Teacher turnover rises in North Carolina public schools

Teacher turnover rose last school year to the highest in the past five years in North Carolina public schools, including Triangle school systems, according to a new state report.

The report presented at Thursday’s State Board of Education meeting found that 14.8 percent of the state’s 96,081 teachers left their positions in the 2014-15 school year, up from 14.1 percent the prior year. Turnover also increased among local school systems with rates ranging from 13.4 percent in Wake County to 20.4 percent in Durham.

In 2010-11, the state’s turnover rate was 11.2 percent. Wake, Johnston, Orange and Chapel Hill-Carrboro were below the state’s turnover rate in 2010-11.

Opinions varied about the significance of the increase in teacher turnover.

“In the past five years, the state’s teacher turnover rate has increased in all but one year,” State Schools Superintendent June Atkinson said in a statement. “We won’t reverse this trend until we address the root causes of why teachers leave the classroom.”

Atkinson did not elaborate on those root causes.

High teacher turnover isn’t necessarily a bad thing, said Terry Stoops, director of education studies for the John Locke Foundation, a conservative thinktank in Raleigh. He said the state’s annual teacher turnover report is misread and misunderstood.

“It is misread because many assume that all attrition is bad,” Stoops wrote in a column on the new report. “In fact, we want the bad teachers to leave in large numbers and as quickly as possible.”

Stoops speculated that the uptick in the Triangle might be due to improving economic conditions that are drawing teachers away from the profession.

The report measures teachers who left between March 2014 and March 2015. Among the findings:

▪ Departures for personal reasons, including dissatisfaction with teaching, have risen sharply in the past two years. In 2012-13, just over 2,100 North Carolina teachers left for personal reasons; last year 5,680 did. This year’s numbers included 1,547 who left for family relocation and 1,209 who cited job dissatisfaction or a career change.

▪ Almost 4,500 of the 14,255 North Carolina teachers who left their districts remained in education, moving to other districts, charter or private schools or non-teaching jobs.

▪ North Carolina’s beginning teachers had a turnover rate of almost 21 percent last year, compared with just over 13 percent for teachers with career status, or tenure. The state has been raising salaries for early career teachers in hopes of keeping them longer.

▪ Dismissals remain relatively rare, with 982, or 7 percent of the state’s departures, caused by firing, resignation in lieu of firing or contracts that weren’t renewed.

This story was originally published October 2, 2015 at 5:48 PM with the headline "Teacher turnover rises in North Carolina public schools."