Becoming High Turnover Rates Among Teachers

Teachers today face a number of challenges that contribute to a lack of job satisfaction, leaving schools for other professions that are more lucrative, low comparative compensation, and poor working conditions:

According to Heller (2004), education is notorious for a low survival rate of new teachers. Teachers feel isolated because they have little

Fifty percent of new teachers quit with in the first five years of teaching (NEA, 2015), with this number being so alarmingly high it begs the questions: Why do so many teachers leave after going through years of college for this profession? Were teachers not prepared for the job, through college training, what should colleges teach in order to better prepare teachers?

The issue of teacher shortage today is continuing to grow. The effects of the achievement gap are reaching the teachers, not just the students: “...good administrators and teachers, who are doing their best under difficult circumstances, will be driven out of the profession…,” (Boyd-Zaharias 41). The achievement gap is part of the reason teachers feel they are underpaid, which happens to be one of the leading cause in teacher shortage considering, “Teachers were paid two percent less [than comparable workers] in 1994, but by 2015 the wage penalty rose to 17 percent,” (Long). Being a teacher requires passion in order to stay in the field, especially if the money in teaching is decreasing. Money is an important aspect for people when it comes to their careers, therefore, fewer people want to become teachers. This lack of teachers and the lack of college students studying to become a teacher leads to unqualified teachers and larger classroom sizes (Ostroff). Both of these causes are eventually affecting students’ learning environments. I chose this issue in education for my project because I have personally felt these effects, and I know others who have as well. As a future educator, I want to see better wages and better benefits, but this can only happen with qualified, passionate teachers. I plan on being one of them, and I plan on sparking a change. I am a future educator fighting to end teacher shortage.

There is a consensus among the concerned stakeholders that the quality of teachers is the leading factor in determination of student performance. In the case of United States, the student performance can only be given an impetus by the efforts which the state can make, under all costs, to develop and retain high quality teachers. The measures undertaken determine the level of turnover of the school teachers. Lazear (2009) similarly argues the length of employment is a critical factor in averse risks of employment a trend contrary to teachers treatment. The turnover of public school teachers will refer to the rate at which the state, which is the teacher’s

As a professional in a field that is predominately white, Anglo- Saxon, females the social constraints were prevalent in differentiating between the dominate class and others with respect to how well one was capable of

In the first year of teaching, four out of ten teachers quit. An educators job is not a walk in the park. In Kansas, we are facing a shortage of teachers. The most areas that are facing these shortages are Special Education, Adaptive and Functional Special Education, Early Childhood Handicapped, and hearing and visual impaired. It has been reported that Fewer students have chosen to major in education. There are many reasons that are causing the shortages, lack of

For people who have a heavy influence on the engagement of young people, you would think teachers would be more engaged in their jobs. Yet nearly seven in ten are not emotionally connected to or are dissatisfied with their workplaces, according to a new Gallup Report (April 9, 2014). Teacher engagement appears to drop off within the early years of teaching. According to the report, teachers with less than a year on the job are most likely to be engaged, when thirty-five percent were enthusiastic about and committed to their jobs. The numbers continue to slip to a low of twenty-eight percent for those with between three and five years of teaching experience. ( Gallup Repor

Teacher burnout emerged as an important concept in the 1970s, and it captured something very critical about people’s experience with teaching. It was first defined by Freudenberg in 1974, and it symbolizes feelings of failure and being worn, resulting from an overload of

Negativity and low teacher retention rates are a product of teacher isolation. Collaboration and involvement with other components of the school outside the classroom leads to an increase in job satisfaction on the behalf of teachers. Jennifer Waddell, professor at the University of Missouri, states that, “Teachers highlighted both the personal and professional nature of the relationships, often commenting that the coworkers were their source of energy and strength as they met the challenges of teaching in urban environments. The teachers commented that their fellow teachers helped them experience a sense of belonging, ownership, and satisfaction in their jobs, even when district mandates and bureaucratic pressures were mounting” (Waddell, 2010). This feeling of satisfaction impacts teacher’s behavior in the classroom and leads to a higher retention of

Maryland. The study evaluated the perceptions of principals, teachers, and support personnel concerning specific teacher attributes, characteristics, and behaviors that influence retention. It did not identify the actions principals take to promote retention. While the findings of these studies and others provide valuable data regarding the bigger issue of teacher retention, it is believed that more in-depth exploration will provide greater understanding of the role of the principal and the strategies they employ to reduce teacher retention. DeAngelis and Presley (2014) conducted a study to provide an overview of the findings of previous studies, paying particular attention to distinguishing between factors that have been found to influence teachers’ decisions to leave the profession vis a vis those factors

According to data gathered by the National Center for Education Statistics in 2015, there are about 50.1 million public school students and 3.1 million teachers in the United States. When the number of teachers is not enough to meet the demand for teaching, the student/teacher ratio will rise. In order to recruit teachers more effectively, we need to improve the training programs and the teachers ' rights. In the early 19th century, the National Education Association introduced tenure. Before tenure, teachers could be fired for religion, race, political standing, personal reasons, and for voicing their opinions. Tenure is simply a contractual right to protect teachers from unfair expulsion for arbitrary or unjustified reasons (Robertson 465). Furthermore, tenure is only granted to teachers after a reasonable working period. We shouldn’t eliminate the tenure system because it protects teachers from unfair dismissal, helps school administrators work more effectively, and attracts people to the teaching profession.

The burnout is a significant issue in elementary education that has not been discussed enough. In the article “A Study of the Relationship Between Demographic Factors and Elementary School Teacher Burnout: The Iranian Case,” the authors M. Mazidi, F. Khoshbakht, and M. Alborzi discussed the relationship between the teachers’ burnout and their demographics. The article was published in the journal Educational Research Quarterly on September 2017. The authors of the article did a great job explaining the main points and aspects of a burnout for elementary education teacher and I think they did an incredible job drawing awareness to this important issue.

“I don’t know how they can still be in the classroom!” “Can’t they just fire them?” “Why do they have so many chances?” These are often the words that come out of many teachers, parents, and students’ mouths when having an unpleasant encounter with a lackluster teacher. Unfortunately, these lackluster teachers seem to walk a fine line where they perform just enough duties to stay employed but never go beyond average. Many of these cases involve educators who refuse to implement new strategies, leave students unsupervised, verbally degrade students’ abilities, have a lack of collaboration and communication skills, and an inconsistent sense of responsibility to perform contractual duties. While, these negative behaviors are not exposed in the media like other situations that require immediate teacher dismissal, they are unfortunately, everyday occurrence in most school districts or educational institutions, and affect students in a negative way. According to Educational Law (2016) teacher dismissals refers to “…the termination of employment contracts either during academic years for just cause or, for teachers with tenure, at the end of a given school year.” However, teacher dismissal has become extremely difficult due to lack of time for proper administrative documentation, union language, and shortage of new qualified teachers.

The purpose of this essay is to examine whether there are relationships that exists between the impact of teacher turnover and student achievement, particularly in schools of low income, ethnic minority areas or non-white, and low achieving student populations. It is an interesting topic even though I am not in teaching profession but it is a topic that gives people concerns.