Introduction and description of data

The purpose of this study is to illustrate the trend of teacher retention patterns in North Dakota over the lifetime of the data in the North Dakota Statewide Longitudinal Data System (SLDS). Additionally, teacher pay prior to and following departure from the teaching field will be compared to help provide information regarding whether or not teachers may be leaving the field for financial reasons.

To complete this study, data housed in the SLDS from multiple sources was utilized, including data from:

North Dakota Department of Public Instruction (DPI)
North Dakota Education Standards and Practices Board (ESPB)
North Dakota Job Service

What is the median experience level for teachers leaving the profession?

To begin, we will look at the median years of experience for teachers leaving the profession. They could be leaving for any reason; retirement, illness, childbirth, etc. To be considered “not returned”, the teacher has appeared as an instructor in a North Dakota school at some point in the years 2006-07 to 2022-23. The point at which they are no longer shown as a teacher or administrator in a North Dakota school, they are considered to have “not returned”.

Figure 1 below shows that from the 2006-07 to the 2022-23 school year, the median years of experience until leaving the profession has been steadily decreasing. In 2006-07, half of teachers leaving the profession had 23 years of experience or less. In 2022-23, half of teachers leaving the profession had 9 years of experience or less.

Figure 1: Median years of experience for teachers not returning and/or retiring, 2006-07 through 2022-23 school years

Interestingly, it also appears that there may be geographic differences in teacher retention over the past sixteen years. Figure 2 below shows the median years of experience for departing teachers by school district (with a minimum of 10 teachers departing) from the 2006-07 to 2022-23 school years. There appear to be some pockets where the median years of experience for teachers leaving the profession are lower than others, particularly the northwest corner of the state, which may be affected by oilfield activity.

Figure 2: Median years of experience for teachers departing the profession by school district, 2006-07 to 2022-23 school years

What is the distribution of ages for teachers leaving the profession?

Seeing that there has been a change in the median years of experience over the last sixteen years in North Dakota, the next question to be investigated involved the ages of those teachers leaving the profession. Particularly, it was of interest to see if there was a change in the distributions of ages for those teachers that chose to leave teaching.

Figure 3 below shows three groups of years with departing teachers, each with three years of data included in them. The percent of departers in each age group is shown. All three groups of years show a sizable number of departing teachers are either of retirement age or very new teachers deciding to leave the profession. What is of note is the group of individuals from age 30-45. The first two year groups, 2007-09 and 2014-16, show that if newer teachers made it past the first few difficult years of teaching, 30-45 year olds were not terribly likely to leave teaching. However, in the 2021-23 group, a larger percentage of departers were made up of these 30-45 year olds.

Figure 3: Distribution of ages for teachers who do not return

What percent of teachers leave teaching by age group?

While the previous section showed the distribution of ages for teachers that were leaving, it is also of interest to see what percentage of teachers leave for each age group. What age group showed the most propensity for leaving teaching, and is this changing over time? Figure 4 below shows the percentage of teachers leaving by school year, grouped by the teacher’s age. Not surprisingly, teachers in their 20s (new teachers) and 60s (retiring teachers) were the most common to leave teaching.

However, something of note that appeared in this figure is the upward swing experienced by all age groups (except for teachers in their 60s) following the COVID-19 pandemic in the spring of 2020. Also of note is the general upward trend, even prior to the pandemic, across all age groups, indicating an increase in teacher departures over time.

Figure 4: Percentage of teachers leaving teaching by age group and school year

Do different subject areas experience differences in teacher retention rates over time?

Previous sections have established that teacher retention is an increasing difficulty, and is showing different characteristics following the COVID-19 pandemic. Now, have subject areas experienced this differently over time? Are some subject areas more prone to loss of teachers? Figure 5 below shows the variety in trends among the various subject areas for teachers. Each shows its own unique trend from 2006-07 to 2022-23, with Business, Agriculture, and Science teachers all showing an increase following the pandemic to Music and Mathematics teachers, who showed no change through the pandemic (while continuing a slight upward trend).

Figure 5: Percentage of teachers leaving teaching by subject area and school year

Are teachers leaving the profession making more after leaving teaching?

Finally, now that the trend of teacher retention has been illustrated, the question of teacher pay was studied. Particularly, “Do teachers make more money after leaving teaching?”. To study this, wages for departing teachers who had four quarters of wages in their last year of teaching (July - June) were compared to their wages for the following year (again, July - June).

Only teachers who had wages that were reported to Unemployment Insurance were included; no self-employed individuals would be included. Additionally, individuals were only considered for comparison if they earned the equivalent of a full-time employment at minimum wage ($15,080/yr). This was done to eliminate teachers who may have left teaching to raise a family or other situations where an individual may decide not to work. Also, to eliminate consideration of individuals leaving teaching to retire, only teachers under the age of 50 had their wages investigated.

Following the application of the conditions, 550 teachers were left under consideration who left teaching between 2014-15 and 2021-22. 2014-15 is used as the start of wage comparisons, as that is the beginning of continuous UI wage data within the SLDS. Figure 6 below shows the distribution of the differences between a departing teachers new wage the year after leaving teaching and their old wage during their last year of teaching. (Note their old wages also includes any additional employment in addition to their teaching salary)

Figure 6 shows that the median wage change for these 550 teachers was a loss of $3,216 compared with their income during their last year of teaching. This would suggest that while some teachers certainly do make more money in their first year of employment following teaching, this is by no means an universal trend. Indeed, more of the teachers in this study (326) took a pay cut than increased their wages (224).

Figure 6: Median wage change for teachers leaving the profession during school years 2014-15 to 2021-22

Summary

The North Dakota Statewide Longitudinal Data System is a wealth of information regarding the topic of teacher retention in the state. This study illustrates the trend of teacher retention in North Dakota, along with showing that teachers are not necessarily leaving for more pay. This does not mean that teacher pay has no impact on teacher retention; of course, if kindergarten teachers were paid one million dollars, everyone would want to be a kindergarten teacher. It simply shows that currently, it does not appear to be the allure of a much larger paycheck that is drawing teachers away from the field in North Dakota (on average).

ND K-12 Teacher Retention Study

Sam Unruh

March 12, 2024