Decatur’s Teacher Retention Problem
The Problem
The Illinois Report Card shows the teacher retention rate in DPS is 68%. Compared to rates in all of Illinois and compared to other central Illinois city districts, this rate is abysmally low. We are 19% points below Springfield, so at the end of each year where we must replace over 3 out of 10 teachers, where Springfield only has to replace about 1 in 10.
This is not an issue that started under the past administration as the five-year retention data for the both the state and our district has not changed.
And to make matters worse, according to the 2021 Illinois Educator Shortage Survey, a survey of school leaders statewide by the Illinois Association of Regional Superintendents of Schools (IARSS) and its educational and research partners, 77% of the survey responders said the teacher retention problem is only going to get worse. In the report, they mention Superintendents in 93% of the districts believed the shortages will remain an issue in 2023 and 2024.
Looking for a quick answer is tricky as it appears the average salary of Decatur teachers is much lower that our competition, but anyone familiar with our teachers contract will tell you that this is not at all the case. When you have higher turnover, you will have younger teachers, and not only do younger teachers make less money, they are also more likely to quit. A trend that continually feeds on itself. The chart below from the National Bureau of Economics Research shows that workers 25 to 34 are historically, more than two times more likely to quit than workers 45 to 54. So, the cycle of younger teachers leaving continues to repeat itself each year, making a younger (but cheaper) workforce the next year.
(The only additional thing I will mention about the data is that the other variables we looked at in our analysis were a possible link between low income and teacher retention, for which we found the statistical p value to be non-meaningful, as was the teacher to student ratio p value.)
Do We Want a Solution?
I suppose the first question you have to ask yourself is - do we want a solution? Because we have a younger workforce with high turn-over, we have what comes along with it - a cheaper and possibly more energetic work force. Is that so bad? Maybe not in the past, but in the current climate where hiring is getting more and more difficult, with some teacher positions remaining unfilled for the entire school year, this makes success harder for the people we most care about – the students. And so, in our opinion, we must find a solution. We (the administration, the board, and the teachers) all must agree that something must be done. We can’t sit this problem out and wait until our teacher to student ratio (see the chart above) sneaks up to 25:1. At that point we will have additional teachers quitting due to the stress that will come from a more difficult work environment.
Our Solution
We have a two-pronged solution, and both have been mentioned before in past articles:
1. Start doing something! What everyone wants in their careers (and their life) is autonomy, mastery, and purpose. One of our favorite books about motivation at the DPS Chalkboard, and the book we continually come back to for ideas, is Daniel Pink’s book Drive. Anyone interested in motivation and retaining employees should read this book. We will cover the main topics in a future essay, but at this point suffice it to say: we need more training (mastery), less dictatorship and more teacher autonomy in the buildings, and the purpose will take care of itself. The administration should know that they are there to support the teachers – not to make their jobs harder. Let teachers know that when they arrive for work, they oversee shaping the young lives in front of them. This must start from the top. Rethink our Teaching To The Test strategy. Give teachers the ability to gauge the rates to progress through the material. Start thinking about all the students – from top to bottom and allow them to progress at different rates when possible.
2. Use CARES money to hire two HR consultants and use those two as resources to bring in as many extra teachers as possible. (50 or even 100 extra teachers! See our article on how we should spend our portion of the CARES money. If we don’t use it, it will be gone forever.) This will give us time to bring teachers on slower, with more training, and more ability. They should and will feel valued as part of our 2022 special training force of teachers.
If we want to end our perpetual cycle of losing over 3 out of 10 teachers every year - we can’t wait. The time for change is now.