**Archived Information**

**Turnover Among Mathematics and Science Teachers in the U.S.**

By

Richard M. Ingersoll

Graduate School of Education

University of Pennsylvania

Philadelphia, PA 19104

RMI@gse.upenn.edu

215-573-0700

Prepared for the

**National Commission on**

**Mathematics and Science Teaching**

**for the 21st Century**,

**Chaired by John Glenn**

February, 2000

**Summary**

For some time educational policy analysts have been predicting that
shortfalls of teachers resulting primarily from increases in student
enrollment and teacher retirements will make it very difficult for
schools to find qualified teachers and, in turn, will hurt school
performance. Moreover, analysts have argued that shortages will be worse
for particular fields, such as math and science, because of difficulties
in recruiting qualified candidates. This paper summarizes what the best
available nationally representative data reveal about the rates of, and
reasons for, teacher turnover for both math/science and other teachers.
The data show that, contrary to conventional wisdom, the problems
schools have adequately staffing classrooms with qualified teachers are
not primarily due to teacher shortfalls, stemming from either increases
in student enrollment or increases in teacher retirement. Rather, the
data show that school staffing difficulties are primarily a result of a
revolving door \-- where large numbers of teachers depart teaching for
other reasons, such as job dissatisfaction and in order to pursue better
jobs or other careers. These findings have important implications for
educational policy. Teacher recruitment programs - the dominant policy
approach to addressing school staffing inadequacies - will not solve the
staffing problems of schools, if they do not also address the problem of
teacher retention. In short, the data indicate that recruiting more
teachers will not solve teacher shortages if large numbers of such
teachers then prematurely leave.

**Introduction**

Few educational problems have received more attention in recent times
than the failure to ensure that elementary and secondary classrooms are
all staffed with qualified teachers. In the mid 1980s a series of highly
publicized reports began to focus national attention on the coming
possibility of severe teacher shortages in elementary and secondary
schools (e.g. National Commission on Excellence in Education 1983;
National Academy of Sciences 1987). These reports predicted a dramatic
increase in the demand for new teachers primarily resulting from two
converging demographic trends \-- increasing student enrollments and
increasing teacher turnover due to a graying teaching force.
Subsequent shortfalls of teachers would, in turn, force many school
systems to resort to lowering standards to fill teaching openings, the
net effect of which would inevitably be high numbers of underqualified
teachers and lower school performance. These reports also stressed that
shortages will affect some teaching fields more than others. Special
education, math and science teachers, in particular, have usually been
targeted as fields with especially high turnover and those predicted
most likely to suffer shortages (e.g. Boe, Bobbitt and Cook 1997;
Grissmer and Kirby 1992). As a result, over the past decade the
inability of schools to adequately staff classrooms with qualified
teachers (hereafter, school staffing problems) has increasingly been
recognized as a major social problem, has received widespread coverage
in the national media, and has been the target of a growing number of
reform and policy initiatives (e.g. National Commission on Teaching
1997).

A dominant policy response to school staffing problems has been to
attempt to increase the quantity of teacher supply. Over the past decade
a wide range of initiatives have been implemented to recruit new
candidates into teaching. Among these are programs, such as
troops-to-teachers and others designed to entice professionals,
especially those with math and science backgrounds into mid-career
changes to teaching; alternative certification programs, whereby college
graduates can postpone formal education training, obtain an emergency
teaching license, and begin teaching immediately; and Peace Corps-like
programs, such as Teach for America, designed to lure the best and
brightest into understaffed schools.

Concern over school staffing problems has also given impetus to research
on teacher shortages and turnover. However, as numerous analysts have
noted, it was difficult, initially, to study these issues because of a
lack of accurate data, especially at a nationally representative level,
on many of the pertinent issues surrounding teacher supply, demand and
quality. In order to obtain such data, the National Center for Education
Statistics (NCES), the statistical arm of the U.S. Department of
Education, designed the Schools and Staffing Survey (SASS) in the late
1980s. This is now the largest and most comprehensive data source
available on the staffing, occupational, and organizational aspects of
schools. SASS administers survey questionnaires to a random sample of
about 55,000 teachers from all types of schools and from all 50 states.
In addition, all those teachers who left their teaching jobs in the year
subsequent to the administration of the initial survey questionnaire are
again contacted to obtain information on their departures. This
supplemental study, known as the Teacher Followup Survey (TFS), is the
largest and most comprehensive data source on teacher turnover in the
U.S. NCES has administered SASS/TFS on a regular basis; to date, three
cycles have been released - 1987-89; 1990-92; 1993-95. The next cycle is
scheduled to be conducted during the 1999-2001 school years.

Over the past six years I have been undertaking research using SASS and
TFS to study a number of issues concerned with teacher turnover,
shortages and quality. In this paper I will draw from this larger body
of research to briefly summarize what the data reveal about the rates of
and reasons for teacher turnover. (For those interested in more detail
on the data sources, the findings or discussion of the issues, I would
be happy to provide copies of the published work, listed in the
reference section, from which this paper draws).

The data presented here come primarily from the most recent TFS (1995)
and represent all teachers for grades k through 12 and from all types of
schools, both public and private. Math and science teachers are the
primary focus of this paper. The latter are those identified by their
principals as having their main teaching assignment in either math or
science and represent about 11 percent of the total teaching force.
About 22 percent of these math/science teachers are employed in
elementary or middle schools, another 73 percent are in secondary
schools and about 5 percent are in combined (k-12 grades) schools.
Throughout, I will compare the data on math/science teachers with the
data for all teachers. Moreover, in order to provide a benchmark for
both, I will also compare teachers rates of turnover to levels of
employee turnover in other occupations.

There are two types of teacher turnover from schools. The first, known
as teacher attrition, refers to those who leave the occupation of
teaching altogether. The second type, known as teacher migration, refers
to those who transfer or move to different teaching jobs in other
schools. Research on teacher supply and demand has often emphasized the
first type and neglected the second type. Many assume that teacher
migration is a less significant form of turnover because it does not
increase or decrease the overall supply of teachers, as do retirements
and career changes and, hence, assume it does not contribute to the
problem of staffing schools and does not contribute to overall
shortages. From a systemic point of view, this is probably correct.
However, from the viewpoint of those managing schools, teacher migration
and attrition have the same effect - in either case it results in a
decrease in staff which usually must be replaced.

Hence, from the school perspective, teacher migration can, indeed,
contribute to the problem of keeping schools staffed with qualified
teachers. For this reason, this paper will present data on both teacher
migration and teacher attrition. Hereafter, I will refer to teacher
migration as movers, teacher attrition as leavers and total turnover
as departures.

After establishing how many teachers depart from their teaching jobs and
how these rates compare with other occupations, this paper presents
statistics on the reasons why teachers move from or leave their teaching
jobs. These data are drawn from items in the TFS questionnaire that ask
teachers to indicate the reasons (up to three) for their departures,
from a list provided in the survey questionnaire (see below). In
addition, I present data from an additional set of items that asks
teachers to indicate the sources (up to three) of their dissatisfaction,
if they had indicated job dissatisfaction as a reason for their
turnover. Finally, I conclude by briefly discussing the implications of
these findings for understanding and addressing the staffing problems of
schools.

**Definitions of Measures of Reasons for Turnover**

Teachers could list up to 3 choices from a list of 12 reasons for their
departures. I grouped the 12 reasons into 5 categories, as follows:

>  **Retirement**.
>
>  **School Staffing Action**: reduction-in-force/lay-off/school
> closing/reassignment.
>
>  **Family or Personal**: family or personal move; pregnancy/child
> rearing; health; other family or personal reason.
>
>  **To Pursue other Job**: to pursue another career; to take courses
> to improve career opportunities in or
>
> outside the field of education; for better teaching job.

 **Dissatisfaction**: dissatisfied with teaching as a career;
dissatisfied with the school; for better salary or benefits.

Of those teachers who indicated dissatisfaction as a reason for their
departure, they could list up to 3 choices from a list of 12 reasons for
their dissatisfaction. I grouped the 12 reasons into 9 categories, as
follows:

>  **Poor Salary**
>
>  **Poor Administrative Support**: lack of recognition and support
> from administration; lack of resources and material/equipment for your
> classroom; inadequate support from administration
>
>  **Student Discipline Problems**
>
>  **Lack of Faculty Influence and Autonomy**: lack of influence over
> school policies and practices; lack of control over own classroom
>
>  **Poor Student Motivation**: poor student motivation to learn
>
>  **Poor Opportunity for Professional Advancement**
>
>  **Inadequate Time to Prepare:** inadequate time to prepare
> lesson/teaching plans
>
>  **Intrusions on Teaching Time**: intrusions on teaching time (i.e.
> not enough time working directly with teaching students)
>
>  **Class Sizes too Large**

**Results**

***Levels of Turnover***

Teaching is a relatively large occupation - it represents 4% of the
entire nationwide civilian workforce. There are, for example, over twice
as many k-12 teachers as registered nurses and five times as many
teachers as either lawyers or professors. Moreover, the rate of turnover
for teachers appears to be higher than in many other occupations. One of
the best known sources of national data on rates of employee turnover,
the Bureau of National Affairs, has shown that nationwide levels of
employee turnover, gathered from a wide range of occupations, have been
quite stable over the past decade; averaging 11% per year (Bureau of
National Affairs 1998). The employee turnover rate provides an overall
benchmark, however, a more similar point of comparison is nursing, which
like teaching is a predominantly female occupation that has experienced
perennial workplace staffing problems. A recent survey of hospitals
found the average turnover rate of registered nurses in the mid 1990s
was 12 percent (William M. Mercer 1999). Comparison of the TFS data with
either the rate for nurses or the rate for employees in general suggests
that teaching has a relatively high turnover rate: 14.3 percent in
1994-95 (see figure 1). As a result, numerically, teacher turnover is a
large phenomenon; the data show that in 1994-95 over 417,000 teachers,
from a force of about 3 million, departed their teaching jobs. Total
teacher turnover is about evenly split between migration and attrition;
7 percent of teacher turnover were movers (migration) and 7.3 percent
left the occupation altogether (attrition). Interestingly, the turnover
rates for math/science teachers - 16 percent - are not much higher than
for other teachers (and the difference is not statistically
significant). ![](media/image1.wmf){width="4.207638888888889in"
height="4.40625in"}

Turnover, however, is not equally spread across the teaching force.
Teachers decisions whether to stay or leave are influenced, in
particular, by the length of their teaching experience. Beginning
teachers have very high rates of departure, these rates significantly
decline through the mid-career period, and then rise again in the
retirement years. This means that teaching is an occupation that loses
many of its newly trained members very early in their careers. Figure 2,
for example, provides a rough estimate of the cumulative losses of
beginning teachers from attrition in their first several years of
teaching. The data suggest that after just three years, 29 percent of
all beginning teachers have left teaching altogether, and after 5 years,
fully 39 percent have left teaching. Because of sample size limitations
it is not possible to make precise estimates of the cumulative losses
for math/science teachers alone, however, the data suggest they are only
slightly higher than the averages depicted in figure 2.

![](media/image2.wmf){width="4.185416666666667in"
height="3.8986111111111112in"}

These high rates of turnover account for most of the demand for new
teachers, which, in turn, is a driving force behind school staffing
problems. The data show that, while it is true that student enrollments
are increasing, the demand for new teachers is not primarily due to
these increases. In recent years, the vast majority of new hires are
simply replacements for those who have just departed. For instance, the
TFS data show that about 286,200 teachers (excluding within-district
transfers) were newly hired by schools just prior to the 1993-94 school
year. But, in the following 12 months, about 213,000 teachers - an
amount equivalent to 75 percent of those just hired - left the
occupation altogether. In short, the demand for new teachers, and the
subsequent problems schools face insuring classrooms are staffed with
qualified teachers, are to a significant extent due to teachers moving
from or leaving their jobs at higher rates than in many other
occupations. These patterns are chronic - similar results are found in
all three cycles of the TFS data from the late 1980s to the mid 1990s.

***Reasons for Turnover***

This next section turns to the reasons behind these relatively high
rates of teacher turnover. Table 1 lists the data on teachers reasons
for their turnover, separately for all teachers and math/science
teachers and also separately for movers (migration) and leavers
(attrition). Note that the column segments in table 1 displaying percent
teachers giving various reasons for turnover each add up to more than
100 percent, because respondents could indicate up to three reasons for
their departures. The same applies to the columns displaying reasons for
dissatisfaction-related turnover. These same data (but with movers and
leavers combined) are also more succinctly summarized in figures 3 and
4.

**Table 1 - Percent Teacher Turnover and Percent Teachers Giving Various
Reasons for their Turnover**

+---------------------------+---------+---------+---------+---------+
|                           | All     |         | Math    |         |
|                           | T       |         | and     |         |
|                           | eachers |         | Science |         |
|                           |         |         | T       |         |
|                           |         |         | eachers |         |
+---------------------------+---------+---------+---------+---------+
|                           | Movers  | Leavers | Movers  | Leavers |
+---------------------------+---------+---------+---------+---------+
| **Rates of Turnover**     | 7       | 7.3     | 9       | 7       |
+---------------------------+---------+---------+---------+---------+
| **Reasons for Turnover**  |         |         |         |         |
+---------------------------+---------+---------+---------+---------+
| Retirement                | \-      | 25      | \-      | 26      |
+---------------------------+---------+---------+---------+---------+
| School Staffing Action    | 34      | 8       | 28      | 11      |
+---------------------------+---------+---------+---------+---------+
| Family or Personal        | 36      | 44      | 32      | 45      |
+---------------------------+---------+---------+---------+---------+
| To Pursue other Job       | 29      | 25      | 33      | 21      |
+---------------------------+---------+---------+---------+---------+
| Dissatisfaction           | 32      | 25      | 48      | 28      |
+---------------------------+---------+---------+---------+---------+
| **Reasons for             |         |         |         |         |
| Dissatisfaction**         |         |         |         |         |
+---------------------------+---------+---------+---------+---------+
| *Poor Salary*             | 49      | 61      | 53      | 66      |
+---------------------------+---------+---------+---------+---------+
| *Poor Administrative*     | 51      | 32      | 57      | 22      |
|                           |         |         |         |         |
| *Support*                 |         |         |         |         |
+---------------------------+---------+---------+---------+---------+
| *Student Discipline       | 22      | 24      | 33      | 21      |
| Problems*                 |         |         |         |         |
+---------------------------+---------+---------+---------+---------+
| *Lack of Faculty          | 18      | 15      | 11      | 15      |
| Influence &*              |         |         |         |         |
|                           |         |         |         |         |
| *+ Autonomy*              |         |         |         |         |
+---------------------------+---------+---------+---------+---------+
| *Poor Student Motivation* | 12      | 18      | 17      | 32      |
+---------------------------+---------+---------+---------+---------+
| *Poor Opportunity for*    | 8       | 5       | 4       | 1       |
|                           |         |         |         |         |
| *Professional             |         |         |         |         |
| Advancement*              |         |         |         |         |
+---------------------------+---------+---------+---------+---------+
| *Inadequate Time to       | 5       | 6       | 3       | 6       |
| Prepare*                  |         |         |         |         |
+---------------------------+---------+---------+---------+---------+
| *Intrusions on Teaching   | 5       | 11      | 6       | 12      |
| Time*                     |         |         |         |         |
+---------------------------+---------+---------+---------+---------+
| *Class Sizes too Large*   | 3       | 11      | .5      | 9       |
+---------------------------+---------+---------+---------+---------+

As illustrated in figure 3 and table 1, overall, math/science teachers
do not greatly differ from other teachers in the reasons why they depart
from their teaching jobs. Contrary to conventional wisdom, retirement is
not an especially prominent factor. The latter actually accounts for
only a small part (13%) of total turnover. Of course, if one focuses on
attrition alone (only those leaving teaching altogether) retirement is
more prominent because, by definition, migration excludes retirement.
Even in this case, however, retirement is not an especially prominent
factor; retirement accounts for only a quarter of attrition (25%).
Notably, retirement also does not account for the relatively high rates
of turnover by math/science teachers.
![](media/image3.wmf){width="4.124305555555556in"
height="4.3277777777777775in"}

School staffing cutbacks, due to lay-offs, school closings and
reorganizations, account for a larger proportion of total turnover than
does retirement. Staffing actions more often result in migration to
other teaching jobs rather than leaving the teaching occupation
altogether (34% of migration and 8% of attrition).

Personal reasons, such as departures for pregnancy, child rearing,
health problems and family moves are more often given as reasons for
turnover than are either retirement or staffing actions (36 percent of
migration and 44 percent of attrition).

Finally, two related reasons are, collectively, a very prominent source
of turnover. About half of all teachers who depart their jobs give as a
reason either job dissatisfaction or the desire to pursue another job,
in or out of education. Notably, math/science teachers are significantly
more likely to move from or leave their teaching jobs because of job
dissatisfaction than are other teachers (40 percent of math/science and
29 percent of all teachers).

![](media/image4.wmf){width="4.561805555555556in"
height="5.077083333333333in"}

As illustrated in figure 4 and table 1, of those who depart because of
job dissatisfaction, the most common reasons given are: low salaries; a
lack of support from the administration; student discipline problems;
lack of student motivation; and lack of influence over school
decisionmaking. Moreover, several factors stand out as [not]{.underline}
serious enough to lead to much turnover: large class sizes; intrusions
on classroom time; lack of planning time; and lack of opportunity for
professional advancement.

In general, similar kinds of dissatisfactions lie behind both teacher
migration and teacher attrition. Moreover, further analysis of the TFS
migration data shows that there is a strong flow of teachers from more
desirable to less desirable schools. For example, schools with low
salaries, student discipline problems, and little faculty input into
school decisionmaking tend to lose teachers to schools without these
problems.

In sum, the data indicate that math/science teachers, like other
teachers, depart their jobs for a variety of reasons. Retirement
accounts for a relatively small number of total departures, a moderate
number of departures are due to school staffing actions, a large
proportion indicate they depart for personal reasons, and a large
proportion also report they depart either because they are dissatisfied
with their jobs or in order to seek better jobs or other career
opportunities.

**Implications**

Since the early 1980s, educational policy analysts have predicted that
shortfalls of teachers resulting primarily from two converging
demographic trends \-- increasing student enrollments and increasing
teacher retirements \-- will lead to problems staffing schools with
qualified teachers and, in turn, lower educational performance.

This analysis suggests, however, that school staffing problems for both
math/science and other teachers are not solely due to teacher shortfalls
resulting from either increases in student enrollment or increases in
teacher retirement. In contrast, the data suggest that school staffing
problems are also a result of a revolving door \-- where large numbers
of teachers depart teaching for reasons other than retirement.

Teacher turnover is a significant phenomenon and a dominant factor
driving demand for new teachers. The data show that, while it is true
that student enrollments are increasing, the demand for new teachers is
primarily due to teachers moving from or leaving their jobs at
relatively high rates. Moreover, this analysis shows that, while it is
true that teacher retirements are increasing, the overall amount of
turnover accounted for by retirement is relatively minor when compared
to that resulting from other causes, such as teacher job dissatisfaction
and teachers seeking to pursue better jobs or other careers.

These findings have important implications for educational policy.
Supply and demand theory holds that where the quantity of teachers
demanded is greater than the quantity of teachers supplied, there are
two basic policy remedies: increase the quantity supplied or decrease
the quantity demanded. As noted in the beginning of this paper, teacher
recruitment, an example of the former approach, has been and continues
to be a dominant approach to addressing school staffing inadequacies.
However, this analysis suggests that recruitment programs alone will not
solve the staffing problems of schools, if they do not also address the
problem of teacher retention. In short, this analysis suggests that
recruiting more teachers will not solve staffing inadequacies if large
numbers of such teachers then prematurely leave.

From the perspective of this analysis, schools are not simply victims of
inexorable demographic trends, and there is a significant role for the
management of schools in both the genesis of and solution to school
staffing problems. Rather then increase the quantity of teacher supply,
an alternative solution to school staffing problems, implied by this
analysis, is to decrease the demand for new teachers by decreasing
turnover. The data suggest that improvements in the conditions of the
teaching job, such as increased support from the school administration,
increased salaries, reduction of student discipline problems, and
enhanced faculty input into school decisionmaking, would all contribute
to lower rates of turnover, in turn, diminish school staffing problems
and, hence, ultimately, aid the performance of schools.

**References**

Boe, E., Bobbitt, S., Cook, L. 1997. "Whither didst Thou Go?" *Journal
of Special Education*. 30:371-389.

Bureau of National Affairs. 1998. "BNAs Quarterly Report on Job Absence
and Turnover." *Bulletin to Management*. Washington D.C.: Bureau of
National Affairs

Grissmer, D. and Kirby, S. 1992. *Patterns of Attrition Among Indiana
Teachers, 1965‑1987*. Santa Monica, CA: Rand Corporation.

Ingersoll, R. (1998) "The Problem of Out-of-Field Teaching." *Phi Delta
Kappan*. 79: 773-76. (also on the *Kappan* website:
www.pdkintl.org/kappan/king9806.htm).

Ingersoll, R. (1999a) "The Problem of Underqualified Teachers in
American Secondary Schools." *Educational Researcher*. 28: 26-37. (also
on the American Educational Research Association website:
www.aera.net/pubs/er/arts/28-02/ingsoll01.htm*).*

Ingersoll, R. (1999b). *Teacher Turnover, Teacher Shortages and the
Organization of Schools*. Seattle, WA: Center for the Study of Teaching
and Policy, University of Washington. (also on the Center's website:
www.ctpweb.org)

William M. Mercer (1999). *Survey of registered nurse attraction and
retention.* Atlanta, GA: William M. Mercer, Inc.

National Academy of Sciences. 1987. *Toward Understanding Teacher Supply
and Demand*. Washington, D.C.: National Academy Press.

National Commission on Excellence in Education. 1983. *A Nation at Risk:
The Imperative for Educational Reform.* Washington, D.C.: Government
Printing Office.

National Commission on Teaching and America's Future. 1997. *Doing What
Matters Most: Investing in Quality Teaching*. New York: National
Commission on Teaching and America's Future.