School’s Out
Nearly
half of all new teachers leave the job within five
years. What's killing their spirit? How can
we get them to
stay?
by Claudia Graziano
Download a PDF of this
article Edutopia Magazine, Issue 3,
February 2005
It was late August four years ago when I sat down at a scratched
wooden desk to begin my first teaching position. I
was nervous. I knew that the job, if done
right, wouldn't be easy. There would be long hours and little pay. But I also
hoped that I could inspire kids the way my
best teachers had inspired me.
What I didn't know then was that I wouldn't make it. Less than a
year after facing my first classroom of 32 fidgeting
tenth graders, I walked away and never came
back -- to that classroom or to teaching. I became a statistic.
I entered the teaching profession full of idealism. After years of
working as a journalist, covering the frenetic
worlds of business and technology, I felt
professionally unsatisfied. I spent my days writing about under-conceived
companies and overpaid CEOs. I spent hours hyping
the latest gadgets.
My roommate, a high school math teacher, suggested I sit in on a
few of her classes. They were raucous, open, and
energetic; I was fascinated. I had always loved
language, and I saw teaching as a way to help kids appreciate it --
perhaps even love it -- as well.
By fall 2001, I made the career switch, completed much of my
licensing credential, and was hired to teach tenth-grade
English at
was gone.
Leaving So Soon?
Teachers speak out on why they stay. Or leave. Every year,
for that first day of class. By the time summer
rolls around, at least 22,000 have quit. Even those who make it
beyond the trying first year aren't likely to
stay long: about 30 percent of new teachers flee the profession after
just three years, and more than 45 percent
leave after five (see charts, below).
What's more, 37 percent of the education workforce is over 50 and
considering retirement, according to the National
Education Association. Suddenly,
you've got a double whammy: tens of thousand of new teachers leaving the
profession
because they can't take it anymore, and as many
or more retiring.
When teachers drop out, everyone pays. Each teacher who leaves
costs a district $11,000 to replace, not including
indirect costs related to schools' lost
investment in professional development, curriculum, and school-specific
knowledge. At least 15 percent of K-12 teachers
either switch schools or leave the profession every year, so the
cost to school districts nationwide is
staggering -- an estimated $5.8 billion.
Students from the lowest-income families suffer the most.
Inexperienced teachers (those with less than three years on
the job) frequently land in classrooms with
the neediest and often the most challenging students. Beginning teachers
frequently start their careers at hard-to-staff
schools where resources may be scarce -- in other words, urban
schools -- simply because there are more jobs
available there.
It's a recipe for disaster for both teachers and students, says
Barnett
Teaching Quality, in
a critical mass of veteran teachers, says
under-prepared, they're also more likely to be underqualified."
The U.S. Department of Education confirms that teacher turnover is
highest in public schools where half or more of
the students receive free or reduced-price
lunches. In
minority populations are five times more likely
to face an "underprepared" teacher (someone
working on an emergency
credential or outside of the person's subject
area) than are students in schools with low percentages of minority
students, according to a study conducted by SRI
International and sponsored by the Center for the Future of
Teaching and Learning in conjunction with
A Frazzling First Year
Click for Wanted: Better Training
Teachers quit for several reasons, but the one you'd expect to be
at the top of the list -- salary -- typically isn't.
Even though they start their careers earning roughly $30,000 (and
fork out, on average, about $500 of their own money for
instructional supplies), less than 20 percent
of teachers who change schools or leave the profession cite salary as
their primary job complaint, according to the
More frequently, the reason is dissatisfaction with administrative
support (38 percent) or workplace conditions
(32 percent), according to the NCES's
2001 survey of 8,400 public- and private-school teachers. Poor
administrative
support, lack of influence within the school
system, classroom intrusion, and inadequate time are mentioned more
often by teachers leaving low-income schools
where working conditions are more stressful; salary is mentioned more
often by teachers leaving affluent schools.
Many of these reasons are just euphemisms for one of the
profession's hardest realities: Teaching can exact a
considerable emotional toll. I don't know of
any other professionals who have to break up fistfights, as I did, as
a matter of course, or who find razor
blades left on their chair, or who feel personally responsible because students
in tenth-grade English class are reading
at the sixth-grade level or lower and are failing hopelessly.
New teachers, however naive and idealistic, often know before they
enter the profession that the salaries are
paltry, the class sizes large, and the
supplies scant. What they don't know is how little support from parents, school
administrators, and colleagues they can expect
once the door is closed and the textbooks are opened.
"We don't put attorneys just out of law school alone on their
first case, yet we put new teachers alone in the
classroom for their first year and expect them to
shoulder the same responsibilities as veteran teachers," says
Kathleen Fulton, director for reinventing schools for the 21st
century at the National Commission on Teaching and
New teachers are expected to assume a full schedule of classes,
create their own lesson plans, and develop teaching
techniques and classroom-management strategies in
relative isolation. They are also expected to learn quickly the
administrative ins and outs of the job, from
taking attendance and communicating with parents to navigating the
schools' computer network and finding the
faculty bathrooms. The result: New teachers must weather a frazzling first year
that many veterans come to view as a rite of
passage.
It's also a recipe for early burnout. Attrition rates for
beginning teachers who have not had strong teacher-
preparation programs are much higher than
for better-prepared colleagues.
"Not a day went by that I didn't go home and cry,"
remembers fourth-grade teacher Sue Manley of her first year. Manley,
who graduated from
first assignment, teaching at a South Side
Chicago elementary school. She had completed her student teaching
the previous year at a grammar school in
the same neighborhood and had spent four months volunteering as a
classroom aide at another urban elementary
school. Working with experienced teachers while she was still a graduate
student and a volunteer had made teaching look
easy to Manley. "Academically, I was prepared. Socially,
professionally, and emotionally, I was
not."
Like any new teacher, Manley needed to hone her
classroom-management skills, but the pressures of managing a classroom
solo for the first time were compounded by
the lack of basic resources and administrative support. "We weren't
allowed to
use the copy machine [for handouts], so I
had to stop at Kinko's every morning on my way to work," she
explains. "There was never any toilet paper
in the bathrooms for the kids, so I had to bring that, too." The last
straw
for Manley came in April, when she read a
student's journal entry that described violent acts directed at her.
While Manley's situation may seem extreme, it's far from unusual.
Other new teachers have reported similar feelings
of isolation and impossible expectations.
"The amount of time I put into teaching was huge, and I still
felt overwhelmed," says Pam Zabel, a former high
school science teacher in
assigned a mentor teacher who was theoretically
there for support and professional coaching, "but it was a very
unstructured relationship -- I met with him
maybe two or three times during the school year. For the most part, I was
on my own." Zabel
left teaching after her first year and is now a full-time mom.
"Mentally draining" is how Jim Treman,
a former ninth-grade science teacher, remembers his induction to teaching.
"I had
no life for two years. I was constantly
working. By the time Fridays rolled around, I was dead."
Treman worked as an architect for ten years
prior to entering the single-subject credential program at San
traveling in
earning his credential. "I was reluctant
to take the position at first because I had no clue what I was doing,"
says Treman.
"I was promised a ton of support, which in the end turned out to be
completely untrue. I was totally on my
own."
Treman struggled to motivate his students; his
assigned mentor, a physical education teacher, was unable to offer
Treman
curriculum guidance. Other science teachers seemed unwilling to share
their materials. The school district's
policy of laying off teachers in the spring
and rehiring them in the fall didn't help. After his second year of
teaching, Treman
returned to architecture.
It Started Out So Well
Zabel and Treman,
like me, were on their own. I always chalked up my
experience to a bad case of unrealistic
expectations. Maybe I was too spoiled by the
fat and happy corporate world. Maybe I shouldn't have thought I would
enjoy teaching my first year.
But as a student teacher, I'd had a very positive experience. I
had taught language arts to seventh graders at
a middle school in the upscale suburbs of
teacher. I designed what I considered to be
fun, innovative lessons. I invited journalist friends to talk to the class
about the persuasive power of writing. I
organized grammar games and spelling contests. I brought in music from
the '30s to illustrate the concept of story
setting. I researched yoga and breathing exercises to help students
take the edge off pretest jitters. (The
entire class broke up laughing as we all tried to balance on one leg before the
SAT-9s.)
But when the semester was over,
a position at Sequoia. During the
interview, the principal (who would be gone by that fall, along with the vice
principal) told me my limited experience teaching
seventh grade was "perfect" for teaching tenth grade at Sequoia. I
was so naive that I didn't even ask why.
He promised plenty of support, recounted plans for a week-long
new-teacher induction program before the school year
started, and described the school building's
recent remodel. I was given the names and phone numbers of two other
English teachers willing to serve as my mentors that
first year.
In practice, the induction program turned out to be something of a
pep rally for new teachers, not a training
exercise. The mentor teachers who had promised
to help did what they could but were either teaching different grade
levels or classes, and once the semester got
under way had their own teaching concerns to address. In the end, I
stopped asking for help. I was sinking, yet no
one in the administration noticed. The principal, a former
English
teacher, observed my classes a few times and
offered tips on my woefully underdeveloped classroom-management style, but
she seemed unconcerned by my obvious lack
of experience.
She told me not to worry and that tenth grade is the year when
students who aren't going to succeed drop out. "High
school is still a novelty for them in 9th
grade," she said. "By 11th grade, those that are left are the ones
who've decided they want to graduate."
I didn't know what to make of that. Was I teaching students who
were expected to drop out? As the semester progressed
and I watched students struggle through
assignments that were clearly beyond their ability, I grew more anxious and
disheartened. I came home at the semester
break and camped out on the sofa for three days, depressed and despondent.
When the semester resumed, I emailed the principal my resignation.
Support Systems
There are some effective ways to soften the coarseness of the
first year. What made the difference for Manley, for
example, was a free two-year induction program
sponsored by the
Improvement. The New Teachers Network offers
first-and second-year teachers at
mentoring and online coaching that addresses a
variety of issues, from classroom management to curriculum.
Several studies (and common sense) show that good mentoring
programs can cut attrition rates by as much as half. Richard
Ingersoll, a professor at the
statistics from ten studies on mentoring and
teacher induction to sort out what works and why.
His analysis, published in the American Educational Research
Journal last summer, concludes that new teachers who receive
no induction are twice as likely to leave
teaching after their first year as those who receive all six of the
supports his study identifies. These supports
include having a mentor from the same field, collaborating regularly with
other teachers in the same subject, and being
part of an external network of teachers.
Other successful induction methods include a program called INTIME
(Integrating New Technologies into the Methods of
Education), which provides teacher candidates with videos of
accomplished teachers in the classroom. The teachers in the
videos give lessons in a variety of contexts,
including multiage classrooms, alternative high schools, special education
students, and gifted and talented programs. Such preparation can drastically
cut teacher attrition rates. For
people who are changing careers to enter
teaching, schools like
for mid-career entrants, including former
military and Peace Corps attendees. One example is the school's Transition to
Teaching Partnership, a collaboration with nearby
Fairfax County Public Schools in
But while mentoring and
induction programs for new teachers are a mainstay in most states, not all
programs are created
equal. Of the 28 states that have state-level
teacher-induction programs, only 10 actually provide funding for
such programs, as well as mandating them,
according to Recruiting New Teachers (RNT), a nonprofit organization that
advocates national reform for teacher recruitment
and development. That's a big problem. "Funding is critical,
because mentors need to be given the time to
work closely with new teachers," says Mildred Hudson, CEO of RNT in
The regimen of the federal No Child Left Behind
(NCLB) Act may help bridge the existing funding gap for some states.
The first federal attempt to establish professional criteria for
teachers, NCLB appropriates $2.85 billion over the next
two years to help school districts recruit,
develop, and retain "highly qualified" teachers (i.e., those who meet
state certification requirements and
demonstrate knowledge in their core subject area, according to NCLB). Indeed,
last
fall the U.S. Department of Education
unveiled a free professional-development Web site for teachers
(www.paec.org/teacher2teacher). Targeted mainly at K-8
instructors, the site offers streaming video of workshops
conducted by other teachers, as well as
supplementary course materials.
In addition, consideration and time must be given to professional
development. For instance, seminars and
lectures for beginning teachers were offered
monthly at Sue Manley's school, but they were held on weekday evenings.
Manley usually felt too busy and worn out after
teaching all day to attend them. It's a situation many new teachers --
myself included -- encounter. When new
teachers aren't granted release time for professional development, many end
up going without. And eventually they just
go.
Teachers who tough out the early years are often glad they did.
Now in her seventh year of teaching, Manley has herself
become a coach and a counselor for new
teachers. "My advice is," she says, "don't take things
personally, be firm, and
be calm. And take care of yourself. It
does get better." Claudia Graziano is a writer based in
to claudia@claudiagraziano.com.
HOT LINK
Are you interested in learning more about the critical issue of
preparing and retaining good teachers for our schools?
Visit www.edutopia.org/teachers for feature articles, video
documentaries, and multimedia stories on how schools,
districts, universities, and states are tackling
the issue.
SIDEBAR: Matchmaker
One organization working to redesign the way teachers are trained
and recruited is the New Teacher Project (TNTP).
Formed in 1997, this nonprofit partners
with school districts and universities nationwide to create alternative
routes to certification and to revamp slow,
inefficient hiring practices. It also works to create innovative rural
recruitment programs for states with large
rural areas that face challenges in attracting highquality
teachers. A
fundamental goal of the TNTP is to find a
better way to match up schools and new teachers. So far, the project has
attracted and prepared more than 13,000 new
teachers and launched 39 programs in 18 states. -- C.G.
Credit: Mark Wagoner
SIDEBAR: Why Teach? We Asked and Were Overwhelmed
As we prepared this story on the alarming dropout rate among K-12
teachers, we decided to go to the source -- teachers
and others involved in education -- and ask
them a simple question: Considering the long hours, low pay, and poor
support, why stay?
In early December, we sent out that email query. The response was
overwhelming. In two days, we had 200
responses. In two weeks, we received more than
1,200. We heard from readers in
pay -- that was expected -- but they also
brought up their lack of autonomy, as classroom instruction is increasingly
dictated by bureaucratic mandates.
Many, like Deb Methvin, a resource
teacher at
feeling overwhelmed with the enormity of their
tasks. "Sometimes there are semesters or a year that make
you ask yourself, 'Why did I go into this
profession?'" wrote Methvin. "There are the
days when you're overwhelmed
with paperwork, don't have enough time for
planning lessons, need time to collaborate with your peers, have parents that
want meeting after meeting and still are never
satisfied, and put in a load of overtime that the administration seems
to expect but never recognizes with praise
or overtime pay."
Teachers balanced these frustrations with the job's many upsides,
and often expressed the unmatched satisfaction of
seeing a student comprehend a difficult
concept and the special joy of connecting with a child who has pulled away
from most adults. While some of the
responses were predictable, others were refreshing and enlightening. Many
were deeply moving.
Respondents offered suggestions on how to keep good teachers
motivated, commenting on the important role an educator had
played in their lives. Wrote Joette Daily, a special education teacher and liaison at
Thomas C. Marsh Middle
School, in
young. One teacher made a difference for me,
and that experience completely changed my life. I remember
thinking, 'She accepts me for who I am and for
what I can bring to the class.' I wanted to be that kind of teacher."
Time after time, respondents thanked us for asking their opinion
-- something they are rarely asked to share. Most
also deeply believe that, despite the job's
seemingly endless frustrations, teachers play an important role in a
democratic society.
Lorien Eck, a visual-arts teacher at
wrote, "The daily challenges are
immense, yet the experience is soul empowering. . . . To see real-time results
and
evidence of positive change in the lives of
young people makes the efforts -- despite the pay, the hours, and other
drawbacks -- all worthwhile."
Visit www.edutopia.org/teachers to explore more of the responses
we received.
Credit: Mark Wagoner
SIDEBAR: Strength in Numbers
Teachers represent one of the largest workforces in the
nurses, and lawyers combined, and according to
the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics,
K-12 teachers. The education industry employs
roughly 12.5 million people -- slightly fewer than health care, the
largest employment sector in the country. --
C.G.