Who Leaves Teaching? 1992 Versus 2009
A couple of days ago NCES released a new report on teacher attrition and mobility. Among many interesting findings, the report shows a 20-year trend—the percent of public school teachers leaving the teaching profession is steadily rising. The report, which is based on the 2008-09 Teacher Follow-Up Survey, doesn’t go into the reasons behind this trend. But thanks to some of the recent debates here on Public School Insights, I wondered how it related to the average age of our public school teachers. It could be due to the aging of the workforce—the number of teachers retiring. Or maybe the young, TFA-type teachers—in the profession for two years and then out—are playing a role.
So I went back to an earlier version of the survey, the May 1994 report based on the 1991-92 Teacher Follow-Up Survey. Of the six such surveys over the last 20 or so years, this one showed the lowest percent of teachers leaving the profession—5.1% that year (compared to 8.0% in the most recent survey, which was down from 8.4% in 2004-05).
What did I learn? Only about 28% of teachers who left the profession in 2009 did so because they retired, compared to about 33% in 1992. And about 9% of teachers under the age of 30 left the profession, about the same as in 1992.
So it’s not that more teachers are retiring—actually, proportionally fewer are. And it’s not that the young guns who commit for two years are leaving (though the percentage of teachers with 1-3 years experience leaving did increase).
Instead, the percent of teachers age 30-39 who left the profession doubled. The percent of 40-49 year-olds leaving the profession nearly doubled. And the percent of teachers leaving with 4-9 years experience increased nearly 50%.
Not what I had initially predicted. But not necessarily surprising. More teachers may be hitting their 30s and thinking, “Is there something better out there?”
And what happens after that? How do former teachers compare their new jobs to teaching? The survey didn’t ask this question in 1992, but in 2009, teaching didn’t show well. More than 56% of former teachers believe their new job gives them a greater ability to balance their personal life and work than teaching did (and nearly 34% said that it was neither better nor worse in this regard). Over 52% believe it allows more autonomy or control over their work (and over 30% say that it is neither better nor worse). And even in areas we know are important to young teachers, such as opportunities for learning from colleagues, teaching does not come out ahead—40.8% think it is better in their current position and nearly 40% it is no better or worse.
Of course, this is a select audience—those who left teaching to work in another job are likely to be less satisfied with teaching than those who remain. And the report does not indicate the effectiveness of the teachers who leave for another job—are they the most effective? The least?
Regardless, it’s worth addressing issues such as work/life balance, autonomy and collaboration in teaching. If these trends are any indication of what’s to come, we need to make sure that the teaching profession can compete for our strongest teachers.
* Hat tip to Linda Perlstein
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Maybe my mid-career theory is
Maybe my mid-career theory is panning out in the data?
Hrm, I'll have to come back in five years and see if this trend continues (so long as conditions are the same).
Maybe it is...definitely keep
Maybe it is...definitely keep your eye on the data.
But I can't help but wonder how many of those mid-career leavers do so because they truly want to stop teaching, or if instead the conditions of their jobs have worn them down to the point they feel like that they have no other option. If we lose talented teachers because of relatively changeable job conditions, we should address them. Talented individuals should not feel forced out of the profession.
As you know, I went the other
As you know, I went the other way, leaving a far more lucrative career with much better control over my time in 1994 when I was about 48 to get an MAT and become a teacher.
As 2000 approached, since I was an expert in legacy systems, I had a lot of offers, for several multiples of what I was making as a teacher, to return to DP for Y2K conversions. My students didn't understand why I didn't take the money and run, and my principal was afraid I would.
Of teachers I have worked with who left teaching in their 30s and 40s, the biggest single reason was the decreasing ability to control what they could in their classroom. That is, things were becoming far more rigid, far more dictated by external mandates, and thus far less flexible in meeting the needs of students. Couple this with the lack of respect as they continually saw teachers getting bashed and had to experience some of that from students with too much time and not enough pay. But again, the biggest single reason was the increasingly rigid work situations.
I agree-- autonomy is huge. I
I agree-- autonomy is huge. I have toyed with leaving teaching for several years now, but haven't for a variety of reasons. But the only reason I have thought of leaving has nothing to do with pay, or lack of merit pay. The only reason I have thought of leaving is the increasing threat of having all my decisions made for me.
Even if my scores were my only indication, which I don't believe they are, I would be deemed an effective teacher. I believe I'm an effective teacher primarily because I am creative, not in a warm and fuzzy kind of way, but creative in that I look at where I want my students to be as readers and writers, I look at what needs they have before I can take them to that point, and I carefully create lessons that will simultaniously engage them and give them exactly the skills they need to succeed. In other words, I make decisions. I would make the case that teaching is, at its heart, decision making.
But these days we are increasingly under the threat that the autonomy to make instructional decisions will be taken away and given to higher-ups in the name of "consistency." If you take away my autonomy, I will no longer be effective, and you will have taken away my chief reason for excelling-- I absolutely love the challenge of coming up with new ways to teach kids. Daniel Pink's ideas and collected studies from others in the book "Drive," confirm the idea that teachers and students benefit from having a good deal of autonomy.
If you tell me exactly how to do my job in a way that takes away any choices I might make, and then say you're going to hold me accountable for the results I get-- aren't you responsible for the results I get, since you told me exactly what do do?
I would be more interested in
I would be more interested in lateral shifts - to different school systems or from k-8 to 9-12 or to guidance or another academic department or interdisciplinary project or even to college or community college. My sense is that so many teachers so embed themselves in their school that they rarely look around for options to enhance or explore their skills in or among analogous situations.
As one who started with college - actually graduate - teaching and has gradually shifted to high school, my perspective is ... distinct. And my observations of the rigidities (and absurdities) of high school increasingly student-centric. Too many people are too invested - in most schools - in content which their students find at best boring, at worst absurd. And, most of the time, their students are more right than their supervisors or curriculum specialists, who themselves become enforcers rather than the inspirations they're supposed to be.
teacherken and David Lee
teacherken and David Lee Finkle - I can absolutely see losing autonomy as a huge factor motivating people out of the teaching profession. Especially for those in a changing world--those who started teaching before many of the current education policies were enacted. For me--one of the "1-3 years of experience" teachers--it was a variety of reasons. But a large one was (my perceived) inability to balance a personal and work life, which was the category in this study where teaching performed the worst. I felt my lifestyle as a teacher was unsustainable. Of course, I may have been able to work through that had the other conditions of my job enticed me to stay.
Anonymous - Interesting. But I'm not sure I agree with you that "teachers so embed themselves in their school that they rarely look around for options to enhance or explore their skills in or among analogous situations." Very few (if any...I can't actually think of any) teachers I know stay in their initial assignment for their entire time in the classroom, switching either schools or subjects. But that could just be the crowd I know (that TFA scene)--and the fact that (so, so luckily) I taught at one of the most desirable (for teachers) schools in my district, so people were always transferring in. Do others have a view on this?
School operations theory
School operations theory makes a distinction between administration, or leadership, and management which traditionally includes teaching.
Over time, administration has retreated up the chain of command to the point where bits and pieces come from levels three to five above the classroom. This leaves everything between the teacher and the actual leadership (the direction of education) in a de facto management state.
Since there are so many managers, it is obvious the teacher who is at the bottom, experiences little autonomy. People who are offered alternatives have little choice but to leave if they value their ability to think and act for themselves. School districts have reacted to this by offering a sort of "double dip" incentive to keep highly experienced staff but it's very expensive.
TFA is just another way to populate the system because it doesn't understand how to serve its customers, the students. It just wants to satisfy our cultural mission which is at odds with their needs.
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