Teacher Mobility
Teacher Turnover in Wisconsin
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Population of Wisconsin Teachers | Analysis of Teachers Moving From, Staying In, and Leaving Wisconsin | Wisconsin Teacher Survey Results | Policy Recommendations for the Midwest Region | References
Analysis of Teachers Moving From, Staying In, and Leaving Wisconsin
Teaching is a field that loses many of its newly trained practitioners very early in their careers. Figure 2 illustrates, by personal characteristics, the percentages of 1994-95 teachers who moved from, stayed in, and left Wisconsin during their first five years of teaching. These results emphasize the importance of clearly specifying how "teacher turnover" is to be defined. If one considers the traditional definition of "teacher turnover" (i.e., those teachers who leave the profession altogether), the sum of the percentage of Wisconsin teachers who moved among districts and the percentage who left the profession is statistically significant. Also, teachers with graduate degrees and women entering the profession at age 30 or younger departed from the teaching profession at significantly higher rates. However, when both "movers" and "leavers" are considered, the results are more revealing. As shown in Figure 2, there was nuanced behavior between teachers who transferred to another school district or districts within Wisconsin, ("movers") and those who left Wisconsin public school teaching and did not return ("leavers").
*Includes whites as well as ethnic minority groups who numbered too few to form another representative sample.
Although overall attrition in Wisconsin is quite low, turnover among teachers in smaller school districts is nearly 50 percent. Turnover is particularly high among secondary teachers in these smaller districts. Further examination of these teachers by selected professional characteristics reveals that Wisconsin is very unlike other Midwest states in that teachers are less likely to move out of urban districts and instead are much more likely to leave low-enrollment, nonurban districts. The percentage of teachers leaving teaching in Wisconsin, as well as moving among the state's school districts, was lower than previous national findings (Ingersoll, 1995).
Wisconsin teachers beginning their teaching careers in the 1994-95 school year were examined further by selected professional characteristics. Figure 3 illustrates these findings. As shown in Figure 3, secondary teachers--more specifically, arts, science, math, and foreign language teachers, and secondary teachers in low-wage districts--were most likely to leave teaching. However, these results also emphasize the importance of looking both at teachers who transfer districts in addition to those who leave the state. As also shown in Figure 3, although special education teachers were no more likely to leave the profession than other types of teachers, they were much more likely to transfer among school districts.
*Includes whites as well as ethnic minority groups who numbered too few to form another representative sample.
Population of Wisconsin Teachers | Analysis of Teachers Moving From, Staying In, and Leaving Wisconsin | Wisconsin Teacher Survey Results | Policy Recommendations for the Midwest Region | References
