Retaining Teachers in High-Poverty Schools: A Policy Framework

Abstract

Ensuring all children have a qualified teacher is a global struggle. Although the causes and contours of the problem vary from country to country, the shortage of good teachers is of wide concern throughout the world. Policies that address this shortage typically focus on supply-side solutions such as recruitment. Yet there is increasing evidence that getting more teachers into the career pipeline only scratches the surface of a complex problem. The pipe itself leaks and it does so in ways that further disadvantage high-poverty schools where the shortage is most acute. In the United States, for example, 46% of teachers leave the profession within their first five years and more of these leavers are fleeing high-poverty schools than affluent schools ( Ingersoll, 2001 , 2002 , 2003a , 2003b ). The disproportionate impact of the teacher shortage in certain schools should make these schools “high priority” targets for teacher retention policies. These schools, often termed “urban,” or “hard-to-staff,” are predominately schools located in cities and their immediate surroundings, although there are many high-poverty rural schools that face similar challenges. These high-priority schools are under-resourced and under-funded, often situated in low-income communities of color that serve a majority of academically low-performing children whose parents have comparatively low levels of formal schooling. Each year U.S. public schools fitting this description lose and must replace approximately one-fifth of their teaching faculty