Here is an interesting e-mail from Jeanne Harmon at Center for Strengthening the Teaching Profession:
The Center for Teacher Quality at Cal State Sacramento recently completed a comprehensive study of teacher retention in California's public schools. The findings and recommendations from this study, led by Dr. Ken Futernick, appear in a report titled, A Possible Dream: Retaining California Teachers So All Students Learn.
Some of the key findings included:
• Too many teachers leave prematurely and too few remain in the most challenging schools. 22% of California’s teachers leave in the first 4 years.
• The loss of good teachers is expensive, inefficient, and unfair. $455 million dollars per year is what California spends to recruit, hire, and prepare replacement teachers.
• Meaningful changes to the teaching and learning environment can increase teacher retention and encourage teachers to return to the profession. Those who planned to stay said that having meaningful input in the decision making process and collaborative relationships with their colleagues were reasons to remain.
Recommendations included:
• Assess teaching conditions locally and continuously.
• Refocus school leadership on instructional quality and high quality teaching and learning conditions.
• Establish statewide standards for school teaching and learning conditions.
To read the entire report A Possible Dream: Retaining California Teachers So All Students Learn or to take a look at information related to the report please go to http://www.calstate.edu/teacherquality/retention/
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