Title: Are mid career entrants to teaching at lower risk than other novice teachers of leaving an urban school district?
Description: While most new teachers make teaching their first career after college, recent studies show that there is a substantial group of teachers who start to teach after having had one or more careers outside of education. This group of career-changers or mid-career entrants to teaching are perceived to be a desirable source of teaching candidates because of the real-world experience they can bring to classrooms. While there is substantial research on the motivations and composition of this group of teachers, there is less empirical evidence concerning their career trajectories once they begin teaching.

My research examines the stay and exit decisions of 999 novice teachers, 394 of whom are mid-career entrants, over a seven-year period (2002 to 2009) in a mid-sized urban school district. I find that patterns of exit for mid-career entrants to teaching are somewhat different than for first-career entrants. For both groups, the risk of exit is highest in the first year of teaching in the district. For all six cohorts of mid-career entrants to teaching included in this study, the fitted risk profile does not depend on the calendar year in which they started teaching in the district. In contrast, the fitted risk of exit for first-career entrants is lower the later the calendar year in which they start to teach in the district. I hypothesize that this pattern is related to improvements in the professional development and mentoring support provided to novice teachers in the district during this time period and that these changes had a greater impact on the retention of first-career entrants than on mid-career entrants. I also examine what, if any, impact the teacher's characteristics and teaching assignment has on differences in the probability of exiting the district. I find that in this sample of novice teachers, the risk of exit for mid-career and first-career entrants to teaching does not differ by gender, race, ethnicity or teaching assignment.
Subjects: Teacher turnover, Forecasting, Teachers, Job satisfaction
Places: United States