Enthused by the invitation to bring narrative and autoethnographic data to engage critically (with) key global education policy issues, I present a rather unconventional way of scholarly writing, in which there is neither a showcase of a generic formulaic academic article nor an exclusive report of a specific research study. Instead, anchored in…

The four-day school week is a school calendar that has become increasingly common following the COVID-19 pandemic. Proponents of the calendar often claim that offering teachers a regular 3-day weekend will help schools better retain existing teachers and recruit new teachers to their district without incurring additional costs due to higher…

Teachers worldwide are rethinking their commitment to the profession and their traditional roles in schools and classroom teaching, evidenced by significant global rates of teacher attrition and subsequent teacher shortages. Research aimed at deepening our understanding of teachers' decisions to leave the profession has primarily reported on…

U.S. schools, including those in rural America, have struggled with a shortage of world language teachers for decades. Using Bandura's framework of self-efficacy teaching languages, the researchers conducted a study using the same methods as an earlier study of rural world language teacher attrition in Georgia. Contrary to those findings, results…

We use a novel linkage of school district administrative data to Internal Revenue Service records to study educators' post-exit career outcomes. The majority of leavers remain in education and mean earnings are slightly below pre-exit earnings even 8 years later. However, these average changes conceal wide variation in outcomes. Roughly 20% of…

Many studies rely on teachers' reported career intentions instead of measuring actual turnover, but research does not clearly document how these variables relate to one another. We test how measures of teacher intentions relate to turnover. Using nationally representative data on 102,970 public school teachers, we conduct a descriptive and…

Teacher attrition, a critical issue in education, has significant implications for the quality of instruction and student success. The Lower Rio Grande Valley in Texas, known for its substantial Latinx population, faces a concerning trend of high teacher turnover particularly among Latinx educators who leave teaching within their novice years.…

This paper, which was originally a keynote address, offers an analysis of the crisis in retention, and recruitment of teachers of Religious Education (RE). A reflexive assessment is offered to the political lament 'where have all the RE teachers gone?' The author, drawing on over three decades of experience and involvement with religious education…

Teacher burnout is a common phenomenon that is characterized by high rates of teacher turnover. According to the World Health Organization, teacher burnout is a syndrome that results from chronic workplace stress. This study aimed to investigate the relationship between the level of burnout and the decision to stay or leave the teaching…

This study examines the relationship between teacher agency, autonomy, and teacher attrition and shortage challenges in U.S. K-12 education. Utilizing a quantitative approach, a survey was carried out to 200 teachers in Iowa, achieving a 52% response rate. Findings indicate a positive correlation between teacher empowerment and reduced attrition…

Recognizing the "diversity crisis" in regards to the cultural dissonance between educators and their diverse students, "Diversifying the Educator Pipeline" provides a critical examination of the mistakes we have made in our efforts to bolster the presence of Black educators. Grounded with the historical context of Black…

Due to the continuous decrease in teacher retention rates in the state of Texas, it is important to understand principals' use of influence tactics and its effects on teacher retention. The purpose of this quantitative, nonexperimental, cross-sectional, descriptive design (Creswell & Creswell, 2018; O'Dwyer & Bernauer, 2013) study was to…

Student performance data is increasingly used to monitor and evaluate teachers. This study examines whether the turnover intentions -- if teachers would change schools given the chance -- of teachers in socioeconomically disadvantaged classrooms are moderated by teacher appraisal practices based on student academic performance data at the school…

Retirement plans can create strong financial incentives that have important labor market implications, and many states have adopted alternative plan designs that significantly change these incentives. The authors use longitudinal data to investigate the impact of Washington State's 1996 introduction of a hybrid retirement plan on late-career…

An increasing share of new teachers participate in alternative preparation programs. A fundamental question is what effect these programs have on long-run student achievement. To address this question, I study Teach For America (TFA) teachers working in New York City (NYC). I first estimate within-teacher returns to experience and find that TFA…