Teacher attrition is an ongoing issue in the United States and more specifically in the state of Missouri. This dissertation, using a qualitative approach, offers insights from teacher perceptions of school leadership and specific behaviors, skills, and leadership techniques that might bolster teacher retention. The research included interviews…

This mixed-method study sought to find specific factors influencing teachers in small, remote, rural school districts to continue teaching or to leave their teaching position. Additionally, this study sought to identify specific things district-level administrators could do influence teacher retention rates in small, remote, rural school…

The COVID-19 pandemic required schools to be more flexible in relation to their selection of an instructional modality, adopting virtual or hybrid schedules for instruction if face-to-face instruction was not possible (Rogers & Ishimoto, 2020). This change led to educators conducting classrooms virtually and interacting with students and…

Description: This study is designed to provide a better understanding of the dynamic and geographic character of the teacher labor market, including factors related to mobility and attrition, in rural and nonrural settings in four REL Central region states--Colorado, Missouri, Nebraska, and South Dakota. State and district administrators may use…

Shortages of teachers and parental disengagement are lamented as the reasons schools are just not what they were in days gone by. The consensus is that teachers are the most important within-school factor affecting student achievement. Yet U.S. student performance lags behind international counterparts, suggesting that there are not enough…

This report describes teacher and school characteristics related to teacher movement within and out of public school systems in Colorado, Missouri, and South Dakota. Stakeholders in each of these states expressed interest in better understanding teacher mobility and attrition and related factors. The authors used administrative data provided by…

With the start of every school year, new teachers enter classrooms across our country filled with excitement surrounding the impact they hope to have on students. Some teachers discover that teaching at the elementary level can often times involve more than teaching and loving children. The expectations, demands, and time constraints put on new…

New teacher attrition is a serious problem, with some studies estimating that 50 percent of teachers leave the profession within their first few years. This high attrition rate means that many schools have large number of inexperienced teachers and that districts must spend scarce funds for recruitment and replacement costs. Springfield Public…

Like many professions, teaching is forever evolving. Due to several trends in the teaching force within the past forty years, the demographics of public school teachers have changed. Because many baby-boomers have reached retirement age, there has been an exodus of retiring teachers, which in turn has created a large number of open teaching…

This dissertation consists of three essays. The first essay investigates the feasibility of moving high-performing teachers to low-performing schools using administrative micro data from Missouri. I define teacher labor markets concentrically and construct models to allow teachers' local labor markets, within teaching, to influence their mobility…

This article examines three interlinked problems facing public schools today: how to recruit, retain, and pay our teachers. The article begins with an overview of the current situation in the United States, paying particular attention to schools in areas where minorities are the majority. It goes on to examine some of the causes of teacher…

The purpose of this study was to investigate the reasons construction teachers in the CTE field left the teaching profession in their first five years of service. The study also sought to determine if there was a significant difference in the retention rate of two-year alternatively certified teachers and four-year teaching degreed teachers and if…

One goal of Missouri's Career Ladder program (CL) is to help school districts that have difficulty retaining teachers, particularly those that are small and rural, by offering their teachers opportunities to earn extra pay for extra work and professional development. This report seeks to estimate the effect Career Ladder Program has had on…

Many states are struggling to finance under-funded teacher pension systems as well as recruit and retain a high-quality teaching workforce. This paper compares Maryland's former (prior to Spring, 2006) teacher pension system to those in Pennsylvania and several other states. On the basis of simple replacement rates, the former Maryland state plan…