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Andrea Dykyj

10/23/12

The Causes and Consequences of Teacher Attrition

In the current state of the U.S. education system, the issue of pre-retirement teacher

attrition has reached astronomical proportions. According to research by the National

Commission on Teaching & America’s Future (NCTAF), in the course over the last 15 years,

teacher attrition has grown by 15%, with 46% of all new teachers in the United States

leaving the profession within the first five years (Carroll 1). This high rate of teacher

turnover has forced school systems into taking desperate measures in an effort to close the

employment gap. There are two theories – functionalism and conflict theory – that explore

the causes and consequences of teacher attrition. These two lenses provide a framework to

evaluate this issue.

In order to understand the impact of teacher attrition, one must first understand the

nature of the field of education itself. The service that schools provide does not fit into the

traditional capitalist model of economic production. Unlike standard input-output industry

models that produce quantifiable goods and products, the products of education are not

easily quantified:

“The ‘raw materials’ in schools are children and youth; the ‘technology’ of teaching

and learning is often uncertain, ambiguous, and non-routine; and the ‘product’ is a

youngster’s growth” (Ingersoll 184).

According to the “Law of Value,” in capitalist society, an individual’s value is

determined based on his/her contribution to the economy: measured by the average

quantity of human labor that is socially necessary to produce it (“Law of Value”). The very

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nature of the goods produced by teachers (i.e. student growth) complicates this idea of

using products to determine the “exchange-value” of the human labor input behind them.

While there has been a shift towards using more quantifiable data in providing more

objective measures of teacher effectiveness, this data fails to account for the less easily

measured variables so crucial to the effective operation of schools:

“[T]he presence of a positive sense of community, belongingness, communication,

and cohesion among members has long been held by education theory and research to be

one of the most important indicators and aspects of effective schools” (Ingersoll 184).

The education system is an industry in which group output is more highly valued in

determining overall industry effectiveness than the contributions of individuals. In

addition to the devaluation of the individual, the reliance of the education industry on

group cohesion and commitment – variables that neither the individual employees nor the

industry itself can fully control – renders the education system just as powerless over its

own fate as an industry as the individual participants are over their own.

For industry models as “unusually dependent” on employee cohesion as the

education system, high rates of employee turnover and the resulting disruption of overall

industry quality and performance are common consequences. While some turnover is

normal, even expected for fields like education; the high rate at which teachers have been

leaving the field, warns theorist Richard Ingersoll, is cause for concern:

“[H]igh rates of teacher turnover are over concern not only because they may be an

outcome indicating underlying problems in how well schools function, but also because

they can be disruptive, in and of themselves, for the quality of school community and

performance” (184).

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According to Ingersoll, the relationship between teacher attrition and school

performance and cohesion “runs both directions”: for teachers, the under-emphasis of

individual performance coupled with the lack of institutional routine, structure and

support leaves those dissatisfied with little choice other than to stay and wholly buy into

this model, or to leave in pursuit of another career path altogether. The resulting

disruption impacts overall industry effectiveness and perpetuates the cycle of attrition.

Similar to Ingersoll’s theories on the education system, functionalism and conflict

theory also explore the mutual relationship between the institutional shortcomings of the

education system and the high rates of employee turnover. In functionalist society, each

individual has his or her own place and corresponding role in contributing to the successful

functioning of society: these roles determined by factors such as ability, education, etc.

Pre-established social hierarchies guide the placement of individuals within this system

and teacher attrition occurs as a natural response to sort individuals in accordance with

these limits. The field will retain individuals more suited to teaching, all-the-while pushing

over/under-qualified and other incompatible individuals out into other fields. This results

in a social equilibrium where every individual is matched with the ideal job for his/her

abilities.

Teacher turnover has been statistically highest among “teachers with higher ability,

as measured by test scores such as the SAT, the National Teacher Exam, and teacher

licensure tests” (Ibid 185). In other fields such as finance, law, or medicine, for example,

there is a clear connection between individual contribution and reward. In the field of

education, however, the focus on the collective output de-emphasizes the differences

between individual contributions. When the contributions of stronger members are

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muted, those who are unhappy with the system eventually opt to leave for fields that

recognize their individual contributions more directly. Functionalist theory suggests that

stronger, more able individuals favor positions that accentuate and reward their talents

and abilities; while weaker, less able candidates are more likely to seek positions that

protect them from judgment against their stronger peers.

Building on the precepts of functionalism, conflict theory explores the tensions

underlying these issues of power and social mobility. Conflict theory describes society as a

hierarchical system of status groups, or “associational groups sharing common cultures”:

ranging from the least powerful members of society to the elite (Collins 43). The most

dominant groups in society that control the limited resources of wealth, power, and

prestige aim to control subordinate members by “coerc[ing], hir[ing], or culturally

manipulat[ing] others to carry out their wishes” (Ibid 44). In the case of schools, conflict

theory would imply that the educational elite – i.e. school administration, superintendents,

etc. – impress upon teachers values that further their own agenda. In turn, those who

reject this ideology are filtered out: securing only the “employees who are at least

indoctrinated to respect the cultural superiority of their status culture” (Ibid 44).

According to conflict theory, the intensity of conflicts within status groups “rises and

falls with processes increasing or decreasing the cultural distinctiveness of these groups”

(Ibid 44). In an effort to minimize conflict and preserve the pre-established values of the

organization, the elite will orchestrate efforts to hire members of the same status group.

Teacher attrition is seemingly the result of the clash between status groups in an effort to

gain access to the wealth, power, and prestige controlled by the educational elite. The

unionized pay structure for teachers is part of a system established by the educational elite:

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promoting people who buy into the system through years of service. The incentive

structure of the education system does not reward individual achievement – diminishing

the differences in productivity between individuals and disadvantaging those seeking

recognition and compensation for their individual contributions to the system. The only

option for these teachers, other than accepting these terms and acquiescing in the values of

the system, is to leave in pursuit of another career that would reward their individual

contributions to the system more directly.

When teachers fail to break these boundaries between status groups, attrition

occurs. The system quickly works to fill the void with new candidates, sometimes without

taking into consideration their qualifications for the position. The long-term effects of this

strategy produce a field of less and less able and willing candidates. While flooding the

system with new candidates will ameliorate the initial deficit caused by attrition; without a

more judicious and informed approach to hiring, the education system only makes itself

even more vulnerable to future attrition.

Teacher attrition is a costly and disruptive force to the function of the education

system as an industry and to the service that education provides to society. A further

review of existing hiring and compensation practices, to analyze the strengths, weaknesses,

and general compatibility of its prospective employees would prove helpful in creating a

stronger framework to tackle the shortcomings and high rates of attrition. With the right

teachers in place and less turnover, schools will improve operationally: allocating less time

and effort towards replacing and training teachers and more time to implement long-term

educational objectives that focus on the students.

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References

"Law of Value." Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, 21 Oct. 2012. Web. 21 Oct. 2012. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_value>.

Carroll, Thomas G. “The High Cost of Teacher Turnover.” http://www.nctaf.org. Washington DC: The National Commission on Teaching and America’s Future. 2007. Web. 21 Oct, 2012.

Collins, Randall. “Functional and Conflict Theories of Educational Stratification.” Sociology of Education: A Critical Reader. Ed. Alan R. Sadovnik. New York: Routledge, 2007. Pp. 37-52.

Ingersoll, Richard. “Is There Really a Teacher Shortage?” Sociology of Education: A Critical Reader. Ed. Alan R. Sadovnik. New York: Routledge, 2007. Pp. 177-193.

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