What will it take to recruit AND retain educators?
We can't just recruit the best teachers. We also have to ensure they stick around.
I stepped into the classroom to teach my first science lesson in the fall of 2019. In the months leading up to that moment, I had passed my content knowledge exam by just one point and completed a summer of teacher-training. I had five weeks to learn how to teach 125 eighth graders in a Title I public school in North Carolina. In those five weeks I did ice breakers with fellow corps members, some DEI work, some lesson planning, and I learned quick tips on how to “engage the disengaged learner” (which can be a euphemism for a student attempting to throw a desk across the room). Needless to say, I was underprepared.
That summer was also completely unpaid. I didn’t get my first paycheck until the end of August, almost 3 months after I had graduated college. My salary was just over $41,000 a year.
That year I would begin waking up at 5 AM to get to the gym before grabbing my packed lunch and driving to school in my red Prius, blasting Carole King and Beyoncé. My only reference point for teaching was my own middle school experience in a private school in London. There, students sat in neat and quiet rows wearing blazers and ties, worked quietly and independently, carried backpacks full of their own school supplies, had access to state of the art facilities, and had teachers who were automatically considered the authority and keeper of knowledge in the classroom. By contrast, my students didn’t always have food to eat at home, which made concentrating, sitting still, and working quietly impossible. Some had never owned their own school supplies, relying on their teacher to provide pencils. Some had always considered a large slab of concrete to be their playground for recess, or a windowless room with two out-of-order sinks to be their science lab.
I was not respected by my students just because I was standing at the front of the classroom with (some) content knowledge. I was naïve in thinking that my students would want to learn about valence electrons or the physical properties of water just because I was presenting it on a colorful Powerpoint slide. My students could see right through me. They knew I was young, inexperienced, and completely ignorant of their own lived realities.
It took me four years to find my feet and to feel like I had become the teacher my students deserved. It took me four years to figure out how I could be my authentic self and also be trusted by them. It took me four years to understand where my students came from, what their needs were, and how to push them to recognize their own potential. Eventually, I was awarded teacher-of-the-month, I was nominated to speak at my students’ graduation, I was invited to plan school-wide curricula. But I was also running out of steam. I was sleep-deprived, anxious, and burnt out from starting each day preparing for my planning period to be taken up by conferences with disgruntled parents, for my class to be interrupted by an unexpected administrator evaluation, to be caught in the cross-fire of feuding students in the hallways, to be huddled in a corner of my dark classroom for school-shooter drills, to be accused of indoctrination for teaching climate change or literature by queer authors, to be shamed for needing to take a day off.
I left the classroom after my fourth year.
How is it that a political science major with absolutely no experience in the classroom was allowed to teach 8th grade science or AP literature off the cuff? I was recruited through an alternative credentialing pathway, Teach for America, a two-year commitment to teaching in America’s most underserved schools. The fact that I stayed for more than two years was unusual. Actually, almost a third of my corps in Charlotte quit before the second year was over.
Teacher preparation is overly focused on recruitment, which makes sense considering the national teacher shortage. However, once the eager college grad makes it in the door to the workforce, there needs to be more resourcing in place to make her stay.
What are alternate pathways to teaching and how does it impact recruitment?
The alternate route is one of two ways to become a teacher. The traditional route requires you to enroll in undergraduate teacher-preparation program to earn a bachelor's degree in education. But over the last 10 years, the number of people completing the traditional route through teacher-prep programs has decreased significantly.
Teach for America is one example of an alternate route that allows for promising candidates to enter the workforce. Today, Teach for America prides itself on being a catalyst for recruiting more teachers of color. They reported that the 2023 corps comprised of almost 45% first-generation college graduates, and about 60% BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, and people of color).
Overall, alternate pathways have successfully opened the door for more teachers of color and men to enter the workforce. In fact, it is through this alternate route that most people of color and men become teachers.
On its face, this is a good thing. We are finally able to rectify the historic gender and racial biases ingrained within our education system that my previous essays illustrated. However, the reality is not so rosy. Between the two pathways, there isn’t data to support that one is overwhelmingly better or worse for student outcomes, but when it comes to teacher retention, alternate pathways are correlated with lower retention rates.
Why are alternate pathways correlated with lower teacher retention rates?
Studies have shown that alternatively certified teachers are 25% more likely to leave than their traditionally certified counterparts.
“[The supply of teachers] hasn’t been sufficient to cover pre-retirement quitting. ... It wasn’t so much that we were producing too few, it’s that we’re losing too many.” - Richard Ingersoll, professor of education and sociology at U.Penn’s Education school
Alternately certified teachers are more likely to be placed in schools that already have high teacher turnover, that are under-resourced, and that serve higher proportions of low-income students. Teachers leave these schools for a number of reasons including lack of autonomy, overcrowded classrooms, lack of influence over school policies, compensation that is linked to student performance, or mishandling of student discipline.
Why is this an issue for black teachers in particular?
Teachers of color are more likely to enter teaching through alternate pathways and are therefore more likely to teach in under-resourced schools. This is in part due to the fact that alternate pathways allow for aspiring teachers to avoid going into more debt, and student debt is one of the most influential factors in determining the profession one chooses. Black students in particular are burdened by student debt in a way that doesn’t compare to their white counterparts, averaging owing $25,000 more upon graduating and owing 188% more than white students after four years.
In the traditional pathways, candidates take courses and then complete structured field experience as a student-teacher for at least a full semester, sometimes a full year. This full-time experience is typically unpaid, causing a financial burden that students of color may be unwilling or unable to take. As a result, college students of color are less likely to enroll in teacher-prep programs than their white counterparts.
Of course, there are many professions that require additional schooling that accrue additional student debt. But, unlike the teaching profession, law school and medical school, while expensive, can at least offer the reassurance that sustainable, high salaries are on the other side (should they choose to pursue private sector firms and practices). There is no corporate firm waiting to pay you hundreds of thousands of dollars on the other side of a teaching credential.
Loan forgiveness, service scholarships, and residency programs do exist for teachers. However, almost all of these programs require that you work in high-needs schools. Again, that may solve the recruitment issue, but the retention problem remains.
So, how do we recruit AND retain?
As it stands, our system is not investing in the necessary training and resources to retain its teachers. There are some glimmers of hope though. Programs such as the Boston Teacher Residency (BTR) have been successful in recruiting teachers and offering stipends, health benefits, additional financial aid, and a master’s degree in education. Internal data illustrates the program’s success with higher retention rates and teacher evaluations compared to non-BTR teachers.
The Equity Project of New York (also mentioned in my previous essay) is radicalizing the teacher payment system by redistributing its public funds to ensure teachers are compensated with a starting salary of $140,000. The school does receive some private donations, but last school year, 49% of its public funding went toward educator costs.
To make large scale impact on teacher retention, we would need a multidimensional, systemic approach to making sure our teachers are thriving, valued, empowered, and happy. This would include improving working conditions by reducing class sizes, offering competitive salaries, providing comprehensive healthcare, centering teacher voices, and designing excellent and ongoing professional development (just to name a few!). It might take more local muscle to overcome this national problem, but change is possible with proper financial backing, leadership, and innovation.