Recent studies argue that in the next 5 years, the higher education sector will see half to two-thirds of its academic workforce leave the academy due to retirement, career burnout, or job dissatisfaction. This study surveyed over 100 working academics in Australia, North America, and the United Kingdom to determine their aspirations for remaining…

Pensions have been at the forefront of recent debates over teacher pay, but the issues are complicated and political. As such, this document is an attempt to inform readers about how pension plans work for the 90 percent of public school teachers enrolled in them. Using objective data and analysis, we explain how teachers earn benefits in those…

The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has added more stress to an already high-stress profession: American public school teacher. The authors of this report share the results of a new survey of nearly 1,000 former public school teachers and reveal how important stress has been--even more so than pay--to teachers' decisions to leave the…

A vast research literature is devoted to analyzing causes of and potential remedies for early-career teacher attrition. However, much less attention has been paid to late-career attrition among experienced teachers, which is driven primarily by retirement plan incentives. Although there is some variation across states, it is generally the case…

Several studies have argued that teacher pensions are a raw deal for most teachers and should be replaced with account-style plans. This report examines research that most teachers working today are building a secure retirement. According to the author, the myth that most teachers get a raw deal while a lucky few receive generous pensions is based…

Leaders across the state of Minnesota and nation proclaim to want to diversify the educator workforce. However, the reality nationwide is that less than 20% of teachers who teach a student population that is at least 51% students of color are teachers of color (Ingersoll et al., 2018). What follows are a number of research briefs organized around…

Oregon's Tier One Public Employees Retirement System (PERS) covered members prior to January 1, 1996. This "Issue Brief" documents the generosity of the money match provision under Oregon's Tier One plan relative to the Tier One defined-benefit formula, and relative to other plans in Oregon and Washington and to representative plans…

The issue of science teacher turnover has been examined in many national studies, yet most educational policies related to teacher preparation and student performance are determined at the state level. There has been a lack of research that explores this issue in specific science domains. The present nonexperimental longitudinal study examined…

This report explores the working conditions and flows of state-funded secondary school teachers in Cambridgeshire compared to a select number of other local authorities and to the English national landscape as a whole between 2010 and 2015. It also presents findings for different subjects, highlighting the situation for science, technology,…

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…

Teacher shortages that most severely affect schools serving the least advantaged children have been part of the California education landscape for the last half decade. This brief describes how key teacher supply and demand factors vary across the state, and it provides potential policy solutions to mitigate ongoing shortages. The brief also…

When California students returned to school in fall 2019, hundreds of thousands returned to classrooms staffed by substitutes and teachers who were not fully prepared to teach. In recent years, California has experienced widespread shortages of elementary and secondary teachers as districts and schools seek to restore class sizes and course…

The financial problems afflicting the Illinois teacher pension plan have grabbed headlines. An equally important problem, though underappreciated, is that relatively few teachers benefit much from the plan. This report evaluates the pension benefits provided to Illinois public school teachers. The researchers project annual and lifetime pension…

This is the third in a series of reports on public school educators in the Milwaukee area. It provides an updated analysis to a previous report, "Help Wanted: An Analysis of the Teacher Pipeline in Metro Milwaukee." This report finds that teacher turnover in both metro Milwaukee and across the state has stabilized. However a higher…

Across the country, districts and schools are struggling to meet the growing demand for qualified teachers. Indeed, there are some subjects--such as mathematics, science, and special education--in which nearly every state is experiencing a teacher shortage. As a result, states often turn to underqualified teachers to fill the vacuum, a problematic…