> Tom Carroll
President, National Commission on Teaching and America’s Future (NCTAF)
> Kathleen Fulton
Director for Reinventing Schools for the 21st Century, NCTAF
The True Cost of Teacher Turnover
High rates of teacher turnover have high costs to the nation and undermine efforts to guarantee quality
teaching for every child. The problem is most severe in low-performing schools, where students are left
with a parade of inexperienced teachers who don’t stay long enough to make a difference. The National
Commission on Teaching and America’s Future documents this crisis, and offers a set of solutions, in its
report, “No Dream Denied,” found at www.nctaf.org.
Exit
26% Never Get
Certification
Exit
40% of Grads Never
Become Teachers
her
Teacline
pipe
Bureaucratic
Overload
Top-Down
Leadership
Parent Night
Parental
Disengagement
LOWPERFORMING
SCHOOL
High
Turnover
Costs
Factory-Model
Schooling
Teacher
Isolation
EXIT
EXIT
EXIT
Mov
e to
EXIT
Hig
h-P
erfo
rmi
ng S
cho
ol
Personal Reasons
Change Careers
Retirement
Note: This illustration is visually representative of current research but is not an absolute statistical representation.
16 • Spring 2004 • Threshold
www.ciconline.org
Annual turnover rate
15.7%
Teachers
Average cost to
recruit, hire, prepare
& lose a teacher
11.9%
Other fields
$50,0
00
Teachers moving to
other schools or leaving
teaching in 2000
Top reasons for leaving
Lack of professional support
Poor school leadership
Low pay
Personal reasons
539,778
Economic & Educational Costs
experienced teachers
overburdened by needs of
inexperienced colleagues
lost tuition and tax support for
preparing new teachers who leave
recruiting, advertising, interviewing,
hiring, training new teachers
lost investment in professional
development, improved skills,
curriculum knowledge
p
On ram
Alternative
Certification
loss of community within
school and with parents
HIGHPERFORMING
SCHOOL
lost continuity and
stability for students
Shared
Leadership
Data-Driven
Decision-Making
Parent Night
Parental
Involvement
StudentCentered
Learning
Low
Turnover
Costs
Teacher
Community
EXIT
EXIT
EXIT
Mov
e to A
nother
Sch
o ol
EXIT
Me
ga C
orp
Personal Reasons
Change Careers
Retirement
Illustration by Dave Merrill
www.ciconline.org
Threshold • Spring 2004 • 17