There is a persistent criticism that charter schools have dramatically high rates of teacher turnover due to burnout or dissatisfaction. However, national data paint a different picture.
Education Week’s Charters & Choice blog recently revisited the only national representative data on the rates at which teachers in charter and traditional public schools stay, move, or leave their teaching positions. The Schools and Staffing Survey (SASS), administered by the U.S. Department of Education, acknowledged that the rate of teacher turnover has declined over the last three survey administrations. According to the SASS Teacher Follow-up Survey (TFS), between 2011-12 and 2012-13, about 84 percent of all teachers stayed in their job at the same school, eight percent continued to teach but moved to a different school, and eight percent left teaching. The overall teacher turnover rate has remained steady at around 15 percent for nearly 25 years. However, the turnover rate for charter school teachers has declined over the past three rounds of the TFS, from about 24 percent to 18 percent. The most recent data (2012-13) show no statistically significant difference in the turnover rates between traditional public schools and charter schools for either movers or leavers. SOURCE: U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics, Teacher Follow-up Survey (TFS), “Current and Former Teacher Data Files,” 2012–13. Additional EdWeek coverage does a good job a good job of noting complications with the data (see here and here), especially the difficulty in capturing variations at the school- and district-level. However, the national-level data do not indicate that on the whole charter schools have a problem with teacher retention. Nora Kern is the Senior Manager for Research and Analysis and Susan Aud Pendergrass is the Senior Director for Research and Evaluation at the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools.
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