For Immediate Release

Teacher Resignations Hit Record High

Nov 19, 2007 12:51 PM

Resignations among certified New York City teachers and other pedagogues for reasons other than retirement or problems with licensure hit a record high of 4,303 last year – a 69 percent jump since 2001. Nearly 14 percent of new teachers hired in the 2006-7 school year have already left the system, United Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten reported on Nov. 18.

The number of educators who resigned topped the previous high of 4,273 a year earlier, Weingarten said.

And except for a slight rise of less than a percentage point during the 2004-05 school year, the latest attrition rate of 13.9 percent for novice teachers – 2.6 percentage points more than the previous year – represents the first significant rise in the rate since 2000-2001 when 16.3 percent of new teachers left after only a year in the city school system.

“We are seeing a record increase in the number of new and veteran teachers leaving the school system for reasons other than retirement. This means losing good teachers is the predominant staffing issue that that the city Department of Education needs to address,” Weingarten said.

Weingarten noted that teacher salaries in New York City have risen 43 percent over the past five years, helping the city attract and retain better educated and more highly qualified teachers.

“We agree with the Mayor that we have a ‘spectacular’ teaching force and thank him for helping us negotiate these salaries,” she said. “But now we must do more to keep good teachers. We’re still losing more than a third of our new teachers within their first three years in the system and nearly half within six years. That hasn’t changed since the year 2000, but now we’re losing more of our veteran educators as well. So we have a two-pronged problem: First, too many new teachers are making the city school system a quick way station instead of a long career. Second, it’s one thing for new teachers to feel overwhelmed or to decide to leave for other reasons, but when veterans leave for reasons other than retirement despite being paid higher salaries, then you know something is wrong with the system.”

A 2006 union survey of new teachers showed that the most important factors that would encourage them to stay include better working conditions – such as smaller class sizes, more collaboration with and support from school administrators, greater availability of equipment and supplies – and more latitude to teach what they feel their students need to learn instead of just preparing them to do well on standardized tests.

Weingarten credited the city for devising alternative certification methods to bring well-qualified teachers into the system such as the Teaching Fellows programs, but she lamented the fact that many of them do not stay and make a career of teaching in New York City.

“Our new teachers are getting too little district support, demonstrated by the eroding of quality mentoring programs that should help them gain skills to cope during their first years in the classroom. They also worry about the lack of affordable housing – which is why the Teachers Retirement System recently invested $28 million in the Bronx for affordable housing for educators,” Weingarten said.

New York City Department of Education data show the following resignation rates, not including retirements or departures due to problems with teaching licenses:

• 2000-2001: 2,544
• 2001-2002: 2,221
• 2002-2003: 2,574
• 2003-2004: 3,939
• 2004-2005: 4,273
• 2005-2006: 4,303

DOE data show the following attrition rates for first-year teachers:

• 2000-01: 8,519 hired, 16.3% left
• 2001-02: 8,247 hired, 14.7% left
• 2002-03: 7,865 hired, 14.5% left
• 2003-04: 8,205 hired, 11.4% left
• 2004-05: 7,405 hired, 12.3% left
• 2005-06: 7,447 hired, 11.3% left
• 2006-07: 7,069 hired, 13.9% left

“It’s great that we’ve been able to negotiate the higher salaries we’ve seen in the last three contracts so they are closer than ever to those of suburban educators, but much more needs to be done if we want to keep the best and the brightest new teachers and veterans,” Weingarten said. “The city Department of Education must address other key issues such as class size, working conditions and giving teachers the latitude to teach beyond standardized test preparation. They need to know that they can work with principals in a collaborative manner to help their schools improve to the point that they will want to stay and make a career of teaching in New York City.”