Tomorrow, the State Board of Education will release two important reports: the “Annual Report of School Crime and Violence” and the “Annual Report on the Reasons Teachers Leave the Profession.” The former is not available yet, but the SBE posted the latter on its website.
Here are the facts:
– North Carolina’s teacher turnover rate is 12.6 percent. According to the National Commission on Teaching and America?s Future, the national teacher turnover rate is 16.8 percent.
– The top four reasons for leaving a teaching position were
1) Resigned to teach elsewhere – only 17 percent of which resigned to teach in another state.
2) Retired
3) Resigned ? Family relocation
4) Resigned ? Other reasons or reason unknown
These four reasons account for 65 percent of all leavers in 2006-2007. In other words, the state could not have done much to retain 2/3 of the teachers that left their school (or the teaching profession) last year.
– Only 6.6 percent of teachers left their school to change careers or because they were dissatisfied with teaching. Pay increases may induce this small percentage of teachers to remain in the profession, but working conditions are usually to blame for the exit.
– Ashe County had the lowest turnover rate (3.5 percent), while Vance County had the highest (26.2 percent). Wake County had a 10 percent turnover rate. CMS was at nearly 16 percent last year.
Update: Teacher turnover – excluding teachers that transferred to another public school in North Carolina – was 11.6 percent in 2006-2007.
