Teacher Turnover in High-Poverty Schools: What We Know and Can Do

• In Event: 73.046 - School Working Conditions and Teacher Turnover: Implications for Diversifying the Teacher Workforce

Abstract

Over the past three decades, teacher turnover has increased substantially in US public schools, especially in those serving large portions of low-income students of color. Teachers who choose to leave high-poverty schools serving large numbers of students of color usually transfer to schools serving wealthier, whiter student populations. Some researchers have interpreted this trend to mean that “teachers systematically favor higher-achieving, nonminority, non-low income students” (Hanushek, Kain, & Rivkin, 2004). These ideas have influenced policy analysis concerning high-poverty schools, but offered little guidance for those who would address this problem. The purpose of this article is to present an alternative explanation for turnover—one grounded in organizational theory and substantiated by an emerging line of research. In doing so, it reframes the debate over what fuels high rates of teacher turnover in high-poverty schools and provides advice for policymakers and practitioners, as well as recommendations for productive possibilities for future research.

This paper reviews six studies analyzing turnover as a function of school context, rather than as a function of student demographics. To select the studies in this review, we conducted an extensive electronic search of scholarship on teacher turnover and carefully scanned the reference sections of identified studies to ensure a comprehensive search. We read over 60 studies and analyzed each study’s research methods. We selected studies that employed a rigorous research design and included measures of both student demographics and elements of working conditions as predictors of turnover. Based on the patterns regarding what factors influence teacher departures across these studies, we pursued these predictors by summarizing what is known about them and how each supports teachers’ work. The paper looks at turnover among teachers generally, but carefully highlights research on teachers of color where it exists.

The six overarching studies reviewed here collectively suggest that teachers who leave high-poverty school are not fleeing their students. Rather, they are fleeing the poor working conditions that make it difficult for them to teach and for their students to learn. The working conditions that teachers prize most—and those that best predict their satisfaction and retention—are social in nature. They include school leadership, collegial relationships, and elements of school culture.

This paper draws upon considerable evidence to argue that the poor working conditions common in America’s neediest schools explain away most, if not all, of the relationship between student characteristics and teacher attrition. This is an important scholarly contribution because, unlike demographic characteristics of students, working conditions can be addressed. Policymakers and practitioners have many options for improving aspects of the school environment and, although more research can inform this work, much is already known about what matters to teachers as they are deciding whether or not to continue teaching in their schools.

Authors

• Nicole S. Simon, Harvard University

• Susan M. Johnson, Harvard University