Many policies used to ameliorate teacher shortages focus on recruiting and incentivizing new teachers to pursue teaching as a profession. The key features of many tactics employed to draw teachers into the profession include increased pay through financial mechanisms like stipends or bonuses. However, other potential policy solutions for teacher shortages involve efforts to retain current teachers in the education system. While potentially useful, retention policies often entail unique challenges. For example, while experienced teachers tend to be more effective, they are also more expensive [1].

Teacher Attrition

Teach attrition, the number of teachers exiting the teaching profession, is a significant contributing factor to the existence of teacher shortages. While teacher attrition accounts for both veteran teachers and new teachers leaving the classroom, there is a discrepancy in the rate at which each of those groups does so. On the whole, teacher attrition is higher for beginning teachers than experienced ones [2]. In Texas, overall teacher attrition rates have floated around 10.5% for the past 4 years [3]. This rate is significantly higher for new teachers-- namely, those in their first 5 years of teaching. In 2013, a national longitudinal study revealed a teacher attrition rate of 41 percent within the first 5 years. [4]. However, other studies think this estimate is too high, arguing instead that 17% of beginning teachers will leave the classroom within the same period of time [5]. Regardless, it is widely proven and accepted that new teacher attrition is significantly higher than that of other teachers.

Research has shown that increased teacher job satisfaction reduces this attrition, and that, on the flipside, lower job satisfaction has been linked to stress, teacher burnout, and subsequent attrition [6][7]. These findings suggest that improving job satisfaction may be an important step in retaining beginning teachers.

Induction and Mentoring

One method that has been used to improve job satisfaction among beginning teacher (and thus mitigate teacher attrition) is induction [8]. Induction, which has been utilized in the teaching profession since the 1980s, refers to the professional support provided to beginning teachers, which might include mentoring, collaboration among beginning teachers and their colleagues, and professional development activities designed to strengthen teachers’ skills and ultimately improve student outcomes [9]. Induction programs almost always incorporate the first component mentioned, mentoring, which is the practice of matching a beginning teacher with an experienced veteran teacher to provide personal guidance during their first years in the classroom [10].

In 2015, The Institute for Education Sciences, the U.S. Department of Education's statistical wing, released a longitudinal study conducted between 2007 and 2012 that aimed to determine teacher attrition, retention, and mobility. This important nationwide study suggests that induction and mentorship programs significantly reduce rates of teacher attrition and can thus be effective tools in addressing teacher shortages. Among members of a cohort of 1,990 first-year public school teachers who began teaching in the 2007-08 school year, 86 percent with first-year mentors were still teaching in year two, compared with 71 percent without mentors [11]. In addition, a survey released in April 2014 by the National Network of State Teachers of the Year and the American Institutes for Research found that mentors provided the most value to new teachers of any form of assistance [12].

Texas Beginning Educator Support System (TxBESS)

Texas had its own comprehensive induction program, Texas Beginning Educator Support System (TxBESS), that aimed to bolster teacher retainment across the state. An initiative of the Texas State Board for Educator Certification (SBEC), TxBESS began in 1999 and served a total of 11,986 beginning teachers in over three hundred school districts during its four years of existence [13]. Designed to provide provide systemic support for beginning teachers in their first and second years of teaching, TxBESS incorporated the following elements:

high-quality mentoring based on a curriculum that aligns induction, classroom needs, and professional standards (TxBESS Framework);
common planning time;
ongoing professional development; and
standards-based evaluation (TxBESS Activity Profile or TAP) [14].

A multi-year external evaluation of TxBESS indicated that the program was effective in keeping beginning teachers in the classroom. Of the 2,059 beginning teachers who participated in TxBESS during 2000-01, 88% continued to teach in Texas in the following year—higher than the statewide rate of 81% for non-TxBESS participants. Of the cohort of beginning teachers who received two years of TxBESS support, nearly 98% returned to teach for a third year. Notably, TxBESS had its largest effect on non-white beginning teachers. 91.4% of Hispanic teachers and 87.4% of African American teachers who participated in TxBESS returned for their second year of teaching, compared to a statewide average of 73% of Hispanic teachers and 76.8% of African American teachers returning [15]. Despite the success TxBESS saw in retaining teachers in Texas, the program ceased to exist in 2003 after its administrative funding stopped.

Beginning Teacher Induction and Mentoring Program (BTIM)

The successor of TxBESS, the Beginning Teacher Induction and Mentoring program (BTIM), was created in 2006 by the 80th Texas Legislature. The BTIM program aimed to retain beginning teachers at the campus, in the district, and ultimately in the teaching profession by providing a mentoring relationship with an established teacher at their campus [16]. Though it provided direct funding to school campuses and school districts, the program was largely underutilized by those entities, and funding for the program was cut in the 2011 legislative session (although the statute remained in place).Though there have since been attempts at resurrecting comprehensive induction and mentorship programs in Texas, none have come to fruition.

The potential benefits of induction and mentorship programs are twofold: 1) These programs can limit the attrition of new teachers, and 2) they provide veteran teacher coaches new opportunities for career growth and better pay. Through induction and mentorship, both new and veteran teachers regularly gather to plan instruction. This common planning creates a community of educators committed to raising the performance of their school and district. It allows more teachers input into their work, which in turn improves overall working conditions [17]. While there is undoubtedly variation in the quality and effectiveness of different induction and mentorship programs, the potential benefits of these programs to all teachers, both new and seasoned, are multiple and merit further testing and consideration.

Retire Rehire

To alleviate teacher shortages, efforts to recruit and retain quality teachers are made at both the state and district levels. More traditional retainment strategies, like those described above, include induction and mentorship programs that aim to bolster support systems in school and increase teacher satisfaction. However, a third and rather anomalous strategy for addressing teacher shortages is incentivizing retiring teachers to return to the classroom to fill shortage areas. By offering incentives through restructured pension plans, many states, including Texas, have attempted to lure retirees back to the classroom and to keep retirement-eligible teachers in schools for several more years. This temporary solution is referred to as retire rehire.

Generally, teachers have three options when they become eligible for retirement: collect pension benefits and stop working, collect pension benefits and draw a salary from a new job, or continue teaching and postpone pension benefits. States, including Texas, have historically barred teachers from simultaneously earning a salary and drawing pension benefits. However, in 2001, as Texas faced a statewide shortage of nearly 40,000 teachers [18], the 77th Texas Legislature passed Senate Bill 273, which allowed districts broad authority in defining teacher shortage areas and gave them the option of instituting retire rehire to fill shortage areas [19]. Under this legislation, retired certified teachers were permitted to go back to work full-time in acute shortage areas and maintain their retirement benefits (provided that they were separated from service for 12 consecutive months).

Four years later, this authority was again limited because of serious unintended consequences the policy had on the Teacher Retirement System (TRS). Though retire rehire was meant to be implemented as a temporary solution for reducing an acute teacher shortage, it became widely used by teachers eligible for retirement who wanted to both collect pension and continue to receive a teaching salary. This practice was is called “double-dipping” by opponents of the strategy. Between 1998 and 2004, the average age of retirement in Texas dropped from 61.7 years to 59.4 years, in large part because of this early retirement incentive [20]. This trend of early retirement and subsequent return to work undermined the actuarial assumptions of the TRS pension system. Unlike defined-contribution plans, defined-benefit plans like TRS pool funds. Contribution rates are determined by actuaries, who take into account factors like life expectancy and retirement ages. They also assume that retiring employees will be replaced by new hires, and new contributors [21]. “Return-to-work” programs like retire rehire disrupt this system and prove to be costly. In light of this, in 2005, SB 1691 curtailed the authority given to districts in 2001 and attempted to discourage retirees from taking advantage of these early retirement options in which they received employment and expected the state to shore up their pension fund.

Retire rehire was originally intended to be a short-term plan designed to help districts find faculty members for schools in hard-to-staff subjects or geographic locations. However, this policy solution exceeded the bounds of its stated purpose and had significant unintended consequences, including detrimental effects on the teacher retirement system in Texas. If this strategy is to be used to retain teachers and decrease shortages, more consideration must be given to its overall costs and benefits.

References

[1] Texas Education Agency (2015). 2015-2016 Minimum Salary Schedule. http://tea.texas.gov/Texas_Educators/Salary_and_Service_Record/Minimum_Salary_Schedule/2015-2016__Minimum_Salary_Schedule/

[2] ICF International (2009). Evaluation of Beginning Teacher Induction and Mentoring Program.

[3] Texas Education Agency (2015). Employed Teacher Attrition and New Hires 2008-2015.

[4] Perda, D. 2013. Transitions Into and Out of Teaching: A Longitudinal Analysis of Early Career Teacher Turnover. PhD Dissertation, University of Pennsylvania.

[5] Sawchuck, Stephen (2015). Research: Teacher-Retention Rates Higher Than Previously Thought. Education Week.http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/teacherbeat/2015/05/research_teacher-retentions_ra.html

[6] Pearson, L. Carolyn, Moomaw, William (2005). The Relationship between Teacher Autonomy and Stress, Work Satisfaction, Empowerment, and Professionalism. Educational Research Quarterly, 29(1), 38-54.

[7] Liu, Y., and Meyer, J. P. (2005). Teachers' perceptions of their jobs: A multilevel analysis of the Teacher Follow-Up Survey for 1994-95. Teachers College Record, 107(5), 985-1003.

[8] ICF International (2009). Evaluation of Beginning Teacher Induction and Mentoring Program.

[9] Wang, Jian, Odell, Sandra J., and Schwille, Sharon A. (2008). Effects of Teacher Induction on Beginning Teachers' Teaching: A Critical Review of the Literature. Journal of Teacher Education, 59( 2), 132-152.

[10] Smith, Thomas M., and Ingersoll, Richard M. (2004). What are the Effects of Induction and Mentoring on Beginning Teacher Turnover? American Educational Research Journal, 41(3), 681-714.

[11] Sawchuck, Stephen (2015). Research: Teacher-Retention Rates Higher Than Previously Thought. Education Week.http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/teacherbeat/2015/05/research_teacher-retentions_ra.html

[12] ibid

[13] Beginning Teacher Induction and Mentoring Program. http://www.resourcesforlearning.net/mentoring/TxBESSResearchBaseandEvaluationFindings.pdf

[14] SBEC (2005). “Texas Beginning Educator Support System: Performance Standards and Developmental Continuum.”

[15] Beginning Teacher Induction and Mentoring Program. http://www.resourcesforlearning.net/mentoring/TxBESSResearchBaseandEvaluationFindings.pdf

[16] ICF International (2009). Evaluation of Beginning Teacher Induction and Mentoring Program.

[17] Alliance for Education (2005). Teacher Attrition: A Costly Loss to the Nation and to the States.

[18] Texas House of Representatives (2002). Interim Report by the Joint House Committee and the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Pensions and Investments regarding “Return to Work.” http://www.house.state.tx.us/_media/pdf/committees/reports/77interim/return2work.pdf

[19] Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board (2002). Texas Strategic Plan to Address the Teacher Shortage.

[20] House Research Organization (2005). SB 1691 Bill Analysis. http://www.lrl.state.tx.us/scanned/hroBillAnalyses/79-0/SB1691.PDF

[21] Sawchuck, Stephen (2011). States Curbing Double-Dipping by Teachers. Education Week. http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2011/07/13/36doubledip_ep.h30.html