The For Poor Retention Rates Within The Teaching Industry

While salary is a contributing factor to poor retention, administrators must investigate measures to adequately support their teachers. Greiner et al. (2005) created a five step plan to increase teacher retention. Their plan included designing collaborative training programs, developing flexible scheduling, strengthening relationships between experienced teachers, and developing partnerships between schools and local school districts.

Education is the most vital part of man’s existence. The concept of education started in the ancient days and continues to the modern age. Education has existed before this current age, but modern education has been labeled as the most significant part of any possible profession. This assumption is not making waves in the United States of America only, but in the whole world wide. Despite the unique and distinct languages that exist throughout the world, young and developing minds still seek education and new knowledge as technology keeps changing. Education is the backbone and the platform in which we build and develop our own unique ideas that has become

The state of Arizona is facing a serious education crisis in the retention of qualified teachers. Personally, my school in Yuma, Arizona encountered an average of seven new teachers every year. Yuma High School District allowed for a teacher to teach chemistry when his/her Bachelor’s degree was in mathematics. According to the ‘No Child Left Behind Act’ enacted in 2001, schools are required to provide “highly qualified” teachers to teach at all times (Educator Excellence). Having quality, long-term teachers is imperative to develop students in becoming productive members of society. Unfortunately due to federal budget cuts directly affecting education, Timothy L. Ogle, executive director of the Arizona School Boards Association, says, “Arizona has faced the most dramatic cuts to K-12 education spending of any state in the nation” (Lopez). As a result, administration is forced to have teachers make up for the lack of a certain subject by teaching it without qualifications. Due to this, out-of-state teachers leave within the first 5 years, and 25% all leave within the first year. Some reasons for this include a

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?

Area III, Professional Development referenced strengths currently in place across the district: year-round professional development (PD) plan for teachers and administrators, and an effective mentor program for new and resident teachers. Likewise, the TL also noted significant challenges that reduce the effectiveness of staff training: too often, it (professional development) is voluntary or scheduled at inconvenient times, schools lack sufficient time to plan and collaborate around PD initiatives, the limited central office staff cannot provide adequate services, especially in specialty areas, too often, there is no on-going support after training, professional development sessions and initiatives are not carefully evaluated to determine what is effective, and competing initiatives across different offices send mixed messages to schools and teachers. Area IV, Specialty Programs and Other areas noted challenges facing the school district to include the recruitment and retention of highly qualified teachers. The report noted a number of factors have contributed to challenges with recruitment and retention including salary and benefits that may not be competitive enough with surrounding districts, and limited supports available to teachers to implement high quality instruction. Additionally, inconsistent teacher evaluation procedures do not produce useful feedback or data. Based on the initial evidence from focus groups and document reviews, the Teaching and Learning committee members developed twelve key recommendations. A critical recommendation regarding teacher attrition was: (TL 11) assess or clarify the issues around the hiring and retention of highly qualified and high-performing teachers (Dukes et.al). These findings suggest that PGCPS must find better ways of retaining teachers. Prince George’s County Public Schools can no longer afford to be complacent about teachers exiting the

Like leadership turnover in other professions, turnover rates at more challenging schools are on the higher end of that spectrum (Beteille, Kalogrides and Loeb 2011, Boyd, et al. 2008, Clark, Martorell and Rockoff 2009). For instance, large, urban districts have similar turnover rates: Miami-Dade County Public Schools (MDCPS) is 22%, Milwaukee is 20%, San Francisco 26%, and New York City is 24% (Beteille, Kalogrides and Loeb 2011, Boyd, et al. 2008, Clark, Martorell and Rockoff 2009). However, within MDCPS, the turnover rate is higher for the district’s highest-poverty schools (28%), versus lowest-poverty schools (18%) (Beteille, Kalogrides and Loeb 2011). New York City school findings were similar (Clark, Martorell and Rockoff 2009). Low-performing, low-SES schools that lose an effective principal, often struggle due to having a replacement that is less-experienced and less-effective (Beteille, Kalogrides and Loeb 2011, Branch, Hanushek and Rivkin 2012).

In response to the general questions at the beginning of the questionnaire that were intended as straightforward factual questions to slide the subjects gently into discussion, it was shown that there is a breadth of teaching experience as expected. The minimum length of time teaching was five years and the longest was thirty-eight years. However, because two of the respondents had been employed in careers other than teaching the length of service did not mirror the age profile. This is significant in that this is an established team who has previously worked through many changes together. There was a range of responsibilities in terms of both subject expertise and responsibilities in terms of pay scale i.e. there were responses from teachers on the main pay scale, upper scale and from teachers with teaching and learning responsibility points.

Likewise in my introduction, Teachers Union Exposed, a special project of Center for Union Facts, reports, “In many major cities, only one out of 1000 teachers is fired for performance-related reasons. Why? Tenure. Tenure is the practice of guaranteeing a teacher their job.” Because the teachers have guaranteed jobs, they cannot be fired, despite their teaching performance. Thus, teachers with bad performance have the tenure as their back: they cannot be fired because of it. The problem with bad teachers not being fired arises from this, but through finding the cause, now we can find a solution to the

This is therefore enough evidence that there are factors which could lead to teacher’s low or high turnover in schools. While low turnover is beneficial to the employer, high turnover is detrimental and costly to the employer in terms of the money used in recruiting, retention and teacher compensation. Therefore, it will be good to study some of the factors and briefly analyze their effect on teachers’ turnover.

However, before we look at what teacher expectancy effect really is, it is crucial for us to

“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.

There is a need to investigate strategic measures to ensure retention success, specifically the impacts that institutional structure has on retention rates (Porter, 2006). Recruitment and retention success rely on faculty playing an appropriate, consequential role; it’s paramount that organizational structures don’t block communication and collaboration between enrollment leaders and their colleagues (Scannell, 2013, p. 1). Communication in organizations with practical organizational structures can be unbending because of the institutionalized methods of operation and the high degree of formalization.

In Chicago, Allensworth et. al (2009) found that teachers at schools with very low turnover rates have

Employee retention has always been an important focus for human resource managers. Once a company has invested time and money to recruit and train a good employee, it is in their own best interest to retain that employee, to further develop and motivate him so that he continues to provide value to the organization. But, employers must also recognize and tend to what is in the best interest of their employees, if they intend to keep them. When a company overlooks the needs of its employees and focuses only on the needs of the organization, turnover often results. Excessive turnover in an organization is a prime indicator that something is not right in the employee environment. We will look at

Employee retention has always been an important focus for human resource managers. Once a company has invested time and money to recruit and train a good employee, it is in their own best interest to retain that employee, to further develop and motivate him so that he continues to provide value to the organization. But, employers must also recognize and tend to what is in the best interest of their employees, if they intend to keep them. When a company overlooks the needs of its employees and focuses only on the needs of the organization, turnover often results. Excessive turnover in an organization is a prime indicator that something is not right in the employee environment. We will look at