As one article at National Affairs put it, the cries about a nation-wide teacher shortage are “heavy on anecdote and speculation” but rather light on data. According to Derek Thompson at The Atlantic, there is no real teacher shortage. He argues that claims otherwise come from two misleading data points: unfilled positions newly created with pandemic funding or an increase in teachers considering leaving, but not following through. Some districts are struggling to fill all positions, yes, but these are localized problems and not a nationwide catastrophe.
That being said, there is an bona fide but often unaddressed teacher shortage: experienced teachers in charter schools. In the United States, a third of charter teachers have fewer than three years of teaching experience, compared to only a fifth of public school teachers. I’m in such a school and approaching thirty makes me a veritable octogenarian.
Comparative inexperience and youth in front of classrooms carries costs. More than any other school-related factor, a teacher’s efficacy matters most to student learning. And especially in the early years, nothing improves a teacher's efficacy quite like experience. Inexperienced teachers are often ineffective teachers. What’s more, as chronicled at Success Academy in Robert Pondiscio’s superb How the Other Half Learns, this high turnover rate leaves charter schools exhausting resources and administrative time training new hires and managing the shortcomings of inexperienced educators.
Nor is this problem confined to individual charter schools. Teach For America, a major supplier of instructional oomph for charter schools, only requires a two-year commitment, and thus is notorious for high turnover rates. One study that compared traditional teacher prep programs to alternate routes like Teach for America found that TFA would be more effective if it weren’t for “the negative effects of high exit rates.” Another recent study found that TFA teachers are demonstrably more effective five years in and this “performance advantage is large enough to offset turnover costs.” Even so, turnover remains a significant obstacle.
Two researchers, Jennie Weiner and A. Chris Torres, ran an interesting survey on the professional identity of charter school teachers. Their sample size was small, but the interviews were extensive, and so provides an interesting look into the psychology of these teachers and why they leave.
They found that many charter school teachers were drawn to the sector because teaching itself tends to lack cachet but charter schools are considered “elite positions.” The schools intentionally draw from driven, high-performing youth by appealing to their desire for intellectual challenge and prestige.
Despite their high ideals, unfortunately, burnout quickly took over. It’s comparatively easy to work sixty- to eighty-hour weeks while a single, childless adult. But many teachers in the survey wondered if “charter work was sustainable” after “typical adult milestones” like marriage or children. Pondiscio notes the comparative youth of teachers at Success Academy. There, even a few years of experience makes one a veteran.
These difficulties, however, are only amplifications of general trends in the larger education sector. In the National Affairs piece noted earlier, Andrew Biggs and Jason Richwine point out that the most common reason for a teacher leaving the profession is “personal life factors.” Common media preoccupations like salary account for less than 5 percent.
Even as I write about the need to retain teachers, I have to check myself. Perhaps there are some positive tradeoffs to this high turnover. As Catherine Worth has written in Fordham’s own pages, not all teachers are created equal, and where traditional public schools struggle to fire the duds, it’s possible that this rapid turnover in charters shakes off the least effective teachers. Also, if charter networks are achieving success by capitalizing on the excess energy and time of aspiring youth, who am I to question that model? Why not replicate success rather than criticize it?
That being said, there may be a happy medium—policies and environments that draw aspiring candidates and retain them long. With school choice growing in popularity nationwide and some states moving to fully fund charter schools—institutions that typically function on a lower per-pupil dollar amount—there may be resources to better balance these tradeoffs. For example, where pay doesn’t much affect teacher turnover more generally, charter teachers receive far less compensation on average, and I’ve watched colleagues switch to traditional public schools for this very reason as they age and acquire more financial responsibility. With additional funds, charters could adopt more aggressive pay scales, competitive wages, or hybrid leadership positions wherein the most effective educators split their time teaching and coaching new hires.
Similarly, if demands on time push many teachers out, with increased funding, schools could hire additional staff so that teachers have more prep time during the day—thereby spending less time outside of the building making and planning—or teaching assistants who can help with mundane work like copies or rote grading.
Finally, many teachers prefer the private and charter sector because of the relative peace and order in the buildings. It is a primary draw to their buildings, and so essential that they maintain it. Weiner and Torres’s survey tells of traditional public school teachers suffering from “chaotic, crazy, and overwhelming” environments where seemingly all teachers could do was spend energy “putting out fires.” Teachers in these traditional public schools were alone—no support with student discipline, early career coaching, or anything of the sort. Charter schools are known for their rigid discipline structures and instructional coaching. If they lose that—say, through progressive pressure into lenient discipline policies—they lose one of the major draws to the sector.
As a young teacher myself, weighing the demands of a no-excuses style school, I’ve always been happy with my pay. My frustration has come from managerial incompetence, lack of prep time, needless paperwork, bureaucratic hoops, and behavioral chaos. Teacher retention and support looks like more than a 2 percent pay bump every year and some cards on the holidays.
