Dive Brief:
- A new Bureau of Legislative Research report says one out of every three teachers in Arkansas leaves the classroom after only three years.
- The report says the top reasons named are stress, workload and poor salary and retirement benefits. Arkansas teacher salaries ranged from $35,000 to around $59,700 per year.
- Teachers surveyed said better pay and better benefits would help keep them in their jobs, as would reducing the amount of paperwork and other administrative duties for which they're responsible.
Dive Insight:
For troubled districts, teacher induction programs can help. Across the country, one in five new teachers will leave the classroom within five years. Experts point to the use of new teacher induction programs to increase teacher retention and student achievement simultaneously. According to U.S. Department of Education data, first-year teachers with higher base salaries are more likely to return to the classroom the following year. However, higher base salaries are increasingly less likely as state legislators continue slashing education budgets to compensate for fiscal deficits.
A March 2016 report by the New Teacher Center also found “beginning teachers are inequitably found in high-poverty neighborhoods and communities,” which “can hinder many schools from effectively addressing the needs of many students of color and those from low-income families” found in those school systems. According to the report, student achievement can be negatively impacted by having a large number of inexperienced educators in a concentrated area.
