Dive Brief:
- A new report from North Carolina’s education department finds that teacher turnover in the state is at its highest level in five years.
- The October report found that the turnover rate is at 15%, up from 11% in 2010.
- In one district, Northampton County, roughly a third of teachers left last year.
Dive Insight:
Questions of teacher turnover and resulting teacher shortages have become a pressing issue for district administrators and state education officials. In North Carolina, some of the trouble has been traced to low pay in the state. Education Week reports that North Carolina was one of the top-paying states in the country. Today, it’s in the bottom tier for teacher pay, and the state spends less on education than its neighbors.
The state raised teacher pay in 2014, but the biggest raises went to new teachers. Several administrators say they’ve lost teachers to nearby states. But some say not all of the responsibility lies with state legislatures. ”The fact remains that our county and city governments could choose to spend more on educating our children, but they don’t," the North Carolina Republican Party said in a memo on the website.