Washington state has about 58,000 teachers and will lose 1/5 of that in 5 years (11,600 teachers). So our state has a better retention average than that of the nation, but I still find this number unsettling.

Education is a great profession. It reaches and teaches the youth of tomorrow. It is a profession of giving and being there for others. And that may just be the problem. Education may demand more from its teachers than its teachers are getting out of it. I do not have any numbers to back this next statement up; it is a hypothesis based on the teachers I know who have left the profession. It is my hunch that the altruistic warm fuzzies that have kept teachers going for so many years are no longer powerful enough to keep high-quality teachers in the profession. Ten of my closest colleagues left the profession for more flexible jobs with higher pay so that they could enjoy life. These were great teachers. Teachers with whom I would have serious educational discussions; teachers that did make a difference. Check out TREND #3 from an NEA news release.

The situation is that teachers are leaving the profession. The problem is that this ultimately effects the consistency of our quality education and impacts students. The solution is to have a system where teachers want to stay.

I know from my experience as a house painter that keeping an employee was always preferable to having to hire a new one. The amount of time it takes to get the new guy up to speed costs the company and crew and ultimately the home owner. My boss was fantastic at making his employees feel respected and he made sure the working situation was always favorable. It took some time and effort on my boss’s part. However, it was not as much effort as it would be to fill a vacant spot. He also believed in keeping people in his company so that a relationship could develop. He had a simple motto: keep the employees happy and they will be loyal to the company. Win-win.

How can we, as a state, apply this simple motto to retain high-quality teachers?

Of course, I have a few ideas to throw out there. Teachers, you can help keep high-quality teachers in your school. Try some of these out this September. You can introduce yourself to the new teachers. Having someone in the building will go a long way for the new teachers. Check in with the new teachers and offer yourself up for anything that they need. Sometimes they just need to bounce an idea off of you or had a rough day and need some perspective or simply need to know how to make the copy machine do double-sided. In between the check ins, send the new teachers an email to keep the conversations constant. Get the new teachers to go to the lunch room to be with the other teachers in the school. It is too easy as the new guy to hide in a room that has a door that closes. I did it. However, sitting with the teachers in the school and hanging out will help to create that sense of team that will retain your high-quality teachers. I do these things, and a few more, because I want my school to be top notch. It does take time on my part, but the benefit of being in a school that runs well and the students are learning outweighs the time.

Other people in the school setting can make the difference as well. The secretary at my current school is such a powerful presence every morning when I walk in. Her smile and honest care of what is going on in my life helps me to get in the role for the day, leaving behind anything that would take away from my job. She is this and more to new teachers. I have watched her work her craft: friend, counselor, advisor…. Principals can think about pairing up teachers so that partnerships are made. Ask teachers what they need and find resources to meet their needs. Help teachers find goals and the ways to achieve those goals.

Most districts have professional opportunities for teachers as well, new and seasoned that will help retain teachers. My current district offers a welcoming retreat to new teachers to build communities (which I have noticed works as those new teachers stay in contact with each other for years). This district also offers a similar version for the veteran teacher.

I do not have all of the answers but I have been thinking about this lately since we are getting close to the start of school and wanted to post it for discussion.

This is not an isolated situation. People in education (and policy makers) are aware and want to get the solutions out there. Check out the 5 broad themes that more than 1,700 National Board Certified Teachers from North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, and Washington came up with as recommendations for retaining teachers. These recommendations are directed at retaining teachers at high-needs schools. However, these recommendations, like good teaching, will work anywhere.

Washington’s summit in October 2006 was co-hosted by CSTP, WEA and OSPI. Read Washington’s summit report.

Across the five states the NBCTs laid out a comprehensive list of 142 specific policy recommendations that, if implemented, they believe would significantly alleviate the nation’s problems in staffing high-needs schools. The report organizes them into the following five major recommendations:
1. Transform the teaching and learning conditions in high-needs schools.
2. Prepare and support teachers for the specific challenges posed by working in high-needs schools.
3. Recruit and develop administrators who can draw on the expertise of specially prepared teacher leaders.
4. Create a menu of recruitment incentives, but focus on growing teacher expertise within high-needs schools.
5. Build awareness among policy makers, practitioners, and members of the public about the importance of National Board Certification for high-needs schools.

NBCTs believe that the bulk of incentives should focus on growing accomplished teachers from within high-needs schools. Salary incentives alone will not be enough to encourage accomplished teachers to move to or remain in dysfunctional schools. (Jeanne Harmon)

Comments

Hmmmm. There it is again--the comparison of the education profession with those of medical and legal. Great point Tom.

Nice post, Travis; and very timely. It makes me wonder about something that might be unique to our profession: We seem to be the only one in which first-year professionals have the same workload with the same expectations as seasoned veterans. Take my school, for example. We just hired a new teacher yesterday to do a 2/3 split class beginning next week. During her first year, she'll have to juggle two separate curriculums at the same time. I can't imagine that a first-year attorney would be assigned to a death-penalty all by themselves, or that a first-year doctor would be performing open-heart surgery all alone. I think we should take a long look at the culture we've developed within our system and how that affects those entering the profession.

I sent the comment, then made a cup of tea and thought...."Is there a problem in our state with teachers leaving the profession for reasons related to being unsatisfied with the profession?" Maybe there is not such a problem and the ten colleagues that I have had (great teachers by the way) who left is an isolated case in my little world.

(1) is there an increase in teachers leaving the profession due to dissatisfaction?
(2) is there a negative effect to this?
(3) should we as a state care?
(4) should we do something about it?

What Jeanne states is true. For example, a teacher who still teaches but leaves Washington to go to Oregon is counted as no longer in the Washington system. And Washington has a lower loss of teachers than many other states.

However, what the larger issue is, is the idea that teachers are leaving the profession. Leaving for other jobs that have a higher satisfaction for the employee. And many of these teachers are great teachers. Teachers who we want in out system.

Let's pretend that the loss of teachers was 1 teacher from each school in our state a year. Such a small number. Is it a big deal? In this pretend scenario I would still hope that people would strive to keep teachers teaching.

Just another word about the Washington retention statistics Travis cited. Of the 20% who depart Washington's school system, approximately half of those are retiring. Those who have become principals or central office personnel are NOT counted as "leavers" so departing the classroom for administration is not a factor in these data. We don't know what happens to the rest..... just that they have disappeared from the personnel reports submitted by Washington school districts. Some may be on leave, some have moved to other states, some have taken a different kind of job. If you're interested in retention, CSTP did school-by-school analysis in 20 districts:
http://cstp-wa.org/Navigational/Commissionedresearch/Research_reports/Research_reports.htm

Kelly, I have not read Horace's Compromise, but I can only imagine. I have just added it to my queue of books from the library.

[Kelly said] Working sixty hours a week only to feel you hardly did the job justice is not conducive to retaining quality teachers, and I certainly know of teachers who have left the profession “to have a life.”

This is strong. True. After working more than the scheduled work week, then to not feel like anything was completed, leaves the worker feeling empty. This emptiness is not healthy for working environments and will usually result in a worker finding a place where they can have a "start" and "stop", a sense of satisfaction. I love teaching. However, when I painted houses, at the end of the day, we were done and if the job carried on, there was an end when we celebrated the finish.

I do not know if teachers even need to "have a life" but to have something that makes them feel more than just a person who spins their wheels for hours every week, would be nice.

Your post brings up numerous thoughts on working conditions, but one stands out to me as it grows increasingly precious at the end of August: Time. It was Ted Sizer in Horace’s Compromise who pointed out the “chasm” between the time truly needed to do secondary teaching well and what we can manage: “only five minutes per week of attention to the written work of a student and an average of ten minutes of planning for each fifty-odd-minute class – the task is already crushing, in reality pushing a sixty-hour work week.” Working sixty hours a week only to feel you hardly did the job justice is not conducive to retaining quality teachers, and I certainly know of teachers who have left the profession “to have a life.” I wonder how lowering the workload (lowering class size, increasing planning time) might contribute to teacher retention and quality of instruction.

This one is right on. I did not see eye-to-eye on your principal post, but I see this in my school. What can we do? What happened to people treating people like people so that people can be people?