A report last week by Penn State’s Center for Education Evaluation and Policy Analysis says Pennsylvania’s teachers are leaving their jobs at an alarming rate, and there are not enough new teachers to replace them.
The rate of attrition accelerated more rapidly in the just-concluded ’22-’23 school year than it has in the last ten years. The attrition rate of 7.7 percent across the state was a 1.5 percent increase over the 6.2 percent rate of the previous year. It was 5.4 percent in 2020-’21, the year of the pandemic’s greatest impact. The number of teachers leaving their jobs this year – almost 9,600 – is about twice as many as the number of new teachers entering the job market.
Indiana County’s attrition rate was 6.4 percent. Neighboring Armstrong County’s rate was 4.4 percent, Westmoreland 4.9, Jefferson 5.1, Cambria 6.8 and Clearfield 7.1. Philadelphia schools had the highest attrition rate in the state by far, at 16.4 percent.
Among the most common issues leading teachers to either retire or seek employment in other fields are the pandemic, increased workloads, a loss of autonomy in how they perform their jobs, and an increasingly hostile school environment.
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