Today’s blog was written by Andrew Camp, Gema Zamarro, and Josh McGee. It summarizes the results of our recent research brief on teacher retention.
Teacher retention declined in recent years.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, teachers faced intense job-related stress, sparking fears of increased turnover that could harm students and worsen staffing challenges. In our previous research, we found that retention initially increased in the 2020-21 school year before edging down in 2021-22. By 2022-23, several states, including Arkansas, experienced larger retention declines.
Our most recent research brief investigates teacher retention for the 2023-24 school year. Below are our main takeaways.
In 2023-24, teacher retention improved.
To distinguish between the different job choices teachers make that have different implications for school districts, we use the following four terms:
- Stayers continue teaching in the same school(s) from one year to the next;
- Movers leave their current school(s) to teach in another school and/or district;
- Switchers change from a teaching to a non-teaching role in Arkansas public schools; and
- Exiters leave Arkansas public schools entirely.
The interactive figure below provides a history of teacher job choices across these categories. Mouse over the bars to explore the data in more detail.
Pre-pandemic, about 79% of teachers continued teaching in the same school from one year to the next (i.e., they were Stayers), while in 2022-23, only 74.7% were stayers.
Entering the 2023-24 school year, 75.8% of teachers were Stayers. Among those who did not stay in the same school, 10.8% moved schools, 3.6% switched to non-teaching roles, and 9.8% exited the Arkansas education workforce.
Although this represents a 1.1 percentage point improvement in the Stayers rate compared with the 2022-23 school year, retention remains below the pre-pandemic average. Approximately 800 more teachers moved schools, switched roles, or exited the Arkansas public education system than we would have expected before COVID-19.
While Arkansas schools are still experiencing lower retention than they did just a few years ago, this year’s increased retention may indicate that the dynamics of the teacher workforce might be returning to pre-pandemic patterns. It could also be an indication that the large salary increases many teachers received because of the LEARNS Act are having a positive impact, a possibility we intend to investigate in future research.
Teacher retention varies across districts and regions.
Districts in different areas of the state face different challenges in recruiting and retaining teachers. To better understand this variation, we examine district-level retention rates since the start of COVID (i.e., from the 2020-21 to current school year).
For this analysis, we consider a teacher retained if they continued working in the same district from year to year, even if they moved schools or switched to a non-teaching role in that school district. This acknowledges that, from a district’s standpoint, teachers moving between schools within the district likely creates fewer challenges than when they leave the district.
The interactive map below shows district average retention rates. Mouse over the map to see how districts compare.
During the past four years, most school districts in Arkansas (N=134) retained 85% or more of their teachers on average, and 29 districts retained 90% or more of their teachers. However, 41 districts retained fewer than 80% of their teachers on average.
Consistent with our prior work examining the Arkansas teacher workforce, we find that teacher retention is lowest in the southern and eastern regions of the state. These regions are also listed by the Arkansas Department of Education as geographic shortage areas.
Teachers in these regions may be eligible for incentive bonuses to remain working in these districts under the Merit Teacher Incentive Fund created by the LEARNS Act. While details concerning how exactly these incentive payments will be allocated are not yet available, research has found that incentive payments can increase teacher retention. We plan to study incentive payments’ effects on teacher retention in Arkansas once they are implemented.
Some districts may face difficult staffing choices moving forward.
While heightened attention has centered on declining retention as a key staffing issue, a newer concern has emerged. Since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, school districts nationwide have faced declining student enrollments and districts appear to have become less responsive to changes in student enrollment, potentially as the result of federal COVID-19 relief.
Declining enrollments could lead to financial challenges for districts. To study how this might affect Arkansas school districts, we explore how student enrollments and the teacher workforce have changed from the 2017-18 school year to the current 2023-24 school year.
We find that between the 2018-19 and 2019-20 school years there was relatively little change in either statewide enrollment or teacher workforce – the lines remain relatively flat for those school years. In 2020-21, both the teacher workforce and statewide student enrollment in public schools decreased by about the same amount (1.5%), meaning that the statewide student-teacher ratio was essentially unchanged.
However, in 2021-22 the teaching workforce grew and has remained elevated above 2017-18 levels while statewide student enrollments have remained below those levels. As a result, in the current school year Arkansas public schools employ about 880 more teachers while teaching 6,050 fewer students than they did 6 years ago.
To better understand how enrollment changes vary across districts and regions, we map the percentage change in each district’s enrollment between the 2017-18 and 2023-24 school years. The interactive map below shows district enrollment change. Mouse over the map to see how districts compare.
The map shows that districts in eastern Arkansas have experienced the largest decreases in student enrollment since the 2017-18 school year. In total, 118 districts have had enrollment decreases greater than 5%, while 36 districts have had enrollment increases greater than 5%.
Districts that experience enrollment increases appear to be concentrated in the northern and western regions of the state with nearly all districts in Northwest Arkansas experiencing relatively large enrollment increases.
While increased teacher retention is promising, several staffing trends are worth monitoring.
Our findings suggest there was modest improvement in teacher retention entering the 2023-24 school year compared with the preceding year. The percentage of teachers remaining in the same school increased by 1.1 percentage points, potentially signaling that the Arkansas teacher workforce is recovering from the pandemic-induced stressors.
Similar patterns of improvement have been recently reported in North Carolina. The improvement in Arkansas may also be the result of the new Arkansas LEARNS legislation, which, among other policies, increased teacher salaries statewide. We will study the impact of salary chages in more detail in future reports.
However, despite the positive trend, retention rates remain depressed compared to pre-pandemic levels. Diminished retention stems from both a higher proportion of teachers moving into non-instructional roles in Arkansas public schools and a higher proportion exiting Arkansas public schools entirely.
Some of these non-instructional positions might have been sustained through federal COVID-19 relief funds, raising uncertainty about their continuity as these funds expire. School districts might want to consider ways to incentivize these teachers who left the classroom for non-instructional positions to move back to instructional roles as the funds expire.
At the same time, looking ahead, some Arkansas school districts may have to confront challenging staffing decisions if their student enrollment continues to decline. Public schools in the state are employing about 880 more teachers in 2023-24 than in pre-pandemic years while educating 6,050 fewer students.
In the event that districts need to reduce staffing, it is crucial that we learn from our experience during the Great Recession. For example, seniority-based (“last-in-first-out”) policies likely have significant negative effects on the teaching workforce and may be especially harmful for disadvantaged students as they are more likely to be taught by early-career teachers. We recommend district and state leaders closely monitor the situation and, if necessary, engage in discussions to design policies and incentive programs that avoid adverse effects, especially as students continue to recover from the academic impacts of the pandemic.