“This is still a discouraging story,” said Katharine Strunk, dean of the University of Pennsylvania’s Graduate School of Education. ”I don’t think this level of consistent attrition is sustainable for the school system.”
National teacher exit data is released only sporadically, and many states don’t produce timely figures. But the Journal obtained information from 10 states, the most comprehensive recent compilation, that shows turnover typically followed a postpandemic pattern: a drop in the summer of 2020, followed by a spike in 2022.
In all 10 states, attrition fell last fall, as the current school year began. But in nine states, turnover still remained higher than in 2019, the last year before the pandemic.