The Problem Isn't Getting Rid of Teachers, It's Keeping Them
Judging by the tenor of the education debate in recent weeks, it would be easy to assume that the biggest challenge facing school leaders is how to get rid of bad teachers. But any problems caused by teacher tenure pale in comparison with the difficulty in getting teachers to stay.
I wrote earlier this week about how a belief in removing poor teachers as a way to improve schools was misplaced. My post was a response to the debate prompted by anarticle in Time magazine about tech entrepreneurs who want to make it easier to fire bad teachers.
While it may excite conservative commentators, this proposal is doomed to fail, not least because firing teachers requires finding replacements, and there is no guarantee they will be any better, if they exist at all.
But there is another side to this debate, and that is the difficulty of keeping teachers in the classroom. Not just good teachers, but any teachers.
I was reminded of this by a comment on my post from a teacher in his 25th year in education. He highlighted the need to “attract and keep good people,” adding that in this semester alone three teachers had resigned at his middle school.
Teacher retention is a problem familiar to school leaders across education systems. In the U.S. an estimated 40-50% of teachers leave within the first five years and the attrition rates of first year teachers have increased by about a third in the last two decades.
A report by the House of Commons education committee foundsimilar retention levels in England, while in Australia researchsuggests almost half of new teachers leave within five years.
Why are they leaving? The obvious answer might be low pay and student behaviour, but studies in all three countries suggest this is not the case. Instead, the main culprits are lack of support and workload issues.The Problem Isn't Getting Rid of Teachers, It's Keeping Them:
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