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The author highlights the importance of hiring and keeping the most effective teachers. She explores how teacher retention affects student achievement in both good and bad ways and discusses why teachers leave, ways to identify teachers who will be effective, and how to keep the best teachers in the classroom.
Principals and other educational leaders often find it difficult to hire and retain teachers. For this reason, summer break can be one of the most stressful times of the year for principals and administrators. Many teachers retire or resign at the end of the school term, and others want a change in grade level or subject matter. Before the new school year begins, educational leaders must seek to hire the most effective teachers available to fill the vacancies leftby those leaving. Clearly, teachers need to be assigned to the grade level and subject in which they will be the most successful and effective. However, this often proves to be a tough decision for principals and other school administrators-and for good reason. Research has shown that teacher retention affects student achievement, with rural and inner-city schools being disproportionally affected by teacher turnover. However, research also shows that the hiring process does not have to be hit or miss. There are certain traits school leaders can look for when hiring teachers.
Teacher Retention Affects Student Achievement in Both Good and Bad Ways
Researchers Loeb, Ronfeldt, and Wyckoff(2012) reported that teacher turnover caused lower student achievement. The results of their study indicated that, within the same school and during the same year, students' test scores were lower by 7.4% to 9.6% of a standard deviation in math when substantial teacher turnover occurred. The same study showed that scores were 6% to 8.3% of a standard deviation lower in English Language Arts in years that had 100% teacher turnover when compared with years in which there was no turnover in a school. Teacher turnover had a negative effect on all school communities whether they were large or small, old or new (Loeb et al., 2012). Further, the study posed the question of whether low student achievement caused teachers to leave or whether teachers' leaving might be the cause of low achievement.
At the same time, other researchers suggested...