Mid-career Teacher Retention: Who Intends to Stay, Where, and Why?

Teacher turnover is widely understood to be among the most pressing challenges facing the American public education system. Who and where are the mid-career teachers who choose to stay in the profession? Why do they stay? Researchers need to attend to these questions to inform both national dialogue and local actions regarding how to retain and sustain mid-career teachers who positively impact student learning. This quantitative study explored mid-career teachers’ responses to the 2015–2016 National Teacher and Principal Survey to ascertain if certain demographic factors (e.g., race, school location) and school climate and teacher attitudinal factors (e.g., job satisfaction, career pathway and opportunities, support from administrators and/or sources beyond school leaders and colleagues, and influence over school policy) affect a mid-career teacher’s decision to remain in the teaching profession. Findings indicate that mid-career teachers (5 to 20 years of teaching experience) in a secondary setting are significantly more likely to intend to stay in the profession than their peers in an elementary setting, and non-White mid-career teachers (Black/African American, Asian, Native Hawaiian/Other Pacific Islanders, and Native American/Alaskan Native) than their White peers, respectively. Suburban mid-career teachers are more likely to express a desire to remain in the profession than their counterparts in urban, town, and rural settings. Related to the climate and attitudinal factors, mid-career teachers with more positive perceptions of school climate are more likely to remain in the profession. The most important factor in mid-career teacher retention is the teacher’s level of satisfaction with workplace conditions that directly impact teaching.

Early career teacher educators' dispositions toward sustainability and accountability for sustainability issues: a case from teachers colleges in Turkey

PurposeThis study aims to investigate the dispositions of early career teacher educators as young academics toward sustainability and accountability for sustainability issues. Through their interpretations, concerns, awareness and ownership of sustainability, the study portrays how a global phenomenon is articulated specifically within the local context of teachers colleges in Turkey.Design/methodology/approachThe study was designed as a survey, and the data were collected through a cross-sectional online questionnaire. The sample (n = 72) was limited, through purposeful sampling, to early career teacher educators teaching and being trained in well-established Turkish teachers colleges to become prospective faculty members of newly founded teachers colleges across the country. The data were analyzed primarily through quantitative methods. For the analyses, STATA software was used to perform descriptive and inferential statistics.FindingsThe general results indicated that the participants were highly concerned about sustainability problems. However, their concerns were not reflected to the same degree on their perceived awareness and ownership of education for sustainable development (ESD). Hunger and poverty, loss of biodiversity, climate change and epidemic diseases were all perceived to be urgent more in the global context. On the other hand, unemployment, refugees and terrorism were perceived to be locally urgent problems. Different agencies within the community were addressed to be accountable for different types of sustainability problems. The accountability for economic, environmental and societal problems were mainly placed on governments. Additionally, individuals/families and educators were held more accountable for environmental issues, while corporations and super powers were held more accountable for economic issues. As for societal issues, educators, individuals/families and non-governmental organizations were addressed to be more responsible.Originality/valueThe significance of the study is mainly twofold. If sustainable development is conceptualized with a futuristic viewpoint that attaches a great importance to next generations' needs, focusing on the dispositions of early career teacher educators as young academics is a reasonable way of addressing the current gaps and eliminating the future inefficacies. Building on the assumption that ESD would remain imperfect without the commitment of teacher educators who have the potential to bring changes in educational systems and shape knowledge and skills of future teachers, in turn future generations; this study becomes even more valuable as it includes specifically the academicians in the field of teacher education.

Building Teacher Identity in Environmental and Sustainability Education: The Perspectives of Preservice Secondary School Geography Teachers

Geography teachers have an important role within environmental education and, in England, are developing their professional identities at a time when environmental education is contested. This study considers the experiences of five trainee secondary school geography teachers who are all part of a university-based teacher education programme rooted in an environmental justice approach. Data is drawn from three interviews with each of five individuals over the course of their training (15 interviews in total) and participants’ written reflections. Findings include (1) teachers draw on a range of approaches to implement Environmental and Sustainability Education (ESE), (2) teachers share and value their own and their students’ stories of and personal connections with the environment and (3) teachers seek to enable young people to bring about change to their lives and communities. The contested nature of foregrounding ESE in the geography classroom is noted, as are the tensions and emotional load that teachers experience when seeking to develop their professional identity. Reflections are shared regarding the ways in which PGCE programmes provide teachers with opportunities to build ESE identities, in particular the role of semi-structured, reflexive interviews in providing an important space for identity work that could be usefully considered within the broader context of the newly implemented Early Career Teacher framework for England.

A Self-study Exploration of Early Career Teacher Burnout and the Adaptive Strategies of Experienced Teachers

Isolation, organisational pressures, and role-related distress, can result in teachers, particularly early career teachers (ECTs), experiencing greater risk of burnout. For many ECTs, a lack of practical strategies for dealing with these conditions contributes to this. Using self-study methodology, this research unpacks why ECTs experience burnout, identifies adaptive strategies that experienced teachers use, and discusses the applicability of these practices for ECTs. Conversations between an ECT and three experienced teachers provided alternate lenses to apply reflective unpacking of adaptive strategies. The findings illustrate how the risk of burnout for ECTs is increased by challenging student behaviour, isolation, a lack of collegiality and engagement with professional networks, and being overloaded with responsibilities. The findings also suggest that being overworked is less of a contributing factor to burnout than feeling disconnected from one’s school, peers, and community. Adaptive strategies for alleviating the effects of burnout were explored and recommendations for practice presented.

Narrative practices in developing professional identities: Issues of objectivity and agency

This article presents an analytical model of binary dimensions of narrative practice perceived as two continua between the oppositions of subjectivity/objectivity and structure/agency. Such narrative practice is considered as a site for professional ‘identification’ and self-knowing. The analytical model provided a framework that was applied to a series of professional life history narrative events and follow-up discussions conducted with six early career teacher educators working across two contrasting sites for teacher education. The findings evidence participants’ reflections within the narrative events that relate to the descriptors of each quadrant in this model and show that it has utility in describing and understanding the process of identification that takes place within narrative practice.

Pensions and Late-Career Teacher Retention

Public school teachers retire much earlier than comparable professionals. Pension rule changes affecting new teachers can be used to close this gap in the long run, but any effects will not be observed for decades and the implications for workforce quality are unclear. This paper considers targeted incentive policies designed to deter retirement among senior, experienced high-need science and math teachers, as a policy to staff classrooms with qualified teachers and improve workforce quality. We use structural estimates from a dynamic retirement model to simulate the workforce effects of targeted late-career salary bonuses and deferred retirement plans (DROPs) using administrative data from Missouri. Although both policies produce additional teaching years at relatively low costs, by forcing teachers to reveal work–retirement preferences, DROPs generally yield incremental teacher years at lower cost per year. More generally, this work highlights the utility of using structural retirement models to analyze fiscal and workforce effects of changes to public sector pension plans, since the effects of pension rule changes cumulate over many years.