Survey Methods to Identify Risk of Attrition: Measures of Career Intention and Regret

The common measure of teacher retention as snapshots of those employed in state-funded schools may overestimate attrition by failing to consider a desire for flexibility in contemporary teaching careers. When used as a measure of the effectiveness of teacher education, an over-emphasis on classroom teacher supply may also narrow the curriculum to teacher training rather than the more expansive ‘learning teaching’. This paper discusses two ‘softer’ measures of retention, career intention and training regret, to give a more general sense of how contemporary teachers see their career development as relating to their initial teacher education and professional learning. These measures are generated by adapting survey questions from the OECD’s TALIS and the US’ Beginning Teacher Longitudinal Study, simply asking teachers where they see themselves in five years’ time and if they would still choose to become a teacher if they could go back to before they began training. Surveys were administered annually to two cohorts of recent graduates as part of the Measuring Quality in Initial Teacher Education project—three data captures for 2018 graduates, two for 2019 graduates. It is shown how these measures help to mitigate declines in survey response and can give some helpful estimates of teacher attrition with respect to sex, ethnicity, school type, and degree type. The alternative measures are also argued to give helpful indicators of attrition risk before it happens, allowing discussion of how teachers’ career intentions change during their early careers. In particular, it is found that leaving the classroom is a fairly common expectation, but not necessarily because of teacher burnout. It is suggested that asking what teachers can imagine themselves doing is an effective measure for engaging with issues around vocational choice and teaching as a lifelong profession, with implications for how careers in education are conceptualised in initial teacher education programmes.

COVID-19 and the pre-existing language teacher supply crisis

The insufficient supply of K-12 language – world language (WL) and English as a second language (ESL) – teachers in the United States has been a pervasive challenge for school administrators seeking to provide language learning opportunities for their students. The issue is complex – including numerous factors that adversely affect the recruitment of future educators as well as their retention once in the classroom. Almost all states report a dearth of WL and/or ESL teachers, and WL is the discipline with the highest predictive teacher turnover rate – whether by leaving the profession entirely ( leavers) or opting to move to a different school ( movers). In spring 2020, the global health pandemic placed additional demands on all educators, and consequently some reports predict an exodus of teachers from K-12 schools. This article presents the results of a study exploring language teachers’ intention to leave the profession as a consequence of school-related responsibilities and experiences during spring 2020. Data revealed three profiles of K-12 language teachers: stayers, leavers, and conditional stayers. Implications related to influential factors in teachers’ potential decisions to remain in or exit the profession are provided.

Professional identity development of preservice music teachers: A survey study of three Chinese universities

By 2019, over 70,000 undergraduates had been awarded bachelor’s degrees in music education under the Free Education for Students in Teacher Education Programme in China. Although this helped to relieve a severe shortage of music teacher supply, recent studies reported serious concerns regarding the career readiness of this population. The purposes of this study were to (a) provide a role-identity profile of 4th-year undergraduate music education majors in China, (b) identify key elements in their professional identity development (PID), and (c) explore whether these elements were different from those identified in research findings in other education systems. Survey data were collected from 1,321 music education students in three Chinese universities for content analysis. The results suggest that occupation-oriented external factors are the most influential source in career decision-making. Most participants are struggling with multiple professional identity shifts that combine music trainee, teacher trainee, and preservice teacher roles across degree programs. These present the complexity of identity development in policy-reinforced professionalism in the Chinese education system.

Union Reform, Performance Pay, and New Teacher Supply: Evidence from Wisconsin's Act 10

This study examines the impact of performance pay on teacher selection. I exploit a shift toward performance pay in Wisconsin induced by the enactment of Act 10, which gave school districts autonomy to redesign their compensation schemes. Following the law, half of Wisconsin school districts eliminated salary schedules and started negotiating pay with individual teachers based on performance. Comparing the quantity of teaching degrees in Wisconsin institutions before and after Act 10, and relative to those in similar states, I find that Act 10 led to a 20 percent increase in teaching degrees. This effect was entirely driven by selective universities.

Invisible Shifts in and Out of the Classroom: Dynamics of Teacher Salary and Teacher Supply in Urban China

Background The remarkable economic growth in contemporary China is unprecedented, but scholars voice concerns regarding unintended consequences during this transitional phase. Of particular concern is the constant challenge to staff schools with highly qualified teachers. Purpose This study sets out to understand subtle yet consequential changes in schools during a sustained period of economic boom, through the lens of teacher occupational choice. This study contributes empirically to the teacher occupational choice literature by identifying the magnitude of lag in wage growth and returns to human capital in the teaching profession, and their critical relationship affecting high-ability workers’ career decisions. Research Design Using a nationally representative repeated cross-sectional data set spanning a quarter century (1988–2013), this study estimates Mincer earnings function regression models and multinomial probit regression models to assess wage differentials and heterogeneous rates of return to human capital in teaching and nonteaching sectors, in addition to untangling complex relationships between worker quality and observed occupational choice. Findings We documented several novel facts about teachers in contemporary urban China. First, we found sharp shifts in the relative career attractiveness of teaching, such that a 13% wage premium for teachers in 1988 dissipated over time and regressed to a 11% wage penalty in 2013, when compared with similar workers. Second, returns to tertiary education are markedly higher in nonteaching careers—about 11–15 percentage points more so than in teaching. Third, highly educated workers in younger cohorts are half as likely to become teachers relative to older cohorts, particularly in recent years. Conclusions The authors contextualize findings and discuss appropriate policy implications. Most importantly, holding back teacher wage levels from broader market prices has consequential effects on teacher supply. Policy makers need to reconsider existing forms of teacher compensation arrangements and develop sustainable wage dynamics that can attract and retain bright minds to enter and stay in teaching.

Adaptive Physical Education Teachers' Profile in Indonesia: The Opportunity of Improving Adaptive Physical Education Status

Concerns to children with disabilities in terms of their needs for moving and level of physical activity have not been supported by a teacher supply system that is appropriate for their field of study, namely adaptive physical education teachers. This study is aimed at portraying teachers’ profiles of Adaptive Physical Education in special schools in Indonesia. The data collection was carried out by means of questionnaires and articulated with the descriptive approach. The result of the study reveals that the number of specialist teachers with physical education backgrounds is still meager, which is only around 38 percent, compared to those who graduated from Special Education Program, which more than 60.5 percent. The majority of the teachers have never been given a chance to improve their PE teaching competency in the form of training (86,4 percent). It is recommended that there should be an openness from those working in special schools and the Ministry of Education and Culture of the urgent need for this adaptive physical education teacher. The statement will encourage the evolve of national urgency and drive all the stakeholders to respond to it institutionally, for instance by opening the program for adaptive physical education or at least to pave the way with initially offering concentration for this adaptive PE under the generic PE program.