From Coast to Coast: Teachers dropping out

A study blames working conditions.

As a mid-career professional with a doctorate in chemistry, Maurice Stephenson appeared made to order for the Los Angeles Unified School District, especially because he was eager to teach at a high-poverty campus in a system woefully short of qualified science teachers.

But the honeymoon ended abruptly after less than two years. Fed up with student insolence and administrative impotence, he stalked out of Manual Arts High School on March 12 and never went back.

Few teachers quit so dramatically, but leave they do. In California, teachers are departing the profession in alarming numbers — 22% in four years or fewer — but simply offering them more money won't solve the problem, according to a report released Thursday.

The real issue is working conditions, which are the flip side of a student's learning conditions, said Ken Futernick, who directs K-12 studies at the Center for Teacher Quality at Cal State Sacramento.

The central findings were:

81% of teachers who participated in our survey said they entered the profession because they wanted to make a difference for children and society. This overwhelming number indicates that teachers want above all to be effective teachers.

Many teachers leave schools long before retirement because of inadequate system supports such as too little time for planning, too few textbooks, and unreliable assistance from the district office.

Bureaucratic impediments (e.g., excessive paperwork, too many unnecessary meetings) were cited frequently by leavers. The data also showed that teachers were not asking to be left alone but instead wanted efficient and responsive bureaucracy that supported their teaching.

Better compensation matters to teachers, but unless their classroom and school environment is conducive to good teaching, better compensation is not likely to improve teacher retention rates.

Teachers willingly stay because of strong collegial supports and because they have an important say in the operation of the school; they also seek strong input in what and how they are allowed to teach.

Special education teachers are most likely to leave special education because of inadequate system supports as well as an all-too-often hostile teaching environment created by parents and student advocates. In addition, they leave because of too little time for the complex and constantly changing IEPs (Individualized Education Programs) they are required to write.
Many leave because of dysfunctional professional relationships with their colleagues in general education.

Many teachers (28%) who have left teaching before retirement would come back if improvements were made to teaching and learning conditions. Monetary incentives alone would be less effective in luring them back.

And from Teacher Magazine:

Why Teachers Quit
By Kimberly Palmer
Palmer, K. (2007 May/June). Why teachers quit. Teacher Magazine, pp. 45

It wasn’t her teenage students who drove Meghan Sharp out of teaching—it was the crippling inflexibility of her administrators.

All the innovative curriculum ideas and field trips she proposed to engage her 10th grade biology students were promptly shot down, and she left the profession after just two years.

“I still enjoyed teaching, but it was a constant battle with the administration,” says Sharp, who worked in an urban district in northern New Jersey.

According to a recent report on teacher attrition by the federal National Center for Education Statistics, her predicament—and her departure—are common in the profession. Among former teachers who took noneducation jobs, 64 percent said they have more professional autonomy now than when they taught. Only 11 percent said they’d had more influence over policies at school than in their current jobs.

The survey, based on interviews with more than 7,000 current and former teachers, also found widespread problems with workloads and general working conditions, and it notes that the percentage of teachers abandoning the classroom continues to grow. Among public school teachers, that proportion reached 8 percent in the 2004-05 school year—up from 6 percent in 1988-89.

The problem, experts say, is that teaching has gotten harder.

“As states have increased their reform orientation and their standards and accountability, a good chunk of that falls on the shoulders of teachers,” says Margaret Plecki, an associate professor in educational leadership and policy studies at the University of Washington in Seattle. Those changes, she notes, add up to increased pressure to perform.

In such a climate, teaching may not feel as rewarding, says Barry Farber, professor at Columbia University’s Teachers College. “My sense is that these numbers reflect the fact that many teachers are still struggling to feel consequential—to feel that their efforts are making a difference.”

The NCES study also showed that less-experienced teachers were particularly at risk of fleeing: 20 percent of public school teachers with no prior full-time teaching experience left during 2004-05—more than double the overall rate.

65% Proportion of former public school teachers who say they're better able to balance work and life now that they're working outside the education field.

SOURCE: U.S. Department of Education; National Center for Education Statistics Teacher Follow-up Survey.