Today, an interim legislative committee looked into why schools have such a hard time finding and retaining qualified teachers.
University of Pennsylvania researcher Richard Ingersoll told state lawmakers that the problem isn’t a shortage of teachers, as much as it is teacher turnover. And keeping those teachers from leaving the profession.
“Teaching, it turns out, is a high turnover line of work. Much higher than traditional professions like law, professors, architects, engineers. The turnover in teaching is even higher nationally than police work.”
Ingersoll’s research found the biggest reasons for teacher turnover aren’t retirement, changing careers or moving for family reasons. Teachers were just unhappy with their jobs.
“Fifty-six percent of teachers tell us they move from or left their school because they were dissatisfied.”
Dissatisfaction with a school's administration, and accountability and testing were the most common reasons why a teacher left their job. One of the least frequent reasons was because of poor pay or benefits.
Using data from the 2008-2009 school year, Ingersoll estimated teacher attrition in Montana costs state school districts upwards of $8 million a year.
The school funding interim commission plans to issue a report and draft legislation amending the state school funding formula, in advance of the 2017 legislative session.
