Rethinking Teacher Turnover: Developing New Measures of Instability in Schools

• In Event: 41.083 - Roundtable Session 15
  In Roundtable Session: 41.083-4 - Exploring Teacher Turnover

Abstract

In recent years, researchers have sought to better understand the causes of teacher turnover, particularly in high poverty schools. Many of these studies utilize annual rates of turnover, which tell us little about different types of turnover schools may experience, or how losses may accumulate over time in a school. In order to examine whether and to what extent churn may affect schools, it is necessary to develop new, more nuanced measures. In this paper, we review the measures of turnover used to date, and then conceptualize new measures that differentiate turnover rates in terms of depth, concentration, and cumulative effects. We demonstrate how these new measures convey a different understanding of organizational instability in schools using data from Texas.

Authors

• Huriya Jabbar, The University of Texas - Austin

• Jennifer Jellison Holme, The University of Texas - Austin

• Emily Germain, The University of Texas - Austin

• John Dinning, Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board