Professional Development and Teacher Job Satisfaction: Evidence from a Multilevel Model

Numerous studies in different countries find evidence for high rates of teacher turnover, leading to shortages and potential quality issues. Job satisfaction is found to be an important antecedent of turnover. In this study, we investigate the impact of various aspects of professional development for teachers (as well as interactions of these aspects) on job satisfaction. The main goal is to disentangle the interactions between need for and participation in professional development activities, allowing more detailed and precise analyses that may lead to a better substantiated understanding of the mechanisms at work. We use data from the 2018 wave of the OECD’s Teaching and Learning International Survey (TALIS). The hierarchical data structure of teachers nested in schools, nested in regions requires the use of appropriate estimation techniques: multilevel or hierarchical linear modelling (HLM). We find a significant positive relationship between job satisfaction and need for professional development for teaching diversity and special needs, which is (negatively) moderated by the number of professional development activities a teacher had participated in. Another indicator, measuring the need for professional development in subject matter and pedagogy, shows a significant negative relationship with job satisfaction and is (positively) moderated by the amount of professional development.

Clerical Turnover in the K–12 Campus Office

Clerical staff in the campus office (secretaries and registrars) perform critical functions essential to the operation of schools, yet do not receive research attention regarding their contributions. This study describes turnover rates of K–12 campus clerical employees in order to establish base information in the field. Eight years of employment data within a large suburban school district in Texas are examined to determine the number of clerks moving to different positions and/or leaving campus clerical employment. Findings reveal that the average clerical employee in this district is female, 50 years old, White or Hispanic, has 11 years of experience, changed positions at least once, and earns $15.61 an hour. The demographics of clerical staff more closely resembles student demographics that of than the teachers within the district. Turnover averaged 22% per year, with 16% representing leavers and under 7% representing movers; 25% of clerks left in their first year. Although teacher turnover is more frequent in high-poverty schools and varies based on level of campus, clerical staff turnover is significantly based on the level of position and pay. Results confirm findings from research on paraprofessionals (who have similar levels of pay) that level of pay and perceived lack of support are reasons for leaving. By providing induction activities and additional training, districts can reduce turnover costs of clerical staff despite the added cost of training.

Managing teacher turnover in regional schools

Employee resourcing comprising employment activities such as human resource planning, employee recruitment, selection, and adaptation, or retention planning and managing employee turnover seems to be a critical function of school management. It enables school managers to ensure the school has quality teachers and other employees it needs to achieve the expected objectives of the school. The biggest challenges of school managers in employee resourcing involve retaining teachers and dealing with teacher turnover. Based on the example of Czech regional schools, the article aims to discuss the current challenges of school managers in employee resourcing in regional schools and define possible ways to deal with the issue of retaining teachers and teacher turnover. The article applies findings of the authors' questionnaire survey on the practice of employee resourcing in Czech regional schools with the focus on the teachers' adaptation as a critical tool for retaining teachers. The authors' questionnaire survey was carried out in the second half of the school year 2018/2019 and in the first half of the school year 2019/2020. The respondents included managers of Czech preschools, elementary schools, and high schools. The answers were obtained from 19% of schools (116 out of 600 addressed schools). The findings show that surveyed regional schools can successfully deal with the challenges in employee resourcing, however, they should apply a more systematic approach, especially to the teachers' adaptation that could help them to deal with the challenge in retaining teachers and reducing the teacher turnover.

An analytics approach to investigate teacher turnover

Some educational problems embed spatial and temporal complexities, and the aggregation of these data may cause contextual information to be lost. One such example regards teacher turnover, which impacts directly the students' learning processes. In this work, we adopted an observational cross-sectional methodology, using visual analytics techniques to identify complex patterns in the mobility data of teachers in public schools from the city of São Paulo between 2016 and 2017. For this, we used education open data from the Brazilian government, which maps which teachers teach in which schools through a yearly school census. In addition, we sought to understand which are the main factors that, along with institutional rules, influence this sort of decision. To contextualize the main factors, we used synthetic indicators developed by the Brazilian government to identify different motivation clusters that may influence teachers' decisions to move to another school. As result, we identified different patterns varying according to their contract type and their respective geographical patterns. The clusters also identified as main factors: school performance, school climate, and management complexity.

The Principal-Teacher Churn: Understanding the Relationship Between Leadership Turnover and Teacher Attrition

Purpose: Principals are critical to school improvement and play a vital role in creating inclusive and high-performing schools. Yet, approximately one in five principals leave their school each year, and turnover is higher in schools that serve low-income students of color. Relatedly, high rates of teacher turnover exacerbate challenges associated with unstable learning environments. Our study examines the extent to which principal turnover influences teacher turnover. We build on past work by exploring how the relationship between teacher and principal turnover differs in urban, high-poverty settings and by examining the effects of chronic principal turnover. Research Methods/Approach: We draw on a student- and employee-level statewide longitudinal dataset from Texas that includes all public K-12 schools from school years 1999–2000 to 2016–17. We estimate teacher-level models with school fixed effects, allowing us to compare teacher turnover in schools leading up to and immediately following a principal exit, to otherwise similar schools that do not experience principal turnover. Findings: Teacher turnover spikes in schools experiencing leadership turnover, and these effects are greater among high-poverty and urban schools, in schools with low average teacher experience, and in schools experiencing chronic principal turnover. Implications: Improving leadership stability, especially in urban schools experiencing chronic principal turnover may be an effective approach to reducing teacher turnover. Principal and teacher turnover and their relationship with each other requires further investigation. The field would benefit from qualitative research that can provide important insights into the individual decisions and organizational processes that contribute to principal turnover.

Shifting the focus of research on effective professional development: Insights from a case study of implementation

Globally, teacher professional development is heralded as a key mechanism for educational reform. With governments investing heavily in PD programs, the aim of these interventions is not only enhanced teacher knowledge and practice but, ultimately, improved student outcomes. A substantial body of research has attempted to identify characteristics of effective PD, generating a growing list of features that ostensibly ‘work’. As such, program design has become the dominant analytic focus. In this paper, we shift attention squarely to program implementation as necessary in conceptualising and evaluating effective PD. We apply the lens of implementation science to a case study of how one regional secondary school in NSW, Australia, implemented a robust PD program called Quality Teaching Rounds that has strong evidence of effectiveness. Despite the school’s attempts to remain true to the spirit of the PD, a combination of remoteness, lack of casual relief teachers, high teacher turnover, and negative perceptions of peer observation result in a form of QTR that is almost unrecognisable from its intended design. We argue greater attention must be given to understanding and supporting successful implementation within and across diverse school contexts in order to take effective forms of PD to scale.

Teachers’ Perceptions of Principal Leadership Practices That Influence Teacher Turnover

Teacher turnover is associated with administrative leadership; however, there is an empirical gap in the practices that principals enact that influence teacher turnover. This article uses in-depth case studies and interviews with 32 teachers across two high-turnover and two low turnover middle schools in one large urban public school district to examine teachers’ perceptions of principals’ leadership practices. When compared to principals leading high-turnover schools, we found three common practices that characterized principals of low-turnover schools: (a) recognizing teachers as knowledgeable contributors, (b) clearly communicating the school’s vision around high-quality teaching, and (c) centering student learning.