Matthew Di Carlo of the Shanker Institute reports a new study of teacher attrition in the District of Columbia.

The numbers of teachers leaving the district are startling. Whether it is working conditions or policy, the District is not a good place to work.

DCPS has an attrition rate of 25%, far above the national average.

But it is far higher in the highest-poverty schools, as much as 40%.

Di Carlo notes:

“Now, it’s important to note, first of all, that this level of churn, overall and/or in how it varies by school poverty, may not be unusual for districts similar to DCPS (for example, the overall rate of 25 percent is probably roughly comparable to other big city districts). In other words, this may be less a DCPS problem than a large urban district problem (and the raw figures certainly cannot be chalked up to specific policies, in DC or elsewhere).

“Moreover, it’s unclear how much of the discrepancy in attrition/mobility by poverty rates is due to working conditions per se. For one thing, as seen in the DCPS document linked above (see page 36), teachers in higher-poverty schools receive lower ratings, on average, from DCPS’ teacher evaluation system than their counterparts in medium- and low-poverty schools, which means that some of the turnover may be involuntary (i.e., dismissals). Also, leavers and movers have lower evaluation scores, on average, than stayers (see the table above, and also that on page 32). Similarly, there are other variables, such as experience, that may mediate the association between school poverty and teacher turnover.

“In any case, while some turnover is inevitable and some of it (e.g., low-performing teachers) can be seen as beneficial, the situation in the highest-poverty DCPS schools, where around 40 percent leave every year, is at least a cause for concern. It’s difficult to comprehend how schools can function effectively under such conditions.”