Teacher Turnover and Teacher Shortages: An Organizational Analysis

By R. Ingersoll. 2001

3,196 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Contemporary educational theory holds that one of the pivotal causes of inadequate school performance is the inability of schools to adequately staff classrooms with qualified teachers. This theory also holds that these school staffing problems are primarily due to shortages of teachers, which, in turn, are primarily due to recent increases in teacher retirements and student enrollments. This analysis investigates the possibility that there are other factors—those tied to the organizational characteristics and conditions of schools—that are driving teacher turnover and, in turn, school staffing problems. The data utilized in this investigation are from the Schools and Staffing Survey and its supplement, the Teacher Followup Survey conducted by the National Center for Education Statistics. The results of the analysis indicate that school staffing problems are not primarily due to teacher shortages, in the technical sense of an insufficient supply of qualified teachers. Rather, the data indicate that school staffing problems are primarily due to excess demand resulting from a "revolving door"—where large numbers of qualified teachers depart their jobs for reasons other than retirement. Moreover, the data show that the amount of turnover accounted for by retirement is relatively minor when compared to that associated with other factors, such as teacher job dissatisfaction and teachers pursuing other jobs. The article concludes that popular education initiatives, such as teacher recruitment programs, will not solve the staffing problems of such schools if they do not also address the organizational sources of low teacher retention.

Subfields: Education

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Citations in the corpus

The Relation of Elementary Teachers' Experience, Stress, and Coping Resources to Burnout Symptoms (2009, background): “More recently, Ingersoll (2001) reviewed data suggesting that teacher shortages are not caused primarily by a lack of individuals entering the profession but instead are the result of a “revolving door” in which large numbers of teachers leave for reasons other than retirement.”
The Magnitude, Destinations, and Determinants of Mathematics and Science Teacher Turnover (2010, background): “In contrast to this historical focus on understanding the factors that attract individuals to teaching and the means to recruit new candidates into the occupation, there has been relatively less attention paid to the role of teacher turnover, migration, mobility, and attrition in these staffing prob”
Teacher stress, teaching-efficacy, and job satisfaction in response to test-based educational accountability policies (2016, background): “Low job satisfaction is associated with an increased likelihood of absenteeism and illness (Billingsley & Cross, 1992), low morale (Collie, Shapka, & Perry, 2012) and intent to leave the profession (Ingersoll, 2001).”
Effects of Self-Efficacy, Emotional Intelligence, and Perceptions of Future Work Environment on Preservice Teacher Commitment (2014, background): “…factors included perceptions of salary (Coladarci, 1992; Inman & Marlow, 2004), workload and workload creep (Buchanan, 2009; Macdonald, 1999), autonomy in the classroom (Ewing & Smith, 2003; Hong, 2010), and collegiality and participation in school policy (Darling-Hammond, 2003; Ingersoll, 2001).”
Crossing horizons: Continuity and change during second-career teachers’ entry into teaching (2008, background): “As several authors, notably Ingersoll (1997, 2001), have signalled, a ‘‘revolving door effect’’ is at work, meaning that career changers ee front matter r 2008 Elsevier Ltd.”
Handbook of school violence and school safety: From research to practice. (2006, background): “Gottfredson et al. (2000) and Ingersoll (2001) showed that high levels of administrative support were also associated with reduced staff turnover.”
Teacher job satisfaction by principal support and teacher cooperation: Results from the Schools and Staffing Survey (2019, background): “Given that many teachers are choosing to leave the profession (Ingersoll, 2001; Johnson, 2006), it is important to understand why.”
Exploring beginning teachers’ attrition in the Netherlands (2017, background): “…how the attrition rates of teachers compare to those from other professions, with some scholars arguing that those in teaching are much higher (e.g. Ingersoll, 2001), while others suggest that the numbers in teaching may actually be comparable to other professions (Harris & Adams, 2007; Plunket &…”
Student trust in teachers and student perceptions of safety: positive predictors of student identification with school (2018, background): “The teachers who do find the desire and capacity to persist often transfer to less demanding school environments after gaining experience, creating openings for more early career teachers, thus perpetuating the cycle (Ingersoll, 2001).”
Validation of a brief measure of teachers’ perceptions of school climate: relations to student achievement and suspensions (2014, background): “…related to their job satisfaction (Ma and MacMillan 1999; Taylor and Tashakkori 1995), burnout and retention rates (Grayson and Alvarez 2008; Ingersoll 2001; Loeb et al. 2005; McLeskey and Billingsley 2008), perceptions of work conditions (Liu and Meyer 2005) and to their fidelity in…”
Do Professional Development Schools Reduce Teacher Attrition? (2007, background): “Discipline and issues of classroom management, along with inadequate administrative support are also top reasons identified by leavers (Harrell, Leavell, Van Tassll, & McKee, 2004; Ingersoll, 2001; Johnson, 2004).”
Recruitment, Retention, and the Minority Teacher Shortage (2011, methodology): “Because it has been found to have a U-shaped relationship to turnover (Ingersoll, 2001), we transform age into a three-category set of dummy variables—younger (less than 30), middle-aged (31-50), and older (greater than 50).”
Predicting Teacher Retention Using Stress and Support Variables. (2011, background): “Administrators each year attempt to overcome teacher shortages and staff classrooms with qualified instructors ( Ingersoll, 2001”
Toward a More Nuanced Understanding of New Teacher Attrition (2011, methodology): “Research shows that poor climate conditions in schools have a negative impact not only on teacher retention, including the retention of experienced teachers (Allensworth et al., 2009; Ingersoll, 2001), but also on student achievement (DeAngelis & Presley (IN PRESS); Sebring, Allensworth, Bryk, Easto”