Teacher retention, especially of qualified teachers within high-poverty schools, is an issue of local, national, and international concern. School staffing research has typically examined two groups: those who remain in full-time classroom teaching versus those who quit teaching altogether. This article complicates the teacher staffing picture and adds a third category of attrition: role changing, which is the phenomenon of teachers shifting into nonteaching professional roles in the field of education.
Purpose
We asked what proportion of teacher career movement within our sample was attributable to leaving teaching versus role changing. Further, we wanted to know the influence of race/ethnicity, gender, credential type, and age on role-changing patterns.
Research Design
To deepen our understanding of teacher career patterns, we conducted a 6-year longitudinal study that involved collecting survey data on teacher career movement, school experiences, and attitudes from 838 well-prepared urban educators in their first through eighth career year. These educators had all completed master's degrees in the teacher education program of a high-status urban public university and all began their careers as teachers. After collecting the data, we documented and diagrammed career patterns. In addition, we analyzed the influence of select time invariant covariates on the hazard probabilities of both role changing and leaving education.
Findings/Results
The study found that not only did teachers move into a variety of non-teaching roles within the field of education, but they also followed diverse career “pathways” along the way. Survival analysis substantiated prior research showing that Latino teachers have lower attrition rates from the field of education compared with White teachers, but this effect disappeared for role changing with the field. In terms of gender, the men in our population were less likely to leave education entirely than women but more likely to leave teaching for a role change in career years 3–8. Teachers with single-subject (secondary) credentials were more likely than their colleagues who held multiple-subject (elementary) credentials to leave teaching for a role change in education.
Conclusions/Recommendations
Set within the framework of teacher professionalism, we argue that role changing is a form of sanctioned attrition and that understanding movement among roles within the educational workforce is essential for crafting policies and incentives to keep well-prepared teachers rooted in careers that serve the nation's most under-served students.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
References
1.
AdamsG. J. (1996). Using a Cox regression model to examine voluntary teacher turnover. Journal of Experimental Education, 64, 267—285.
2.
AndersonL., and OlsenB. (2006). Investigating early career urban teachers’ perspectives on and experiences in professional development. Journal of Teacher Education, 57, 359—377.
Association of California School Administrators. (1996). Straight talk about school administrators: A special report by the Association of California School Administrators. Retrieved October 23, 2005, from http://www.acsa.org/publications/straight_talk.cfm
5.
BobbittS. A., LeichM. C., WhitenerS. D., and LynchH. F. (1994). Characteristics of stayers, movers, and leavers: Results from the teacher follow-up survey: 1991–1992. Washington, DC: National Center for Education Statistics.
6.
BoeE. E., BobbittS. A., CookL. H., and WhitenerS. D. (1997). Why didst thou go? Predictors of retention, transfer, and attrition of special and general education teachers from a national perspective. Journal of Special Education, 30, 390—411.
7.
BravermanH. (1975). Labor and monopoly capital: The degradation of work in the twentieth century. New York: Monthly Review Press.
8.
BuckleyJ., SchneiderM., and ShangY. (2005). Fix it and they might stay: School facility quality and teacher retention in Washington, D.C. Teachers College Record, 107, 1107—1123.
9.
CarrollS. J., ReichardtR. E., GuarinoC. M., and MejiaA. (2000). The distribution of teachers among California's school districts and schools. Santa Monica, CA: RAND.
10.
Cochran-SmithM. (2003). The multiple meanings of multicultural teacher education: A conceptual framework. Teacher Education Quarterly, 30(2), 7—26.
11.
CorcoranS. P., EvansW. N., and SchwabR. M. (2004). Women, the labor market, and the declining relative quality of teachers. Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, 23, 449—470.
12.
Darling-HammondL. (1997). The right to learn: A blueprint for creating schools that work. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
13.
Darling-HammondL. (2000). Reforming teacher preparation and licensing: Debating the evidence. Teachers College Record, 102, 28—56.
14.
Darling-HammondL., and SclanE. M. (1996). Who teaches and why: Dilemmas of building a profession for twenty-first century schools. In and and SikulaJ. (Ed.), Handbook of research on teacher education (2nd ed., pp. 67—101). New York: Simon and Schuster.
15.
FlowersT. T. (2004). Why do public school teachers leave their profession?Dissertation Abstracts International, 64 (8), 2718. (AAT No. 3100237)
16.
GoodeJ., QuartzK. H., LyonsK. B., and ThomasA. (2004). Developing Teacher Leaders: Exploring the Multiple Roles of Beginning Urban EducatorsTeacher Education and Practice.17(4) 417–431.
17.
HanushekE. A., KainJ. F., and RivkinS. G. (2001). Why public schools lose teachers (NBER Working Paper Series). Retrieved July 24, 2004, from http://www.nber.org/papers/w8599
18.
HanushekE. A., KainJ. F., and RivkinS. G. (2004). The revolving door. Education Next, 4(1), 76—82.
19.
HenkeR. R., ChenX., and GeisS. (2000). Progress through the teacher pipeline: 1992–1993 college graduates and elementary/secondary school teaching as of 1997. NCES 2000-152. Retrieved May 9, 2006, from http://nces.ed.gov/pubsearch/pubsinfo.asp?pubid=2000152
20.
HenkeR. R., ZahnL., and CarrollC. D. (2001). Attrition of new teachers among recent college graduates: Comparing occupational stability among 1992–93 graduates who taught and those who worked in other occupations. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics.
21.
HorngE. L. (2004). Recruiting and retaining teachers at hard-to-staff schools: Examining the tradeoffs teachers make when choosing a school. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of California, Los Angeles.
22.
IngersollR. (2001). Teacher turnover and teacher shortages: An organizational analysis. American Educational Research Journal, 38, 499—534.
23.
IngersollR. M. (2002). The teacher shortage: A case of wrong diagnosis and wrong prescription. NASSP Bulletin, 86(631), 16—30.
24.
IngersollR. (2003a). Is there really a teacher shortage?Seattle, WA: Center for the Study of Teaching and Policy.
25.
IngersollR. (2003b). Who controls teachers’ work: Power and accountability in America's schools. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
26.
IngersollR. (2004). Why do high-poverty schools have difficulty staffing their classrooms with qualified teachers?Washington, DC: Center for American Progress.
27.
IngersollR., and AlsalamN. (1997). Teacher professionalization and teacher commitment: A multilevel analysis. National Center for Education Statistics. Retrieved May 9, 2006, from http://nces.ed.gov/pubs/97069.pdf
28.
JohnsonS. M., and BirkelandS. E. (2003). Pursuing a “sense of success”: New teachers explain their career decisions. American Educational Research Journal, 40, 217—236.
29.
JohnsonS. M.The Project on the Next Generation of American Teachers. (2004). Finders and keepers. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
30.
KellyS. (2004). An event history analysis of teacher attrition: Salary, teacher tracking, and socially disadvantaged schools. Journal of Experimental Education, 72, 195—220.
31.
KirbyS. N., BerendsM., and NaftelS. (1999). Supply and demand of minority teachers in Texas: Problems and prospects. Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, 21, 47—66.
32.
KoppichJ., AsherC., and KerchnerC. (with Darling-Hammond, L.). (2002). Developing careers, building a profession: The Rochester Career in Teaching Plan. New York: National Commission on Teaching and America's Future.
33.
LankfordH., LoebS., and WyckoffJ. (2002). Teacher sorting and the plight of urban schools: A descriptive analysis. Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, 24, 37—62.
34.
LiebermanA., and MillerL. (Eds.). (2001). Teachers caught in the action: Professional development that matters. New York: Teachers College Press.
35.
LoebS., Darling-HammondL., and LuczacJ. (2005). How teaching conditions predict teacher turnover in California schools. Peabody Journal of Education, 80(3), 44—70.
36.
LouisK. S., MarksH. M., and KruseS. (1996). Teachers’ professional community in restructuring schools. American Educational Research Journal, 33, 757—798.
37.
LuekensM. T., LyterD. M., FoxE. E., and ChandlerK. (2004). Teacher attrition and mobility: Results from the teacher follow-up survey, 2000–01. Washington, DC: National Center for Education Statistics.
38.
LyonsK. B. (2006, April). Preparing to stay: An examination of the effects of specialized preparation on urban teacher retention. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association, San Francisco, CA.
39.
MacdonaldD. (1999). Teacher attrition: A review of the literature. Teaching and Teacher Education, 15, 835—848.
40.
MasynK. (2003). Discrete-time survival mixture analysis for single and recurrent events using latent variables. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of California, Los Angeles.
41.
MurnaneR. J. (1991). Who will teach? Policies that matter. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
42.
MurnaneR. J., and OlsenR. J. (1989). The effect of salaries and opportunity costs on duration in teaching: Evidence from Michigan. The Review of Economics and Statistics, 71, 347—352.
43.
MurnaneR. J., and OlsenR. J. (1990). The effects of salaries and opportunity costs on length of stay in teaching: Evidence from North Carolina. The Journal of Human Resources, 25, 106—124.
44.
MurphyJ. (2005). Connecting teacher leadership and school improvement. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press.
45.
MuthénB., and MasynK. (2005). Discrete-time survival mixture analysis. Journal of Educational and Behavioral Statistics, 30, 27—58.
46.
National Commission on Excellence in Education. (1983). A nation at risk: The imperative for educational reform. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Education.
47.
National Commission on Teaching and America's Future. (2003). No dream denied: A pledge to America's children. Washington, DC: Author.
48.
OakesJ., QuartzK. H., RyanS., and LiptonM. (2000). Becoming good American schools: The struggle for civic virtue in education reform. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
49.
OlsenB., and AndersonL. (2007). Courses of action: A qualitative investigation in urban teacher retention and career developmentUrban Education, 42, 5—29.
QuartzK. H., LyonsK. B., and ThomasA. (2005). Retaining teachers in high-poverty schools: A policy framework. In BasciaN., CummingA., DatnowA., LeithwoodK., and LivingstoneD. (Eds.), International handbook of educational policy, part two (pp. 491—506). Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Springer.
52.
RosenholtzS. J. (1985). Effective schools: Interpreting the evidence. American Journal of Education, 93, 352—388.
53.
RumbergerR. W. (1987). The impact of salary differentials on teacher shortages and turnover: The case of mathematics and science teachers. Economics of Education Review, 6, 389—399.
54.
ScafidiB., SjoquistD. L., and StinebricknerT. R. (2005, August). Race, poverty, and teacher mobility (Andrew Young School of Policy Studies Research Paper Series No. 06-51). Atlanta: Georgia State University.
55.
SchlectyP., and VanceV. (1983). Recruitment, selection, and retention: The shape of the teaching force. Elementary School Journal, 83, 469—487.
56.
SclanE. M. (1993). The effect of perceived workplace conditions on beginning teachers’ work commitment, career choice commitment, and planned retention. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, Columbia University, New York.
57.
ShenJ. (1997). Teacher retention and attrition in public schools: Evidence from SASS91. Journal of Educational Research, 91(2), 81—88.
58.
ShinH. S. (1995). Estimating future teacher supply: Any policy implications for educational reform?International Journal of Educational Reform, 4, 422—433.
59.
StinebricknerT. R. (1998). An empirical investigation of teacher attrition. Economics of Education Review, 17, 127—136.
60.
StinebricknerT. R. (1999). Estimation of a duration model in the presence of missing data. Review of Economics and Statistics, 81, 529—542.
61.
StinebricknerT. R. (2001). A dynamic model of teacher labor supply. Journal of Labor Economics, 19, 196—230.
62.
StockardJ., and LehmanM. B. (2004). Influences on the satisfaction and retention of 1st-year teachers: The importance of effective school management. Educational Administration Quarterly, 40, 742—771.
63.
TaylorF. W. (1911). The principles of scientific management. New York: Harper Brothers.
64.
Tennessee Tomorrow. (2002). Why are new teachers leaving the classroom: An analysis of teacher attrition in Tennessee. Nashville: Tennessee Tomorrow, Tennessee Economic Development Center.
65.
Texas Education Agency. (1995). Policy research report #6: Texas teacher retention, mobility, and attrition. Austin: Texas Education Agency.
TheobaldN. D. (1990). An examination of the influence of personal, professional, and school district characteristics on public school teacher retention. Economics of Education Review, 9, 241—250.
68.
TheobaldN. D., and MichaelR. S. (2001). Teacher turnover in the Midwest: Who stays, leaves, and moves? Policy issues (No. NCREL10). Washington DC: Office of Educational Research and Improvement.
69.
TheobaldN. D., and MichaelR. S. (2002). Teacher turnover in Illinois, Indiana, Minnesota, and Wisconsin: Who stays, moves, and leaves?Bloomington: University of Indiana, Indiana Education Policy Center.
70.
ThomasA. (2005). Social networks and career paths of urban teachers: Effects of career decision-related communication networks on teacher retention. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of California, Los Angeles.
71.
TowseP., KentD., OsakiF., and KiruaN. (2002). Non-graduate teacher recruitment and retention: Some factors affecting teacher effectiveness in Tanzania. Teaching and Teacher Education, 18, 637—652.
WeinerL. (2000). Research in the 90s: Implications for urban teacher preparation. Review of Educational Research, 70, 369—406.
74.
WeissE. M. (1999). Perceived workplace conditions and first-year teachers’ morale, career choice commitment, and planned retention: A secondary analysis. Teaching and Teacher Education, 15, 861—879.
75.
ZeichnerK. M. (2003). The adequacies and inadequacies of three current strategies to recruit, prepare, and retain the best teachers for all students. Teachers College Record, 105, 490—519.
