Teacher employment
Supply is currently in balance, but it’s the youngest educators who are leaving
The teacher workforce seems to be stabilizing, a study says.
Seven years after the passage of Act 10, the Wisconsin collective bargaining law many blamed for the exodus of public school teachers that followed, the teacher workforce appears to be stabilizing in Milwaukee and across the state, a new study has found.
According to the report released Friday by the nonpartisan Public Policy Forum, Wisconsin still has fewer teachers than it did before Act 10, which curtailed collective bargaining for public school teachers and most other public employees. However, overall turnover has diminished, and the supply of new teachers is sufficient to fill those slots, the report says.
Still, the report noted a troubling trend: a rise in the number of teachers who leave the profession before retirement age, particularly in the first five years.
In Wisconsin and especially Milwaukee, the departure of teachers in their 20s, 30s and 40s is growing steadily and accounts for the largest share of teacher turnover, according to the study — a trend that over time could put a greater pressure on teacher demand than that already created by shortages in the teacher pipeline.
That trend, it says, may pose significant financial costs and threaten school districts’ ability to maintain a stable, high-quality teaching corps, ultimately threatening the future quality of the region’s workforce and the strength of its economy. And it called on policy-makers to investigate and address the issue.
“If you look at the provisions in the state budget that just passed, most of those are on policies that pave the way for teachers to get into classrooms, and
that’s important. But there’s not a lot in there about retention,” said Anne Chapman, senior researcher at the forum and lead author of the report. “If you address the reasons we have these vacancies in the first place, you may alleviate the sense of urgency about getting people into the classrooms.”
Of particular concern, the report says, is the effect of turnover in high-poverty schools, which often leaves poor and minority children with the least-experienced teachers, exacerbating achievement gaps.
The new report follows back-to-back studies by the forum in 2015 and 2016 that documented the decline in the number of teachers in the years following Act 10 and found a shrinking supply of new teachers to replace them. Overall, the latest data showed there were 75 more teachers in the Milwaukee region in the 2015’16 school year — and 140 more across the state — than there were two years earlier.
“We were pleasantly surprised to find that statewide, the number of teachers has been growing slightly since 2012-13,” Chapman said.
Other findings:
Overall, teacher turnover in the four-county Milwaukee area fell to its lowest level since 2010. Annual teacher attrition in both the region and the state has returned to pre-Act 10 levels. However, recruitment challenges remain in some subjects, such as science, technology and career and technical education; some student populations, including those with special needs; and some geographic areas.
Milwaukee Public Schools, the state’s largest and one of its poorest districts, appears to have reduced and stabilized its loss of teachers at around 11% over the last two years. It has the highest number of departures in sheer numbers, 891 between 2013-’14 and 2015-’16. But others had higher percentages, including about 17% in Whitefish Bay and Maple Dale-Indian Hill between 2014-’15 and 2015-16; and 24% in Erin over the prior year.
While nearly half the state’s teachers entered the workforce in their 20s, there has been a slight uptick in those who join the profession in their 40s, 50s and 60s,
“If you look at the provisions in the state budget that just passed, most of those are on policies that pave the way for teachers to get into classrooms, and that’s important. But there’s not a lot in there about retention.” Anne Chapman Senior researcher at Public Policy Forum and lead author of the report
suggesting an increase in mid- and late-career changes.
Departing teachers are younger and newer. Nearly one in three teachers in the Milwaukee area, and one in four in the state, leaves the profession in the first five years. “These are teachers in whom schools and districts presumably have invested in terms of recruitment, induction and early-career professional development,” the report said. Teachers who are departing increasingly are newer to the profession, and this trend also is more pronounced for metro Milwaukee than for the state as a whole.