Teacher Retention In a recent report, the Nationa

In a recent report, the National Commission on Teaching and America's Future (NCTAF) concluded that the teacher shortage in the United States is not due to a lack of qualified teachers but rather due to schools's failure to retain teachers. As the report stated, "[o]ur inability to support high quality teaching im many of our schools is driven not by too few teachers entering the profession, but too many leaving it for other jobs (NCTAF, 2003, p. 6). Thus, the report concludes that teacher retention has become a national crisis that undermines teacher quality and causes teacher shortages (NCTAF, 2003, p. 8).

The extent of the problem of teacher retention can be seen in troubling trends over the last two decades. Though it might come as a surprise to many people who vaguely recall hearing about a "teacher shortage" over the last few years, the report found that the supply of teachers actually increased "dramatically" during the 1990s. For example, the report notes that the graduation rate of new teachers grew 90 percent between 1984 and 1999. The problem, however, is that the attrition rate of new teachers increased even more dramatically.

In 1999-2000, schools hired 232,000 teachers who had not been teaching the year before. But the next year, the schools lost 287,000 teachers - a net loss of 24 percent (NCTAF, 2003, p. 8). In fact, the report analyzed data from the National Center for Education Statistics and concluded that approximately one-third of n

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year of teaching and then continues to successfully induct them into the profession over the next four years. These first five years are important because these are the years in which teacher attrition rates are highest. Somewhat fortunately, several studies have been able to identify common problems faced by new teachers, which enables administrators to formulate specific programs to address the needs of new teachers. For example, new teachers are often assigned the most difficult classes to discipline because administrators believe new teachers are best prepared with the latest methods for coping with such problems (Stansbury, 2001, p. 18). Beyond that, however, new teachers are faced with a host of new situations with which they have not been trained to deal. While acclimating to a new environment often where they do not know anyone they also do not know the political and cultural norms in that environment and how to address certain problems in their new situations. Only an approach to teacher retention that addresses all the needs of new teachers will ultimately be successful in improving teacher retention (Hope, 1999, p. 54). Based on the research, it seems the most effective teacher retention strategies must be based on a

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