Tennessee Schools Lose Best Teachers Early In Their Careers, Report Says

A new Tennessee Department of Education analysis find that teachers scoring high on the five-point evaluation are slightly more likely to stay than those who score low. But looking just at the high performers, those teachers are more likely to leave early in their careers. Credit: US Dept of Ed via Flickr

For the first time, Tennessee education officials are sifting through data to get better ideas for how to keep teachers who score highest on a five-point evaluation scale. What they’ve found is that the youngest are more likely to leave.

First, second and third year teachers have lower retention rates anyway, but the same holds true in Tennessee for those getting high marks. Research director Nate Schwartz says 500 high-performing newcomers didn’t return last year.

“One of the things that you’d want to look at first is are we making sure that we’re taking those early career teachers, that we know are very effective, and finding ways to keep them in the school,” Schwartz says.

Retention has been a focus of study nationwide, including a widely-cited report called the Irreplaceables put out by The New Teacher Project. It found that urban schools have particular trouble holding onto the best and brightest.

Tennessee assistant commissioner Sara Heyburn says the department is learning that sometimes all it takes is a conversation, right around Thanksgiving break.

“Those teachers who are literally you’re irreplaceables, who you want to stay, making sure that you know that you as a district or school leader value their presence and hope that they will stay on the following year,” she says.

In Tennessee, Wilson and Bedford counties ranked high at keeping high-performing teachers between the 2012 and 2013 school years. Cheatham County ranked low, hanging on to 86 percent of level four and five teachers, according to the state department.

Heyburn says this fall she plans to pair up district leaders to share best practices.