8% of public school teachers left teaching in 2021, a rate unchanged since last measured in 2012
Eight percent of teachers in public schools exited the profession between the 2020-21 and 2021-22 school years, a pivotal time when K-12 education was heavily impacted by the pandemic. This departure rate was unchanged from nearly a decade earlier, according to the Teacher Follow-Up Survey, a longitudinal component of the National Teacher and Principal Survey, released recently by the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), the statistical center within the U.S. Department of Education’s Institute of Education Sciences.
Overall, 84 percent of public school teachers remained at the same school during the 2020-21 and 2021-22 school years (“stayers”), 8 percent moved to a different school between the 2020-21 and 2021-22 school years (“movers”), and 8 percent left the teaching profession (“leavers”). Eighty-two percent of private school teachers remained at the same school during the 2020-21 and 2021-22 school years (“stayers”), 6 percent moved to a different school between the 2020-21 and 2021-22 school years (“movers”) and 12 percent left the teaching profession (“leavers”).
“These new data provide a snapshot of the teaching profession at a time when the U.S. education system was under incredible stress due to the COVID-19 pandemic,” said NCES Commissioner Peggy G. Carr. “And yet, these rates for teacher turnover were not statistically different from those between the 2011-12 and 2012-13 school years, the last time these data were collected.”
For those public and private school teachers who voluntarily left K-12 teaching after the 2020-21 year, a top rationale was to retire or receive retirement benefits. This was cited as the “most important reason” by 17 percent of public and 13 percent of private school teachers. Thirteen percent of public and 24 percent of private school teachers cited “other personal life reasons (e.g. health, pregnancy/childcare, caring for family),” and 14 percent of public and 10 percent of private school teachers said a desire to pursue a position other than as a K-12 teacher. Nine percent of public and 11 percent of private school teachers identified the desire for a higher salary as their chief motivation.
Public and private school teachers who left teaching after the 2020-21 year provided further insights on their new positions, such as how the work-life balance, autonomy and prestige compared to teaching. Former teachers reported that the ability to balance personal life and work (66 percent), autonomy or control over their own work (60 percent), manageability of their workload (58 percent) and professional prestige (58 percent) were better in their new profession than in teaching.
The report includes selected findings from the Teacher Follow-up Survey (TFS), a longitudinal component of the National Teacher and Principal Survey (NTPS), which is a nationally representative survey of public and private K-12 schools, principals and teachers in the 50 states and the District of Columbia. Data were collected from January 2022 through July 2022. The sample included about 8,500 public school teachers and about 1,800 private school teachers, for a total sample size of about 10,300 teachers.
The data were collected as a follow-up to the 2020-21 NTPS to provide attrition and mobility information about teachers in K-12 public and private schools. The purpose was to ascertain how many teachers from the 2020-21 school year still worked as a teachers in the same school 1 year later (“stayer”), how many had moved to become a teacher in another school (“mover”) and how many were no longer working as a principal (“leaver”).
To access the 2021-22 Teacher Follow-up Survey data and technical documentation, please visit https://nces.ed.gov/pubsearch/pubsinfo.asp?pubid=2023046.