By Franklin Schargel
The United States is confronting a severe crisis in education: trained teachers are leaving classrooms faster than new teachers are prepared. Research shows troubling trends: roughly 18 percent of students do not graduate from high school, and nearly half of new teachers leave the profession within five years. First-year teachers also face high attrition, with around 17 percent departing during their initial year. Recent Department of Labor data reported by major outlets indicate record rates of educator departures in 2018, with public school staff quitting at an average rate of 83 per 10,000 employees during the first ten months of that year.
Why are educators leaving? Which grade levels and subject areas feel the greatest impact? Are certain regions more affected? And what are the financial and instructional costs to school systems when trained teachers depart? Most importantly, who will teach the children if these trends continue?
Many who complete teacher preparation programs never enter classrooms. Common reasons include long hours, relatively low pay, increased school violence, insufficient preparation for managing disruptive behavior, weak administrative support, and intense public scrutiny when schools are labeled “low performing.”
Teacher preparation and support have not kept pace with the realities teachers face. K–12 classrooms increasingly include students from nontraditional backgrounds—poverty, foster care, homelessness, diverse cultural and linguistic backgrounds, autism, and other special needs. Family structures and student learning habits are changing as well. At the same time, technology, social media, and new learning platforms reshape how students engage with content. Many teacher-education programs struggle to prepare graduates for this complexity.
Enrollment in schools of education has fallen sharply in many states. For example, Education Week reported that California saw a 53 percent drop in education school enrollment between 2008–2009 and 2012–2013. Declining enrollment in teacher-preparation programs compounds the supply problem.
Attrition is costly. The Alliance for Excellent Education estimates that replacing public school teachers who leave costs the nation approximately $2.2 billion annually. Over the next decade, federal and union estimates suggest that American schools will need more than two million new teachers—an average exceeding 200,000 new educators each year. Large numbers of retirements are also removing experienced teachers and their institutional knowledge from the system, widening an experience gap that slows school improvement.
Some states address shortages by issuing emergency licenses, and districts sometimes hire teachers with limited or no classroom experience. While this fills vacancies, it can create classroom management challenges and uneven instruction, especially for students who most need experienced teachers.
Recruiting and retaining highly effective teachers is especially difficult in low-income and minority schools. Students in high-poverty settings are twice as likely to be taught by inexperienced teachers and are 61 percent more likely to have an uncertified teacher. This inequity exacerbates achievement gaps.
Consider the following:
- Linda Darling-Hammond reported for the National Commission on Teaching and America’s Future that nearly a thousand teachers leave the profession each school day, and another thousand change schools—often seeking better working conditions. These figures exclude retirees.
- Attrition is higher in hard-to-staff schools: roughly 50 percent in many inner-city and high-poverty neighborhoods.
- The National Center for Education Statistics found that common reasons teachers transfer include lack of planning time (65 percent), heavy workload (60 percent), challenging student behavior (53 percent), and limited influence over school policy (52 percent).
- The U.S. Department of Education estimates the need for roughly 2.2 million new teachers over the next decade.
- Some researchers argue the core issue is retention rather than an absolute shortage: colleges are producing teachers, but too many do not remain in the classroom long enough to build experience.
- New teachers are particularly vulnerable because they are often assigned to low-performing urban schools with high dropout rates and receive little professional support, mentoring, or demonstration of effective practices.
- Annual surveys of teachers report high stress among new educators related to administrative duties, classroom management, testing requirements, and strained relationships with parents.
- Estimates indicate that 9 to 17 percent of new teachers in urban schools may not complete their first year, and 40 to 50 percent leave within seven years—many within the first four years.
- A significant portion of the current workforce is approaching retirement: in some states more than half of teachers are over fifty, increasing near-term turnover.
- Charter schools are not necessarily retaining staff better; one study found higher odds that charter teachers leave the profession compared with traditional public school teachers.
More than half of the nation’s teachers graduate from schools of education. The Department of Education estimates that about 220,000 students—roughly 80 percent of prospective teachers—graduate from teacher-preparation programs annually. Yet many graduates report feeling underprepared for real classroom challenges. Reports from prominent education leaders have found that a majority of alumni from education programs believe their training did not adequately prepare them for teaching.
The loss of skilled teachers also carries a meaningful financial and instructional cost. Studies point to thousands of dollars per vacancy in recruitment, hiring, and lost instructional continuity—costs that vary by district. For example, case studies have shown localized replacement costs ranging from several thousand to nearly twenty thousand dollars per teacher, not accounting for the disruption to learning.
Teacher demographics are shifting: the K–12 workforce is aging, while the share of teachers in their thirties has declined. This shrinking pool of experienced mentors makes it harder to support novices. Recent statistics show many teachers are eligible to retire, and annual graduation rates of education majors do not fully offset departures—especially since a substantial share of new graduates choose careers outside K–12 education.
Rural districts face their own challenges: lower pay, geographic isolation, and difficulty recruiting new teachers make retaining strong educators especially hard. Research suggests that many effective teachers—those rated “effective” or “very effective”—are among those leaving, which further undermines school quality.
Teaching is demanding. Many students arrive with complex life circumstances—parental neglect, family instability, exposure to substances or violence, and other barriers to learning. Schools are increasingly expected to address social and emotional issues that extend beyond traditional academic instruction. Administrators must cultivate school cultures that support teachers, allow for experimentation, and provide the time and resources needed to reach every child. Expecting new teachers to perform at the highest level without sustained support is unrealistic and contributes to burnout.
Addressing the teacher exodus requires three core strategies:
- Aggressive, strategic recruitment of new personnel;
- Deliberate retention policies and supports to keep existing staff;
- Ongoing professional development to refresh and upgrade the skills of current classroom teachers.
In Part 2 of this series, we will examine the role of leadership in slowing and reversing this critical challenge.
About the Author
Franklin P. Schargel is a former classroom teacher, school counselor, and school administrator who designed and implemented programs that increased parental engagement, raised post-secondary enrollment, and significantly reduced a Title I high school’s dropout rate. His work has been recognized by the U.S. Department of Education, BusinessWeek, Fortune, NPR, PBS, and The New York Times. He served as Education Division Chair of the American Society for Quality and helped develop the Malcolm Baldrige Award criteria for education.
Schargel is an international speaker, trainer, and the author of thirteen books. His recent book, Creating Safe Schools: A Guide for School Leaders, Classroom Teachers, Counselors and Parents, has been published internationally. He has authored more than 100 articles on school reform.
Material in this series is excerpted from the book Who Will Teach the Children? Recruiting, Retaining & Refreshing Highly Effective Educators by Franklin P. Schargel © School Success Network Press, 2019.
This article was originally published by The Learning Counsel, a research institute and news media organization focused on the transition to digital curriculum in education.