America's Public School Kindergarten Teachers' Job Turnover and Associated Factors.
AbstractThis study examined the effects of teacher characteristics, perceived school climate and work conditions, and students' characteristics on public school kindergarten teachers' act of moving to another school, leaving the profession and staying in the same school. The data came from School and Staffing Survey (SASS) and the Teacher Follow up Survey (TFS) collected in the United States. The findings showed that teachers' demographic and professional characteristics were stronger predictors of mobility decisions than perceived school climate and working conditions, and characteristics of students. It underlined the importance of understanding the sources of turnover for subgroups of teachers and identifying movers and leavers when studying the turnover.Key WordsKindergarten Teachers, Teacher Turnover, SASS, TFS.In general, teacher turnover is an umbrella term used to indicate teachers who leave the teaching profession or move to another school (Boe, Cook, Sunderland, 2008) There has been a dramatic increase in the percent of teachers who either leftthe profession (leavers) or transferred to another school (movers) in recent years. According to the National Commission on Teaching and America's Future (NCTAF; Barnes, Crowe, Schaffer, 2007) in the past 15 years, the teacher attrition rate has grown by 50% and the teacher turnover rate has risen to approximately 17% across the United States. The estimated cost of teacher turnover in public schools is over $7.3 billion a year. In addition to budget costs, teacher turnover is associated with lower student achievement, and with lower teacher and program quality, particularly in highpoverty and low performing schools (Barnes et al. Early childhood teachers who plan to remain in the profession for more than five years provide significantly higher quality programs than those who plan to remain for fewer years (Midwest Child Care Research Consortium, 2009).Researchers have often examined specific groups of teachers such as music teachers (e.g. Mclain, 2005) English teachers (e.g. Hahs Vaughn Scherff, 2008) mathematics and science teachers (e.g. Henke, Zahn, Carroll, 2001) special education teachers (e.g. Beck Gargiulo, 1983; Gersten, Keating, Yovanoff, Harniss, 2001) secondary school teachers (e.g. Lopez et al. 2008) elementary school teachers (e.g. Bogler, 2002; Perrachione, Rosser, Petersen, 2008; Viel Ruma, Houchins, Jolivette, Benson, 2010; Weiqi, 2007) and middle and high school teachers (e.g. Schwab Iwanicki, 1982) Researchers have usually treated kindergarten teachers within a broad group of teachers at the elementary level (e.g. Perrachione et al. Viel Ruma et al. although elementary school grades cover almost a seven grade range (prekindergarten through fifth grade) However, kindergarten teachers may have different rates of staying, leaving the profession, or moving to another school, compared to higher elementary grade teachers (Keigher, 2010; Klassen Chiu, 2010) Differences in kindergarten teachers' turnover rates and the associated factors with their turnover have been neglected. The purpose of this study is to explore factors contributing to public school kindergarten teachers' job turnover.Predictors of Teacher TurnoverResearch has shown that teacher characteristics, work conditions and school climate, and student characteristics have been linked to teacher turnover. Teacher characteristics such as gender, race, age, certification, educational level and years of teaching experience have been associated with teachers' decision to stay in the same school, move to another school, or leave the profession. Studies have reported that attrition rate is higher for female teachers than for male teachers (e.g. Guarino, Santibanez, Daley, 2006) for Black and Hispanic teachers than for White teachers (Keigher, 2010; Strunk Robinson, 2006) for teachers with a probationary teaching certificate than for those with a regular certification (Strunk Robinson) and for teachers with a graduate degree than for those with a bachelors' degree (Borman Dowling, 2008)