Teacher Churn Within Schools: Magnitudes and Implications for School Reform and Inequality in Student Outcomes

• In Event: Roundtable Session 21
  In Roundtable Session: Teacher Evaluation Policies and Student Outcomes

Abstract

In addition to the shuffling of teachers across schools and loss of teachers from the profession, there is also a sizable annual churn of teachers within schools. Churn within schools happens when teachers are given a different teaching assignment from one year to the next within the same school. Using employment records for the population of teachers employed by the state of Missouri between 2005-2012, we show that the proportion of teachers who change teaching assignments but remain within the same schools is higher in high- than low-poverty schools. Churn within schools threatens the continuity of school reform, as well as teachers’ accumulation of course or grade-specific pedagogy and content knowledge.

Authors

• Jill Bowdon, University of Pennsylvania

• Robert Boruch, University of Pennsylvania