending to transfer and those intending to leave teaching. Of the teachers in our sample reporting plans to transfer, more than 40% had transferred to another teaching role within three years, while 14% shifted to a non-classroom teacher role in education and three percent left or retired. Of the teachers reporting plans to leave education or retire, only 18% had actually done so by year three, but another 54% either shifted to a non-classroom-teacher role in public education or transferred to a teaching role in another school. In other words, though a teacher’s stated intent to leave or retire does not always augur a departure from the profession, it typically precedes a departure from the school.

  The relationship between intent and behavior holds even after controlling for school covariates, teacher covariates, and school fixed effects—demonstrating that asking teachers about their plans can provide useful information about their eventual behavior over and above variables found in administrative datasets.

Why does it take time for some teachers to leave after they express plans to do so? To transfer schools or to take a non-teaching position within public education, teachers must not only want to leave, but there must be other positions available. Depending on teachers’ qualifications, it may take time for those who wish to transfer or leave education to find an opportunity to do so, which may explain why intent to leave is more predictive over multiple years.

This would also explain another observation we made in our analysis: teachers in hard-to-staff areas such as STEM and special education reporting plans to transfer were more likely to do so than their peers teaching subjects with fewer job openings. Our fully specified regression models controlling for teacher and school characteristics show that intent to transfer is most predictive for STEM teachers; it is associated with a 27.5-percentage point increase in actually leaving the school the following year, compared against a 22-percentage point increase for special education teachers, and a 16-percentage point increase for other teachers in models.

School factors related to intended and actual turnover behavior

For school and district leaders to reduce teacher turnover, they need to know what factors may drive teachers to leave. Existing research highlights that fixed school characteristics including concentrated poverty and racial segregation, as well as structural features like pay and benefits, require large-scale policy change that needs to happen outside the purview of the school administrators tasked with retaining teachers. But to the extent that factors contributing to teacher turnover are malleable, school and district leaders can implement programs and policies that target those areas in a way that might make teachers want to stay.

Consistent with a large body of research on school-level factors that contribute to teacher turnover, we find that teacher intentions and eventual turnover are not driven by student race and poverty levels but rather school organizational conditions and organizational commitment. Figure 2 shows coefficient estimates from regressions predicting turnover intent as a function of each of these factors (positive values indicate greater likelihood of turnover intent). Specifically, we find that positive school climate, effective school leadership, and school safety are each associated with a lower probability of intent to turn over and, to a lesser extent, actual turnover behavior. Also, buy-in to school and district improvement goals is associated with lower probability of intended and actual turnover behavior, which broadly reflects the importance of building teacher commitment to the school and its mission. This latter finding in particular has implications for schools and districts designated as low-performing and undergoing improvement interventions.

Implications for policy and practice

First, teacher-reported intentions to leave—either the school or the profession—is valuable information that should not be dismissed. Teachers who say they plan to leave their schools—either to transfer or leave education—typically do leave their school within three years. That means district leaders would benefit from surveying teachers about their plans each year and then taking those responses seriously. Our research shows that surveying teachers in the fall—when there is still time to carry out efforts to mitigate turnover—would yield valuable data rooted in teachers’ eventual behavior.

Second, there are domains of influence that school and district leaders can leverage to increase teacher job satisfaction and ultimately retention. For example, school and district leaders can take steps to improve teachers’ organizational commitment as well as school organizational conditions such as climate, leadership, and student behavior management.

Of course, improving teachers’ organizational commitment and school organizational conditions are not straightforward tasks, though there are existing interventions that show promise toward those ends. For example, strong teacher peer mentoring models, both for beginning and experienced teachers, have the capacity to strengthen organizational commitment , promote a positive school climate , foster positive peer relationships , and ultimately improve teacher retention. Streamlining and reducing teacher workload and non-classroom commitments (e.g., meetings, paperwork) can also improve teacher working conditions, job satisfaction, and retention.

A final implication is that data—on school climate, working conditions, and teacher satisfaction, along with teacher intent—can inform school improvement planning. At the state level, eight states include a school climate survey measure in their multidimensional school effectiveness indicator under the Every Student Succeeds Act. These states can provide targeted, accessible climate data to district and school leaders and help them target interventions based on their needs. Other states should consider collecting these data, too—if not for accountability purposes then to provide relevant and actionable data for school improvement and teacher retention.

Related Content

Elizabeth Bettini, Allison Gilmour, Tammy Kolbe, Roddy Theobald

September 26, 2023

J. Cameron Anglum, Anita Manion, Sapna Varkey

September 6, 2023

Lauren Worley, Nicolas Zerbino

May 22, 2023

Education Policy K-12 Education

Governance Studies

U.S. States and Territories

Brown Center on Education Policy

Christine Apiot Okudi, Atenea Rosado-Viurques, Jennifer L. O’Donoghue

August 23, 2024

Sudha Ghimire

August 22, 2024

Online only

11:00 am - 12:00 pm EDT

Federation University Newsroom

Shedding light on teacher attrition and retention in australia.

20 August 2024

Professor Robyn Brandenburg is leading an Australian-first study exploring why teachers are leaving the profession and looking at what they are doing after they leave.

Her research examines teacher attrition from the perspective of former classroom teachers and school leaders and shows that more needs to be done to attract, support and nurture teachers.

More than 80 per cent of teachers who have left have retained their teaching registration, giving hope they may not be permanently lost to education.

Related reading:

Research reveals why teachers are leaving 'the best profession in the world'. Here’s what could bring them back

Teachers are changing careers – but where are they going?

Researchers tackle challenges of harsh arid zone conditions

16 August 2024

Federation researchers are trialling an innovative tool they hope will give young plants a chance to thrive in an area where it has been almost impossible for them to survive.

Read more >>

Exploring the challenges and opportunities for livestock industry

30 July 2024

A study looking at innovations in meat-based food systems is exploring how traditional farming can survive and thrive with the growing popularity of plant-based meat alternatives.

Exploring migration attraction opportunities and challenges for Gippsland

23 July 2024

Federation researchers have partnered with Gippsland Regional Partnership on a program that aims to attract more migrant workers to help address the region's chronic workforce skills gaps.