Teacher retention over the long, long term

Zoom out, and it's been remarkably stable for decades

Samuel Yi and I have a new short report out at Education Next looking at teacher retention over the long, long term.

The main figure is the graph below. There are two main takeaways. One is that teachers (in blue) leave their chosen profession at about the same rate as nurses leave theirs. Teachers leave at slightly higher rates than accountants but far less than social workers.

The second takeaway is the stability in the teacher workforce. As Sam and I show in another graph, there was an increase in turnover in the wake of COVID-19, but things are already coming down. And, if you zoom out over the long, long term, teacher exit rates look very similar today as they did throughout the 1980s, 1990s, and 2000s. I find that rather remarkable.

There are, of course, schools and subject areas with higher turnover rates. And schools must deal with both people who leave the profession entirely and those who decide to transfer to another school.

But after looking at the data, our conclusion was that, “Treating teacher turnover as a generic problem might lead state and district policymakers toward overly cautious and blunt policy decisions. A more nuanced approach—one that prioritizes teacher quality over sheer quantity—can help school systems better serve both educators and students.”

You can read the full thing here.

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