The True Cost of Teacher Turnover

High rates of teacher turnover create high costs for districts and undermine American efforts to guarantee quality teaching for every child.

The problem is most severe in low-performing schools, where students are left with a parade of inexperienced teachers who do not stay long enough to make a difference. The National Commission on Teaching and America’s Future documents this crisis, and offers a set of solutions, in its report, "No Dream Denied," found at www.nctaf.org.

The following represent the multitude of negative repercussions from such a drastic turnover:

• Annual turnover rate is 15.7 percent for teachers as opposed to 11.9 percent with other fields.
• Average cost to recruit, hire, prepare and lose a teacher is approximately $50,000.
• The number of teachers moving to other schools or leaving teaching in the year 2000 was a whopping 539,778.
• The top reason teachers cite for leaving a position is lack of professional support.
• Educational cost considerations when teachers leave include:
• Recruiting, advertising, interviewing, hiring, training expenses
• Lost investment in professional development, improved skills, curriculum knowledge
• Overburdened, experienced teachers providing leadership for inexperienced colleagues
• Loss of community relationships within school and with parents
• Lost continuity and stability for students
• Pressures related to teaching and accountability

SOURCE: Tom Carroll, President, National Commission on Teaching and America’s Future (NCTAF); Kathleen Fulton, Director for Reinventing Schools for the 21st Century (NCTAF); published in the Spring 2004 issue of Threshold magazine.

SOURCE: Fanny Carnankias-Walker, Ph.D.; Kelly S. Shapley, Ph.D., Molly Cordeau, Ed.D., Administrators’ Views of Special Education Personnel Needs in Texas Public Schools, presented February 8, 2006 at the annual meeting of the Southwest Educational Research Association (SERA), Austin,TX.