This study uses state‐level staffing data to analyze the five‐year career trajectories of all 231 first‐year secondary science teachers in New Jersey who began teaching during the 2010‐2011 school year. The person‐position framework for studying teacher retention is introduced in this analysis, and the authors present a case for the importance of specifying both location and duration in empirical reporting on teacher retention, as well as distinguishing between the employers’ and individual teachers’ perspectives on retention. In the cohort studied here, the 5‐year retention‐by‐employer rate was 38%, but the retention‐in‐profession rate for those actively teaching was 65%. An additional 24% of science teachers changed districts during or immediately after their first year, and were retained in their second districts for four or more years. 16% of the science teachers in the cohort identified as non‐White or Hispanic and these teachers were retained at similar rates to their White/non‐Hispanic counterparts. Alternate route preparation programs attracted many more secondary science teachers who identified as non‐White or Hispanic, but teachers from these programs had a far lower 5‐year retained‐in‐profession rate (45%) than non‐White or Hispanic traditional route teachers (75%). It was more common for science teachers in higher SES districts to transfer to lower SES districts than the reverse. The position turnover rate for science teachers was slightly lower in higher SES districts. As a category, charter schools had the lowest 5‐year science teacher retention rate (13%). There was no identifiable relationship between the age, sex, subject area certification, or starting salary of science teachers and the measures of retention used in this study. The authors discuss the characterization of retention itself in research, including the use of descriptors related to retention. Implications relating to science teacher education policy are discussed, as is the future use of state‐level data systems in retention research.

This chapter reports initial findings from IMPREST, a 5-year research project that aims to investigate novice science teacher retention in the United States, with a focus on the underlying factors influencing retention for the teachers who stay. The goal of this project is to describe efforts to support novice science teachers across a wide range of school and community environments in places where the retention rate of novice science teachers is demonstrably well above average. In such districts, there are stakeholders who know and have learned a great deal about how to support novice science teachers and create conditions for their success, including district administrators, science supervisors, teachers, and community members, and a core aim of this project is to spread their hard-won practical wisdom to a wider audience. In this chapter, we report the design of the project, introduce the theory of teacher embeddedness used in this research, and share preliminary findings from case studies in six school districts. This study found that retained teachers placed a high value on collaborative environments, adequate resources and salary, and the relationships they developed both within the school organization and the community. In many of the case study districts, the collective mentoring efforts of the science department as a whole was viewed by teachers as more important for retention than individually assigned mentors. In these districts, the human resources process of “onboarding” into the job was distinct from induction efforts to provide longitudinal new teacher supports. One clear implication from this study is the value of adequate common planning time, shared spaces, and engagement in informal relationship-building efforts because doing so helps teachers develop the links necessary to sustain themselves professionally over time.

No abstract