Teacher Attrition and Retention: Root Causes to Solutions

• In Event: Poster Session 13
  In Poster Session: Teacher Commitment, Retention, and Staffing in the United States and Abroad

Abstract

Approximately half of all licensed teachers leave the classroom within their first five years of teaching (Kelley, 2004; Ingersoll & Smith, 2003, National Commission on Teaching and America’s Future, 2007) and around five hundred thousand teachers turnover every year, with 16% retiring (Boyd, Grossman, Ing, Lankford, Loeb, & Wyckoff, 2011). There are many different explanations for this attrition, from historical trends in attrition to the low professional status of teaching to teacher burn-out. This paper seeks to explore the different rationales for teacher attrition and how these reasons are related to educational policy, particularly the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 (NCLB).

Author

• Christine Ruth Probasco, University of New Mexico