One of education鈥檚 deep problems isn鈥檛 discovering success. It鈥檚 sustaining it. Again and again, we celebrate high-performing schools at their peak, only to watch 鈥� or, more pertinently, fail to notice 鈥� when they drift, decline or disappear altogether within a decade. This raises a significant and uncomfortable question: If the high-fliers we celebrate and seek to emulate don鈥檛 stay aloft, were they really that good to begin with?

When successful schools lose their momentum, the usual suspects are leadership turnover, staff churn, demographic change, political conflict or the quiet assumption that the success was fragile all along. But many of these factors, particularly staff and leadership changes, are not flaws in the system, they鈥檙e features.

The average superintendent typically little more than a single contract cycle. Principals tend to remain only about in a given school, with even shorter stints in high-poverty settings. Roughly of teachers leave the classroom within five years. Any school improvement model that works only if the adults stay in place isn鈥檛 a model; it鈥檚 catching lightning in a bottle. What ultimately distinguishes the schools that endure is not whether turnover happens, but whether effective practices have been institutionalized strongly enough to survive it.

Some analysts have begun to demonstrate this durability problem empirically. Chad Alderman recently asked a deceptively simple question: Do 鈥済ood鈥� schools stay good over time? He found that in Virginia, only half of the schools that were in the state鈥檚 top quartile of schools in 2004 remained there in 2024.

This suggests a thought exercise: If we wanted to predict whether a school鈥檚 success will last, what should we look for? Not test scores. Not a charismatic principal. Not a compelling origin story. Those things can tell us a school is working now but clearly don鈥檛 predict if it will still be working years from now.

Let鈥檚 start by acknowledging that schools are not stable organizations occasionally disrupted by turnover. They are 鈥� or ought to be 鈥� organizations built to function despite turnover.

What follows is best understood as a working hypothesis based on my observations and experience: an attempt to identify the institutional features that seem to appear, again and again, in the schools and systems whose results persist while others fade

Durable schools tend to share a clearly defined instructional core. Not a 鈥減hilosophy.鈥� Not a mission statement. An operating system. They use common materials, sequence content deliberately and define effective instruction in observable terms. New teachers are acculturated and trained into an existing model rather than invited to invent their own. Durability begins with instructional clarity as the foundation, with consistency as the structure.

Schools that sustain results minimize variation in the things that matter most, particularly foundational literacy and numeracy instruction. They monitor whether the curriculum is actually delivered. They coach toward specific practices. When drift appears, they correct it.

Fragile systems rely on great teachers. Durable systems assume ordinary teachers and build routines strong enough to support them. Durable systems assume turnover and design accordingly.

One of the more revealing lessons I took from my reporting on New York City’s Success Academy charter school network is that its results cannot plausibly be explained by stable staffing. Neither does it recruit from elite colleges and universities. Teacher turnover in the network has long been substantial, in part because the demands placed on staff are unusually intense. Yet it continued to produce unusually strong academic outcomes, even as it rapidly grew from a single school to more than 50.

As I wrote in :

The de facto model that has evolved is more like the U.S. Army or the Marines: a small and talented officer corps surrounded by enlisted men and women who do a tour, maybe two, then muster out, with new recruits reporting for duty. Teacher turnover, lack of experience and continuity, is widely assumed to be a problem, particularly in urban schools. But it鈥檚 never suggested that our military would be better if only soldiers stayed in uniform longer. So far, the relative inexperience of Success Academy teachers hasn鈥檛 seemed to compromise their effectiveness.

The lesson isn鈥檛 simply that this model works, but that its effectiveness depends on turning instructional expectations into organizational routines rather than individual discretion. In practice, this meant that first-year teachers were not improvising their own curriculum or instructional routines. Lessons were tightly sequenced, materials were standardized across the network and instructional leaders conducted frequent classroom walkthroughs to ensure the model was being executed as designed. Consistency was not aspirational. It was operational.

Nearly a decade after my reporting, Success Academy鈥檚 academic results remain consistently strong, suggesting the model was not a temporary reform-era peak but an institutional system capable of sustaining performance despite high staff turnover. That said, its founder, architect and culture-keeper, Eva Moskowitz, is still in place, meaning the ultimate test of its durability is still to come.

Moreover, I don鈥檛 think Success Academy鈥檚 model is universally portable. New York City is a magnet for ambitious young people willing to endure an intense professional environment for a few years. It鈥檚 far from certain that the same dynamic would apply in smaller or less attractive labor markets. Staff churn would likely be fatal in such places.

Looking back, education reform spent decades searching for the miracle school 鈥� the visionary leader, the transformative model, the 鈥渋t鈥檚 being done鈥� proof point that dramatic improvement was possible. We found many such schools. What we rarely built were institutions designed to sustain their promising results. Education has never lacked miracle schools and stories. The real challenge isn鈥檛 identifying successful schools but learning how to recognize whether their success is institutional or temporary.

Durable success, not temporary breakthroughs, is what the field most needs to find, study and emulate. In a piece, my pal Holly Korbey notes that Kobe Bryant studied Michael Jordan to raise his game, so educators should do the same. I agree, but give me John Stockton, Vince Carter, Cal Ripken or Lou Gehrig as models: guys who were not just good but managed to stay that way for a long, long time.

In , Whorton, president of the Texas nonprofit , argues that the traditional framework of principal, assistant principal and teacher no longer works, as educators are forced to handle increasing demands and responsibilities. Instead, she proposes a four-level leadership model: a school leader who sets the school鈥檚 vision, long-term priorities and strategies for continuous improvement instead of “coaching teachers and constantly fighting fires”; bridge leaders 鈥� 鈥渢he glue of the school鈥� 鈥� who coach and mentor team leaders, communicate with the school leader and manage building initiatives; team leaders, who are directly responsible for developing and supporting team members, and the team members themselves, who include teachers, librarians, custodians and paraprofessionals. 

Many districts, Whorton says, run into problems when school leaders take on tasks that should be performed by people lower down on the organizational chart. Her proposed structure creates a clear hierarchy and, she says, cuts down on inefficiency and mismanagement. The book explains how districts can implement the four leadership levels effectively and provides examples of schools that have successfully done so, including Lockhart Independent School District near Austin, Texas. She spoke recently with 社区黑料鈥檚 Lauren Wagner.

This conversation has been edited for length and clarity.

When did you begin working on this book, and what inspired you to write it?

I have been working on this book for over three years. I had this realization that, in many ways, we’ve just added more and more to a lot of the jobs that exist in school. That’s true for the principal, it’s true for teachers, and [we鈥檙e] sending this message that if you just work harder and are more skilled, that alone will be enough to meet the challenge that exists in this role. In addition to helping people build the skills that they need, we need to make sure that these jobs are designed in a way that sets them up to succeed. 

Your book presents four levels of leadership. Why is it important to have all four?

The basic idea of the four-level model is that you need enough leadership capacity to do two basic tasks: How do you build the capacity of people, and then how do you deliver results? If you look just at building capacity, the challenge is, you’ve got a principal who thinks that they’re responsible for the development of 40 teachers, and that is a really big task. 

You need a lot more leadership capacity to give teachers the support they need. That is what we call the team leader level, and those are people whose job is primarily to build the capacity of classroom teachers and the staff who work with students. But in a really big school, you [might] have 10 or 12 or 14 team leaders and the principal still has a lot of responsibilities leading the school. And so that argues that you need another layer, which is what we call a bridge leader level, who’s responsible for developing those team leaders. One of the bridge leaders鈥� key responsibilities is coaching and developing those team leaders and making sure that you’ve got a consistent instructional vision. You’re checking to say, “Do we hold a similarly high bar for the students in all of our grades and all of our subjects?” When you don’t have team leaders and bridge leaders, what you have are principals and assistant principals who are stretched way too thin trying to get to every teacher and are not able to do the work of being future-focused and leading the school. And you have a bunch of teachers who are not getting the coaching, the support, the development that they need. And I think we see that showing up in teacher turnover across the country.

Have school districts always lacked an efficient leadership structure like the one you describe in your book?

The structure of school leadership overall has changed very little in the last 50 years. But the expectations and the demands on leadership have changed dramatically. Prior to No Child Left Behind in 2001, the role of the principal was building manager. It was less focused on being in teachers’ classrooms and driving instructional practice. There was a big shift post-2001 to make principals more responsible for the work of instructional leadership. To be clear, the idea that a principal should be an expert in instruction and should be responsible for the outcomes of a school is a great thing, but as we made that shift, we’ve added a lot more expectations to what school leaders and administrators should be doing, without creating more leadership capacity or taking anything off their plate. 

You could tell the same story at the teacher level. The shift that we’re seeing with the teaching profession has been playing out since COVID, but if you go back to the recession in 2009, that鈥檚 when you started seeing a change in young people’s interest in getting education degrees. I think [it鈥檚] the new wave of pressure that’s going to hit school leadership structures, because we need to get back to a place where people want to be teachers. But in the meantime, we have a teaching profession that’s pretty inexperienced and didn’t get the kind of training and support before they entered the classroom that we might have wanted. And we have to make sure school leadership structures are built to give those folks the support that they need to become great and to stay in the profession.

Much of your book is centered around how to help districts implement the four-level leadership framework. How would a district dealing with a severe staff shortage move forward?

I’ve been feeling kind of anxious about how challenging financial conditions are for many schools and districts, and whether that would feel like a big barrier to trying to do work like this. When we talk about staffing shortages, we sometimes mean one of two different things. One is a lot of districts that may not have the funds to sustain all the positions that they’ve had in the past. And that’s where a lot of districts and schools are already trying to think creatively about, “How do we better utilize the positions that we have?” I do think this framework, this book, can be a resource for them. The other form of staffing shortages are folks who are struggling to find enough teachers to fill all the classrooms that they have. And I would argue this is where class sizes do come into play. Slightly bigger class sizes do reduce the number of teachers you need in order to have the strongest teachers that you can have, because you reduce that demand and are able to invest in things like time for those teachers to develop coaching and support.

How long might it take the average district to transform its leadership structure?

The answer will depend a little bit on the size of the district. But to get things right and for them to stick, people need to be a part of the change. So spending time on the front end 鈥� getting clear on what you’re trying to achieve, allowing a broad group of people to be a part of shaping that vision 鈥� we think that is really important. I continue to admire the tenacity, the creativity, the courage and the resilience of our educators. My greatest hope is that this book will be an encouragement to them and there will be something in it that they can use to improve their practice, feel more effective, find more sustainability in their roles, and that these ideas may unlock new visions for them of how they could utilize the people in their system. 

Teachers are the in-school factor in student success, and higher is linked to lower test scores. Given this, districts and schools should do all they can to ensure that their educators feel empowered, supported and fulfilled in their jobs so they can drive the best outcomes for students. 

One of the best ways to make teachers feel more satisfied may be quite simple: Ask them what they think needs to change about their work, and partner with them to implement solutions.

That鈥檚 what Teach Indy, a nonprofit seeking to elevate the teaching profession in Indianapolis and beyond, sought to do by its Reimagining the Teacher Role Cohort (RTR Cohort) a year ago. This program brings together educators from across the city to collaborate with school administrators and experts in problem-solving to develop ways to improve the workplace so more educators stay in the classroom. 

The cohort was born of a desire to put teachers in charge of solving the challenge of educator retention. Rather than imposing top-down solutions, the program empowers educators 鈥� who best know the highs and lows of the profession 鈥� to come up with ideas for change and implement them. 

To start, Teach Indy partnered with an Indianapolis school district to pilot the program, and that district selected four schools to participate. Leaders at those schools were asked to identify classroom teachers who showed a desire to take on additional leadership responsibility. The 14 participating teachers 鈥� working together in teams of three or four from each school鈥� met monthly with the outside experts to identify challenges in the teaching profession and brainstorm solutions. At the end of the program, the teachers put their ideas into practice at their schools with support from their administrators. 

One team created a teacher community called the Grow Gang Club that meets monthly to participate in team-building activities, complete professional development and foster personal relationships among educators, with the goal of strengthening their school鈥檚 culture of collaboration. The group also encourages shared learning through peer-to-peer mentorship and a podcast discussion group. They will measure success based on teachers鈥� participation, their satisfaction with professional development and engagement in shared projects. 

Another group aimed to support teacher morale and mental health by offering twice-monthly sessions that incorporate team-building and learning about topics such as student mental health. This group also assigned teachers to work on interdepartmental teams for a semester to encourage more idea-sharing on instructional practices, and it improved communication among teachers by launching a weekly print newsletter. To improve school culture and reinforce connections to students, the group created incentives for teachers to attend extracurricular activities and events. 

Two teams established mechanisms in their schools to help teachers reset and manage emotional stress. They created dedicated spaces that are designed to be relaxing, and if teachers need to visit the rooms to take a mental health break, there is a system to provide classroom coverage. The spaces also offer video recordings of lessons on strategies to cope with stress, with the goal of imparting coping strategies and decreasing use of the rooms over time.

Anecdotal feedback suggests these innovations have made a difference in the schools. But putting these ideas into practice does not seem to be the most powerful part of the experience.

What we learned is that the solutions themselves are not the most powerful aspect of this experience. Rather, what makes the biggest difference is the sheer act of giving teachers the opportunity, freedom and authority to lead outside the classroom. 

When we surveyed participants, 100% of respondents reported that the experience strengthened their professional skills, 86% said they鈥檙e more likely to stay in the profession in the near term because of the cohort and 71% said they鈥檙e more likely to stay over the long term because of it. 

Why? By collaborating with colleagues, developing new skills and being entrusted with developing ideas, teachers gained confidence.

鈥淚 have really appreciated the opportunity to use my 鈥榯eacher brain鈥� in a different capacity, which has led me to see how I can problem solve in a bigger way,鈥� one participant said in survey feedback. 

鈥淚t helped build up my faith in myself and to know that I have the support to do things (beyond the classroom),鈥� another reported.

These insights provide school and district leaders with ways to approach changing school conditions to keep talent in the field. By empowering teachers to be leaders in their schools and beyond, schools help develop their leadership skills and provide them with a sense of purpose in making the profession better. 

Just as important, giving teachers opportunities to work with 鈥� and learn from 鈥� their peers helps them form a much-needed sense of community. And encouraging teachers to build relationships with fellow teaching professionals makes the field more attractive, because adult relationships are critically important.

Teachers are the engine that drives education forward. A key step to elevating their satisfaction and retention is asking for their input, as well as giving them the opportunity to drive change in their profession. The RTR Cohort offers one model for doing this. Scaling up these kinds of efforts can ensure they feel heard and respected as the community leaders they are.

Consider Newton High School, located in a large metropolitan area in Texas, where an alarming 39% of teachers left their positions between spring 2020 and fall 2021. The principal hired replacements, many of whom were new to teaching, and then worked to build trust and a collective vision among her staff. Yet, before the next school year, another 43% of Newton’s teachers quit, restarting the cycle. Over four years, the high school lost and replaced 88% of its staff, leaving only 12% of the teachers who started teaching in the 2019-20 school year remaining by 2022-223. 

What happens to a school community when large numbers of teachers leave? High turnover student academic performance, in part because of the loss of human capital: When teachers leave, they take their knowledge and skills with them. This is especially damaging to schools when the replacement is less experienced, which is often the case in high-poverty schools.

Turnover can also erode the social capital鈥� the relationships and culture 鈥� that holds a school together. We designed a of four high schools to investigate how turnover influences how teams work together; what happens to reform efforts, which often take years to reach fruition; and, perhaps most importantly, what schools are doing, or could be doing, to cope with negative effects.

Turnover weighs down schools. Strong relationships and shared culture are important if schools are to improve by engaging in ongoing inquiry and revising their practices from year to year. When teachers leave, these bonds weaken. Teachers lose close colleagues, making it harder to collaborate on curriculum or seek trusted advice and support. As one teacher at Newton said, 鈥淚t鈥檚 building those relationships again, and then they leave.鈥�

This can discourage teachers from investing in relationships, further accelerating turnover, and disrupts teamwork as well. Teachers spend valuable meeting time just getting on the same page, which limits their ability to learn from past lessons that were effective and to reflect on which instructional strategies worked, and why. One Newton teacher said her team 鈥渃an鈥檛 build anything because we can鈥檛 keep people here for more than one year. You鈥檙e constantly starting over from scratch.鈥�

But schools can adopt strategies to mitigate these harmful effects. One strategy is to track team progress from year to year. For example, at Rivera High School, which had high turnover among English teachers, well-organized calendars and a shared bank of lesson plans gave educators an alternative to reinventing the wheel multiple times, as they had in the past. New teachers could draw from this resource rather than starting from scratch. This helped them improve instruction and overall student learning experiences.

Another effective strategy is maintaining stability in teacher teams whenever possible. Principals can unintentionally make the problem worse by shifting teacher assignments frequently 鈥� a form . Even a single teacher鈥檚 departure can have big ripple effects, eroding team progress from the prior year.  The most stable teams we observed could build upon the previous year鈥檚 work to reach new heights. 

Of course, schools can only do so much to mitigate the harmful effects of turnover 鈥� the issue also requires action from policymakers. The problems caused by teacher turnover are not equally distributed across schools: turnover disproportionately impacts schools serving low-income students and children of color. It鈥檚 a systemic problem that exacerbates and perpetuates inequality between schools. Schools that have high turnover rates should receive additional funding to help stabilize their teaching and administrative staff. Accountability measures must also be adjusted: Rather than punishing schools for turnover-related issues, policymakers should offer targeted support. Additional public transparency around turnover data is needed to reveal the depth of teacher losses 鈥� which are by the typically reported annual turnover rates. 

Our data were collected before and during the COVID-19 pandemic, which might have . In fact, today, a wider number of schools are experiencing high rates of turnover that was 鈥� prior to the pandemic 鈥� once unique to higher-poverty schools. But we believe our findings apply even when turnover is less severe because our study demonstrates that even the loss of one to two teachers can have a detrimental impact.

To be sure, some turnover can be good for schools, as when new teachers bring fresh perspectives or disgruntled educators leave. However, we found few instances of this in our study. Instead, we saw high rates of turnover break up social networks, erode trust and diminish institutional knowledge. Turnover prevents schools and districts from implementing long-term improvements that engender hope and optimism in parents, policymakers and community members. You simply cannot build a house on shaky ground. It is past time to recognize and address this problem head-on and create stable, thriving learning environments that empower students and teachers to succeed. 

And the pay? It  doesn鈥檛 compare, she said.

鈥淲e鈥檙e underpaid, overworked and we鈥檙e not appreciated. We鈥檙e seen as, 鈥極h you鈥檙e just a day care. No, I鈥檓 not a day-care person. I鈥檓 a teacher.鈥� 鈥� 

Mu帽eton started off as an aide and worked her way up to full-time teacher and president of the , an American Federation of Teachers local union in California.

Mu帽eton said when she was an assistant teacher, more than half of her paycheck went to health insurance, and her husband was forced to work a second job to help support their two kids, who are both Head Start students. This year, Mu帽eton said she reached a breaking point and considered leaving her decade-and-a-half -long career in early childhood education to apply for a job at Target.

Mu帽eton is far from alone: child care workers nationally have one of the lowest-paid occupations, with 11% to 34% living in While the average salary of a public preschool teacher and a kindergarten teacher is about $49,000 and $60,000, respectively, the average annual salary for Head Start and other preschool teachers is about

But this could all change over the next several years according to a recently released by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, which oversees Head Start and aims to raise annual wages for teachers in the program by about $10,000 and increase access to benefits such as high-quality, affordable health care coverage and paid leave. The rule is largely in response to the struggle to hire and retain qualified staff, which has ultimately led to classrooms closing.

Head Start organizations must comply with some elements of the ruling by October but have until August 2031 to begin providing increased pay. There is an emergency exemption for the 35% of agencies with fewer than 200 funded slots, but they must still make 鈥渕easurable improvements in wages for staff over time.鈥�

Some agencies may also be eligible for waivers for wage requirements in 2028, if the funding does not increase at a sufficient pace, which could be the rule鈥檚 greatest challenge. In order to qualify, they would need to demonstrate that implementing the pay raises would force them to cut occupied seats and show that they’re meeting certain quality requirements.

a nonprofit organization that represents Head Start families, providers and educators, welcomed the federal announcement in an Aug. 16 press release, but expressed disappointment that the edict does not address the need for significant additional funding to fully achieve its goals and could end up forcing operators to slash staff to meet the salary mandates.

鈥淭he organization remains concerned that, if Congress and future administrations do not agree to such increases, the impact of the final rule could prove devastating, by significantly reducing the number of children and families served by Head Start programs,鈥� the organization wrote.

While the rule is an important step forward from a policy perspective, it is a 鈥渄ouble-edged sword鈥� in terms of funding, according to Dan Wuori, the founder and president of and a former kindergarten teacher and South Carolina school district administrator. 

鈥淭hey鈥檙e sort of stuck either way,鈥� he said. 鈥淚f they can鈥檛 attract teachers then they can鈥檛 serve kids. But if they have to compensate at a higher level to draw qualified staff then that 鈥� in the absence of new funding 鈥� could mean serving a much smaller number of children.鈥�

Katie Hamm, deputy assistant secretary for Early Childhood Development at the which is overseen by the Department of Health and Human Services, said in an Aug. 30 interview that she believes the administration can partner with Congress to increase Head Start appropriations over time while simultaneously restructuring the current budget to put more money toward wages.

Khari Garvin, the director of the office of Head Start, told 社区黑料 the hope is that the changes will position the program to recruit, attract and retain the 鈥渂est and brightest talent in this field,鈥� which 鈥渢ranslates into better developmental outcomes for children and families.鈥� 

鈥淭he great irony 鈥� is that for too long we鈥檝e had individuals 鈥� committed staff 鈥� working in what is an anti-poverty program, many of whom have made either poverty-level wages, or close to poverty-level wages,鈥� he said. 鈥淎nd so now we鈥檙e correcting that.鈥�

Mu帽eton doesn鈥檛 think Head Start teachers should have to wait so many years for this potential shift in pay, benefits and working conditions. But when 鈥� and if 鈥� it does happen, it鈥檒l be life changing, she said. 

鈥淚’ll be able to afford maybe purchasing a house rather than renting out of my parents鈥�. I鈥檒l be able to tell my husband, 鈥楬ey, quit the other job so we can see you more often.鈥� I鈥檒l be able to pay off the debt that I鈥檓 still trying to pay off monthly,鈥� she said.

鈥楢 really important stake in the ground鈥�

Head Start began as an eight-week demonstration project in the 1960s, as part of President Lyndon B. Johnson鈥檚 . Since then, the programs have reached more than 38 million children and their families, the majority of whom meet federal low-income guidelines. Currently, it serves about 650,000 children from birth to age 5 and their families, in urban, suburban and rural areas in all 50 states.

They also connect families to community and federal assistance and can help provide a career pathway for parents into early care and education: As of almost a quarter of Head Start鈥檚 260,000 staff were parents of current or former Head Start children. The vast majority of Head Start center-based preschool teachers nationally had a bachelor鈥檚 degree or higher in early childhood education or a related field with experience. About of education staff members are Black, 30% are Latino and the vast majority are women. 

The 1,600 local agencies are funded by the federal government, though many also tap into state and local revenue sources. For years, these agencies have struggled to hire and retain highly qualified educators, with turnover hitting 17% in

鈥淲e really have a crisis on our hands,鈥� Hamm said.

For a single adult with one child, median child care worker pay does not meet a living wage . Salary and benefits were cited as the top reason why almost 1 in 5 staff positions were vacant nationwide in a 2023 National Head Start Association . Of the 20% of Head Start and Early Head Start classrooms that were reported closed in the survey, 81% attributed the shutdowns to staffing vacancies. 

These persistently low wages come from a century-long history of falsely dichotomizing care and education, according to Wuori, the policy expert and former kindergarten teacher.

鈥淲e think of early care as being almost an industrialized form of babysitting,鈥� he said, 鈥渨hereas education kicks in 鈥� from a policy level 鈥� maybe a few years later. And one of the side effects of that then is that the people who work with the youngest children are not respected as the professionals that they are. And a primary way that that is the case is through their compensation, which 鈥� lags well behind that of fast food workers and employees at big box stores.鈥�

This new federal rule, he said, serves as a 鈥渞eally important stake in the ground鈥� to rectify that mindset.

In Natasha Sonia Alford鈥檚 newly released memoir, American Negra, she describes an early childhood memory of being the new kid at school: 鈥淲hat are you?鈥� another student asked. 鈥淚鈥檓 Puerto Rican and Black,鈥� she responded, noting these were 鈥渢he only words I had at the time to explain my identity in terms that made sense.鈥澛�

鈥淟anguage mattered,鈥� she writes, 鈥渁nd yet at this age no one had prepared us to explain who we were accurately.鈥� Her memoir does just that: it is an exploration of her intersecting identities and an explanation of their impact on her experiences as a student, teacher, hedge fund management associate and journalist.

Alford鈥檚 story begins with her childhood in Syracuse, New York, where she excelled academically and was ultimately selected as one of three college-bound students to be profiled by the local newspaper during her junior year. After receiving acceptance letters from a number of selective schools, including Howard University, Alford enrolled at Harvard. 

Despite her successes and on-paper credentials, as she calls them, Alford struggled at first to find her passion and her place as the pressures of perfectionism wore on her. 

While American Negra is a study of Alford鈥檚 personal identities, it is also an analysis of American society more broadly, with a particular focus on our education system. She writes about the mantra she was taught that for kids of color in the U.S., education is the path out of marginalization. She encourages readers, though, to expand their understanding of this idea: too often, she argues, students are told that in order to be successful in school they must erase parts of themselves and conform. 

鈥淚 wanted to unmask the image of the successful, inner-city poster child with this book,鈥� Alford told 社区黑料. 鈥淭he point is that that pressure to be 鈥榯wice as good,鈥� if you bring up a child in that culture and with that rhetoric, they may still struggle years from now 鈥� even after they’ve left school 鈥� to feel like they are worthy and that they are good enough.鈥� 

Years after graduating from Harvard, the 37-year-old, former Teach for America alum said she finally felt ready to take a risk and pursue a career in media. Alford, who got her master鈥檚 at Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism and who freelanced for 社区黑料 early in her career, now serves as the vice president of digital content and an anchor at TheGrio, where she leads a national team reporting on critical issues facing Black communities. She is also a CNN political analyst and the recipient of numerous awards including “Emerging Journalist of the Year” in 2018 by the National Association of Black Journalists. 

American Negra, published by HarperCollins on Feb. 27, was named a 鈥淏est (and Most Anticipated) Nonfiction Book of 2024鈥� by and the audio version list for Black and African-American books. 社区黑料鈥檚 Amanda Geduld chatted with Alford about her book, education policy and solutions journalism. 

This conversation has been edited for length and clarity. 

社区黑料: I want to start with a little bit of context. Can you explain to our readers how you selected the title for your book, American Negra?

鈥淎merican Negra鈥� is a phrase that describes what it’s like to live at the intersection of two worlds. I wanted to paint a portrait of an American experience that we don’t see often portrayed in the mainstream: being an African American and being a Latina 鈥� Puerto Rican specifically. The term 鈥渘egra鈥� just means a Black woman. If it鈥檚 鈥渘egro鈥� it means a Black man. When you are in Latino cultures, it is not uncommon for somebody to refer to you as a 鈥渘egra.鈥� It is often a term of endearment, but it can also be used as an insult. But the point is, ultimately, that they are centering your race and your identity.

What makes it so interesting is that often in Latino cultures, we hear about color blindness and we hear about racial democracy. There’s an assumption that because many Latinos are people of color, there’s not really an issue with race 鈥� that race is something that is sort of a U.S. obsession. And so there’s a bit of a contradiction in that obviously: a culture that doesn’t really see itself focused on race to identify people by their race. I wanted to highlight that experience, while also making it clear that my experience was one that is based in America. I鈥檓 an upstate girl 鈥� grew up in Syracuse, New York 鈥� and so my experience of being Black and Latina is very much influenced by the United States and all of our recent politics and all of our histories.

And then finally, I think it’s also a declaration. It鈥檚 an embracing of the term because for some people to be called 鈥渘egra,鈥� or to be identified that way, is a bit of an insult. They don’t want to be called Black. But for me, I’m really centering my Black identity to say that no matter where I go, I鈥檓 a Black woman. It shapes my experience. I’m proud of it. 

So much of your book comes back to the themes of education and opportunity. What inspired you to tell the story in this way 鈥� with such a heavy focus on the education system 鈥� and can you talk about the ways in which your Black and Puerto Rican identities shaped this journey?

That is exactly why there’s an apple on the front cover of the book. That was very much intentional, because this is an education story as much as it is a story about identity. The reason why is because for so many communities of color 鈥� communities that are marginalized in the United States 鈥� education is our path out of that marginalization. At least that’s the message that we are told from the time that we are children. And that was the message that my parents imparted to me: that I came from two peoples who had been discriminated against in this country at various points in time throughout history, but education was something that no one could take from me.

What you see in this book is the pursuit of education, but also the pursuit of authentic self. I think too often when we talk about education and young people, it’s framed through this lens of conformity: you go to school, you have to assume a different identity, you have to speak a certain way, there are certain careers that are so-called successful. At each step of the way, young people are shedding parts of themselves or feel that they’re forced to. In the end, they may not recognize themselves. They may have succeeded on paper, but they’ve lost themselves in the process. 

I wanted to disrupt the education narrative that ends with someone getting into the Ivy League or getting into college and that being the end. And say no, actually, that’s when things just get started. The success is not just getting into this institution or conforming to this institution, but it is what you do with [it]. That’s the power of education 鈥� 

In terms of your own path to becoming an educator, your senior year at Harvard, when you were initially debating your career in education, you write in your book about this fear that people might say, 鈥淵ou went to Harvard to become a teacher? Shouldn’t you be doing better than that?鈥� I’m wondering where you think this devaluation of educators comes from and what we can do to combat it.

There’s this really 鈥� about how high achievers learn to not become teachers. It explains essentially that we have created a culture in which young people pick up messages about what careers are valued and which ones are not. In terms of where this comes from, I can only assume that there’s a gendered dynamic to this. 

There is an element of sexism that has made its way into education and the fact that the majority of teachers are women, and women are not always paid what they deserve 鈥� we are often behind in terms of our male counterparts and many more are behind when you look at the different segments of women by race. So we are a society that gives teachers lip service, but doesn’t actually back it up with a financial investment in teachers and education more broadly. 

I actually don’t blame young people for seeing that. I don’t think that young people should have to be martyrs, frankly, especially young people who may be coming from working-class families themselves 鈥� may be coming out of broken educational systems. To go back and teach I don’t think they should have to struggle. From my short time in the education policy space and just in education, my takeaway was that we have a pipeline problem in terms of recruiting generally, but that in order to change education, you’re going to have to pay the talent 鈥� you’re going to have to pay them, you’re going to have to nurture them, and that it shouldn’t be an industry that you鈥檙e going into to make a sacrifice 鈥� This is something where we鈥檙e going to make the investment and see the results or not make the investment and the overall system will continue to struggle 鈥�

How can we get teachers to persist in the classroom when they’re up against challenges like the ones that you write about, like chronic absenteeism or eighth graders reading at a first-grade reading level? 

鈥� I think what maybe would鈥檝e kept me in the classroom was just having realistic expectations about what I could do in two years. Sometimes when teachers come in, they鈥檙e idealistic and they’re not necessarily ready for how long these problems have been brewing. If a student has not been supported academically from kindergarten, and you get them in fifth grade, there has to be some level-setting about what you can do. 

And so one critique I have of the short-term teaching programs is just with the optimism and the accountability and the expectation of making change. Sometimes there’s also unrealistic pressure put on a new teacher about what they can accomplish in one or two years, and that can be really deflating. If that teacher comes in hoping for the best, working really hard, going above and beyond, and they don’t see the 鈥渞esults鈥� that are so valued by the people who are counting the numbers and counting the test scores, that makes them feel like a failure. When in fact, it takes much longer to build 鈥� whether it’s building school culture, establishing yourself within the school community, or just becoming the teacher that you truly can be 鈥� 

You recently tweeted about Nikki Haley’s 鈥渞evisionist history鈥� and the general idea within the Republican Party of color blindness. You were on CNN talking about why those narratives are so harmful, and I’m wondering if you can comment a little bit more on that in terms of how this plays out in the educational landscape.

She’s used the talking point many times: that if we tell children America was once a racist country, that somehow they will feel disempowered, and that they will feel like victims, and that they will have no incentive to try. That couldn’t be further from the truth. We have examples every day of people who were fully aware of America鈥檚 racist history, and who are strong in spite of that, who invested in this country in spite of that, who served this country in the military and in schools and universities, in spite of what they faced 鈥� 

We have to contend with this history because it’s ours. We have to own it. And that’s how we become a better county with each passing year, with each passing decade. But to ignore it is to handicap our children. It can leave them without context or understanding of what they’re looking at. What it does, then, [is lead to them] blaming themselves, believing that they鈥檙e inferior, thinking that something is wrong with them, and not necessarily wrong with the systems that produce many of the inequalities that we see today. 

So I completely differ from Nikki Haley in terms of my approach to history, and also just my general acceptance of America鈥檚 past. But I think it’s instructive and yet another reason why teachers are on the front lines of these culture wars around what is true and what is not. I give my deepest respect to all the history teachers and all the social studies teachers, because they’re doing some serious work right now that is important for raising a conscious generation who will go forth empowered to make change for the better.

You also recently wrote about race in higher education specifically around the former president of Harvard, Claudine Gay, stepping down. And this line really stuck out to me from your :  鈥淲ith a new generation of Black students and young people looking to us adults for lessons from this moment, perhaps they are better served to know the truth: that even being 鈥榯wice as good鈥� won鈥檛 always protect you from people who need your failure to justify their blind rage.鈥� I’m wondering if you can expand a little bit more on how you experienced Gay鈥檚 stepping down and the vitriol that she received, especially as an alum of Harvard.

It became apparent right away that the attacks on Dr. Claudine Gay were about more than her testimony on the Hill. We’ve essentially forgotten about the third president who testified. It just went to show that this was always about more than the initial conversation of anti-semitism. What was really disheartening was that she became a punching bag for all of these critics鈥� anger and rage and a sense of frustration with what they feel is a loss. What they feel is that Black people’s advancement is somehow their loss, even though we’re all in this together. We’re all living and creating community and shaping this society together. Somehow they see it as a zero sum game 鈥� 

I wanted to unmask the image of the successful, inner-city poster child with this book. The point is that that pressure to be 鈥渢wice as good,鈥� if you bring up a child in that culture, and with that rhetoric, they may still struggle years from now 鈥� even after they’ve left school 鈥� to feel like they are worthy and that they are good enough. 

I read an article, I think it’s called 鈥淐ontingencies of Self-Worth,鈥� and the biggest lesson of that piece is that our own self worth can’t be contingent upon grades or upon getting into a certain school. We have to shift the way that we’re teaching young people about their value. And so 鈥渢wice as good鈥� is a survival strategy, but it’s not necessarily a strategy to thrive. I hope that my story 鈥� by being honest about many of the struggles that I’ve had despite having acquired certain credentials on paper 鈥� [encourages] others to talk about some of their struggles as well, and that we can cultivate a new generation that will be kinder to themselves and also accepting of the fullness of their humanity.

As a high schooler, you were followed by the local newspaper for all of your accomplishments. What kind of impact did that have to be so perceived at all times? It was because you were a role model and accomplishing so much, but I wonder what kind of narrative that instills in a young person about what they need to do to be successful.

Right. It was certainly a privilege, and I am grateful for the coverage that the local paper gave and appreciate that they wanted to show a young person of color from the city doing positive things. However, that also created a sense that failure was not an option. Making mistakes was not OK. And it inhibited me in ways. There were certain things that I wanted to try or do that I was afraid to do because I couldn’t guarantee my success. And that is not a way to go through life. You have to make mistakes, you have to experiment. You have to fully spread your wings in order to discover yourself and so really, I don’t spread my wings fully until I’m long gone from college. 

Five years after that I truly am honest with myself about what I’ve always wanted to do, and that was journalism and media. And I’ve made peace with, 鈥淥K, this might not work out, but I have to give it a try. I have to know if this is what I鈥檓 supposed to be doing.鈥� It took much longer because of that perfectionist mindset that wouldn鈥檛 give me the freedom to try right out of school. 

My story is my story. I’m happy still. I think my life still worked out. I ended up where I wanted to be. I still feel blessed. But maybe someone else will be able to get to their destination a little bit sooner if they’re able to let go of some of that perfectionist weight that can keep you down.

As a former educator and now a journalist, what are education journalists getting right and wrong today? And how can we strengthen our coverage and make sure that we’re combating some of these problematic narratives that have become so ingrained over the years?

I know that journalists are working hard, and it’s not always easy. We have deadlines and fewer and fewer resources. I know many of us are doing the best that we can. But I would encourage us to move towards solutions journalism. We are dealing with a public that is weary. They’ve been hearing about problems nonstop. And it’s our job to also provide examples of what is working. Who’s getting it right. And not in a superficial way of 鈥渢his overachiever managed to do X, Y and Z.鈥� But what risks were taken? What experimentation is happening that’s really inspiring? 

I think it’s our job to highlight those things and also highlight diverse examples of this. Be open to information. Be open to inspiration coming from unexpected places and give people a reason to hope. That is our job as much as it is to point out what is not working. Because I think people who are living it know that a lot of this is not working. So I think that we can do that work to point them towards potential solutions and then hopefully people are inspired to go out and enact it at a grander scale.

Wisconsin鈥檚 teacher turnover rates 鈥� which includes the number of teachers moving to different school districts and leaving the state鈥檚 public school classrooms altogether 鈥� surged in the 2022-23 school year, according to a . The rates of turnover were higher among teachers of color and in school districts serving vulnerable student populations.

The rates have been inching up since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, rising from 10.5% in the 2020-2021 school year to 12.4% in the 2021-22 school year. The teacher turnover rose to 15.8% in the 2022-23 school year. The 2023 rate includes the highest level on record of teachers moving between districts and the second highest number of teachers leaving Wisconsin public schools for another profession.

The report examined data from the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction of about 116,000 teachers at roughly 450 school districts and other K-12 entities over a 15-year period. The average turnover rate per year from 2009 to 2023 was 11.5%.

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The report says that while it鈥檚 uncertain whether the rate will decrease in future years or continue at the heightened level, the high rate in 2023 raises questions about schools鈥� ability to help students recover from pandemic learning loss.

鈥淭his effect is especially concerning given our findings that turnover is highest in precisely those schools where students face the biggest challenges and might benefit the most from a stable environment in which to learn,鈥� the report states. 鈥淎s students recover from the worst of pandemic disruption, that stability may be even more important.鈥�

The report cites a number of possible factors leading to increased turnover, including high demand for workers in other occupations caused by low unemployment, relatively high retirement rates, the impacts of high inflation and accumulated stress due to health, political and logistical burdens associated with teaching during the pandemic.

The report found that turnover rates were driven in large part by teachers leaving Wisconsin public schools altogether rather than moving from one district to another. It says possible explanations for that pattern include Baby Boomer retirements and younger generations鈥� greater tendency to shift jobs.

Teachers of color were the most affected by turnover, according to the report. It says the trend could reflect the fact that teachers of color are concentrated in districts with high turnover rates for teachers of all races.

The turnover rate for white teachers, who make up the majority of the state鈥檚 teacher workforce, averaged 11.28% over the 15 years, slightly below the average for all teachers. Black teachers had an average turnover rate of 17.64% over the same period, and their turnover rate in 2023 hit 23.4%.

鈥淣o other racial or ethnic group saw such high turnover rates for so many years,鈥� the report states.

Other non-white teachers have also had higher turnover rates than average, according to the report.

From 2009 to 2023, an average of 14.05% American Indian/Alaska Native teachers, 14.24% of Hispanic teachers, 12.66% of Asian teachers, and 12.37% of multiracial teachers left their jobs each year.

鈥淭urnover among teachers of color is of particular concern due to the documented benefits for all students and especially for students of color from the presence of these educators, including gains in academic achievement, more access to challenging coursework, higher student expectations, and favorable assessment of student work,鈥� the report states.

While all Wisconsin school districts experienced at least a 10% average turnover rate during the study time period, according to the report, the report also finds that teachers are more likely to leave  districts with higher shares of students of color and a higher proportion of low-income households.

Between 2009 and 2023, school districts serving a majority of students of color had an average turnover rate of 13.1%, and school districts serving a majority of students from low-income households had an average turnover rate of 13.0%. The two groups of school districts overlap: 17 of Wisconsin鈥檚 19 school districts where students of color are in the majority are also districts with a majority of students are economically disadvantaged.

In comparison, school districts with majority white student populations had an average turnover rate of 11.0%, and those with fewer than 25% students coming from low-income households had an average turnover rate of 10.1% 鈥� both rates lower than the state average.

The report also found that the average turnover rate for Milwaukee Public Schools 鈥� Wisconsin鈥檚 largest school district 鈥� was 15.4%, significantly higher than the state average.

is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Wisconsin Examiner maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Ruth Conniff for questions: info@wisconsinexaminer.com. Follow Wisconsin Examiner on and .

Employee turnover rates remain high this year, but schools are more than replacing the people who leave. 

In fact, all the job losses have come from part-time workers. And, once you factor in the number of hours those employees work, schools actually had slightly more staff than they did pre-pandemic. 

These are just some of the findings from the latest national data. Here are five key takeaways:

1. The number of people working in education is still down 

The chart below uses the latest Bureau of Labor Statistics through June 2023. Employment fell immediately as COVID-19 hit, and private-sector employers cut 16% of their workforce in the span of two months. But they have more than bounced back (the gray dotted line). 

Public education’s job losses never got as bad as those in the private sector, but they’ve been slower to recover. At their worst, public K-12 and public higher education were both down about 9% (245,000 and 730,000 employees, respectively). As of the June data, public K-12 is still down 1.2% from its pre-COVID peak, whereas higher ed is still down 2.7%. 

In contrast, private day care providers had a much steeper fall (down 36% in just those first two months) but have made a steady comeback. As of June, private day cares had 49,000 fewer workers than they did pre-pandemic (down 4.6%).  

Note that these numbers represent individual people: a part-time worker and a full-time one are counted the same, no matter how many hours they work.

2. The recovery in K-12 looks a lot like the rest of local government 

As shown above, the private sector looks different than the public sector. But within state and local governments, the pandemic recovery appears very similar. The graph below uses the same data as before, but this time it compares public K-12 employment against all other local government jobs (think  and fire departments, parks, libraries, etc.). 

Education had a rockier recovery path in 2020 and 2021, but the different local government sectors have been on a remarkably similar trajectory throughout 2022 and so far in 2023. 

3. Public K-12 and higher ed are both growing 

The public education sector is expanding, and has been throughout 2021, 2022 and now 2023. It鈥檚 a simple function of how many employees leave (which the bureau calls 鈥渟eparations鈥�) versus how many people are hired. The chart below compares these trends across all facets of public education. Unfortunately, K-12 and higher education are lumped together here, but as a reference point, K-12 represents about three-fourths of the total. 

The data for 2023 are projections based on the data through May, but it provides some good news. Whereas employee turnover in education hit in 2022, it looks a bit lower so far this year. Meanwhile, public education hires are tracking slightly higher than for 2022, which was already one of the biggest years on record.

4. Education has a lot more job openings than normal, but it鈥檚 filling those openings at decent rates 

There鈥檚 been a ton of interest in labor shortages within education, but how does it compare to other sectors? For starters, public education has the lowest job opening rate of any major industry tracked by the bureau. As of the , there were 3.2 job openings for every 100 public education employees. That鈥檚 a rate of 3.2%. For comparison, the federal government rate was 5.6%, the private sector as a whole was at 6.1%, and other state and local governments were at 6.2%.

So how is education doing at filling its openings? Not terribly. The graph below shows an estimated fill rate by sector, which is the number of job openings divided by the number of new hires that month. 

These have declined over time, save for a brief surge in summer 2020 when private-sector employers were rehiring workers without posting official job openings. It may not give much comfort, but public education employers (in green) are having an easier time filling their job openings than other state and local government agencies are in filling theirs. 

5. The job losses were all among part-time workers, and total staffing has fully recovered 

The data presented so far looks at individual employees, and when readers think of a typical education employee, they might naturally picture a teacher. But full-time classroom teachers represent only about 40% of the total K-12 workforce. 

As I found earlier this year, public schools actually employ more teachers than they did pre-pandemic. They also had more school psychologists, district administrators, student support staff and guidance counselors. 

So which jobs were lost? Mostly paraprofessionals and support staffers, including janitors, bus drivers and food service workers.

The latest data provides another way to slice it. It shows that public schools employed more full-time instructional and non-instructional staff in March 2022 than they did at the same point in 2019. What changed was a major decline in part-time workers. 

This is why it鈥檚 important to look at total staffing rather than counting individual employees. Schools cut back on the number of part-time workers and the number of hours those employees worked. But total staffing levels (in full-time equivalents) are now above where they were coming into the pandemic. 

Given that these data end in March 2022, and employment numbers are showing continued growth since then, it鈥檚 quite likely that staffing levels are even higher by now. And, because student enrollment remains depressed, that means student-to-staff ratios continue to fall. 

We鈥檒l have to wait for state and local data for finer-grained data on turnover rates and employment numbers by role. But for now, it’s safe to say that school staffing weathered the COVID dip and is now back above pre-pandemic levels.  

It was hard to get a job as a teacher in Whiteville City Schools back in the day. Pam Sutton knows.

鈥淒uring the 鈥�90s, someone had to die or retire for you to get in Whiteville City,鈥� she said.

Sutton worked for three years in Elizabethtown after graduating college, waiting for a spot to open back home. When one finally did, it was because the woman who taught Sutton in first grade finally retired.

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鈥淭here was not a lot of turnover at all,鈥� she said. 鈥淢y principal, who was principal when I was in kindergarten, was still here and hired me.鈥�

Her reminiscent smile fades as she thinks about today.

鈥淚t’s different now.鈥�

In 2021-22, Whiteville City Schools was among the five districts with the lowest teacher attrition rates in the state. But it still had high vacancy. District officials say the discrepancy has to do with difficulty in tracking when and why teachers leave. While it’s hard to peg with a single data point, teachers say it’s a problem.

And it’s not isolated. Across many districts, educators say they feel a lack of human capital. That can spell trouble for implementing instruction grounded in the science of reading across the state.

鈥淚f we鈥檙e honest, we’re in a time of hiring crisis,鈥� said Sarah Cain, director of elementary schools in Asheville City Schools. 鈥淎nd it’s a big lift for teachers to do this intense level of professional development, on top of learning new curriculum, on top of addressing learning loss. At a time when our society feels a little fractured, too.鈥�

School districts are desperately trying to keep teachers. It’s difficult, several district leaders said, with increased workloads, persistently low pay, and 鈥� now 鈥� culture wars. But these teachers already have begun a long journey of learning how to teach reading effectively. Districts don’t want to lose out on the time and money already invested.

Why keeping teachers is critical to better reading instruction

The state is in Language Essentials for Teachers of Reading and Spelling (LETRS). The training requires two years, and 160 hours, to complete.

When a teacher leaves, that investment goes with them. The state’s investment in LETRS is not ongoing 鈥� at some point, really soon, it stops. As new teachers come in, they won’t have access to the training unless it’s supported by local dollars.

It creates a couple problems, educators say. When a new teacher comes in without knowledge of evidence-based practices for reading instruction, there’s a disconnect among teachers in strategy meetings. Also, it takes time to get comfortable with curriculum and instructional programs — and with teaching them effectively.

鈥淚t’s hard to sit around a table of teachers when they’re planning and they鈥檙e not all on the same page,鈥� said Lynn Plummer, director of elementary education in the Stanly County Schools. 鈥淸It makes it hard] to try to change teachers or try to change their mindsets from what they鈥檙e doing to what may be a better practice.鈥�

Melissa Fields has seen this in Perquimans County, though at a smaller rate. For the most part, Perquimans classrooms are filled with licensed teachers. And nearly all of the teachers who began LETRS training there two years ago are still in the district.

But when there is turnover, there are pain points.

鈥淎 new teacher might come in, and maybe their neighbor teacher gives them a crash course, and then they just pick up the book and go,鈥� said Fields, who has led the shift to science of reading in her district as the chief academic officer. 鈥淏ut there’s so many nuances to implementing the program with fidelity that they don鈥檛 know about.鈥�

What happens when teachers stay

Perquimans is a standout district in implementing North Carolina鈥檚 new reading law. And one of the keys is taking care of and retaining teachers.

鈥淢y top priority when I got here was to fix teacher attrition,鈥� said John Lassiter, the principal who took over for former state principal of the year Jason Griffin at Hertford Grammar School. 鈥淎s turnover happens with administration, typically teacher attrition follows. And so for three straight years, the year before I got here and two years after, we had 30% teacher turnover.

“But that’s gone down a lot. So you can really build a successful model if there鈥檚 consistency.鈥�

The district has worked hard under the leadership of its superintendent, Tanya Turner, and people like Fields. The stories you hear about Whiteville City in the 1990s are what you see in Perquimans now. Lassiter, for example, had Fields as his fourth-grade teacher and Turner as his teacher in fifth grade.

鈥淚 couldn鈥檛 have turned out bad, right?鈥� said Lassiter, this year鈥檚 Northeast regional principal of the year.

Lassiter attributes student assessment growth, in part, to consistency in his teacher workforce. Before this year, a quarter of his kindergartners were on track for proficiency midway through the year. Now that number is more than two-thirds.

That growth is about what the district sees on average.

鈥淚 think our competitive advantage is consistency in leadership,鈥� he said, including teachers as leaders when it comes to students鈥� reading acquisition. 鈥淲e can鈥檛 build something if we’re starting over every two or three years.鈥�

But that constant starting over is a reality for a lot of districts.

The state of teacher turnover in the state

The Education Policy Initiative at Carolina using Department of Public Instruction data to compare educator attrition from 2016 to 2023. It breaks down the distribution of educator attrition across North Carolina school districts.

Between September 2019 and September 2020, teacher and principal attrition fell to 9.8% and 10.4%, respectively. Since September 2020, teacher and principal attrition in public schools rose. Teacher attrition increased to 12.1% between September 2020 and September 2021. It increased again, to 15.6%, between September 2021 and September 2022.

鈥淭o put this increase into perspective, we note that each percentage point increase in attrition represents approximately 1,000 additional individuals no longer teaching鈥� in public schools, the EPIC report said.

Principal attrition increased to 12.5% in September 2021 and 17.5% in September 2022. That means nearly one out of every five principals in September 2021 was no longer one in September 2022.

The northeast region of the state, a concentration of low-income communities and Black and Brown people, had the highest attrition. The mostly white Perquimans County Schools is an outlier in that region.

What’s making it so hard to keep teachers in schools

There are a lot of reasons teachers leave. One often tops the list.

鈥淭eacher shortage comes right back to pay,鈥� Fields said. 鈥淧eople aren’t getting paid.  We have a third-year teacher and her child is income eligible for NC Pre-K because she’s at below 75% of the state median income. She’s a third-year teacher with a four-year degree.鈥�

鈥淚t is unacceptable,鈥� Turner adds.

Low pay is a bitter pill to swallow, made more so by an increasingly toxic environment.

鈥淲hy would I make this less money, for this really big, important work I’m supposed to do, but I don’t feel very supported,” said Ruafika Cobb, principal at Ira B. Jones Elementary in Asheville City Schools. “And I’m always criticized for the work that I am doing. I think that has started to shift the dynamics of teaching in general, and people aren’t even coming into the profession anymore.鈥�

A warns that culture war legislation can result in collateral damage, making it more difficult to keep highly qualified teachers in schools.

鈥淭eachers described working in conditions filled with worry, anxiety, and even fear,鈥� the report reads. 鈥淭hey perceived that carrying out the core function of their roles 鈥� teaching students 鈥� has become more difficult, as restrictions on their classroom instruction limited their ability to engage students in learning, support students鈥� critical thinking skills, and develop students鈥� abilities to engage in perspective taking and empathy building.

“Especially concerning is the potential for these limitations and their politicized nature to lead teachers to consider leaving their jobs or the teaching profession altogether.鈥�

Teacher impact on reading and successful science of reading implementation

Educators report widespread impact on science of reading implementation related to teacher turnover. Not only does turnover create disparity in LETRS training among staff, but it drains student-facing time from teachers who stay as they work to catch up their colleagues.

One of the most alarming impacts is on student continuity of instruction. Reading acquisition is the result of gains in a number of areas that teachers track through assessment. In addition to changes in instructional approaches, the shift to science of reading has changed how districts expect teachers to assess students.

As districts implement the reading law, an increasing number build intervention time into school day calendars to group students by areas needing growth and to provide extra support.

Sometimes that means more training on how to assess and how to respond to assessment. Most times, educators say, teachers learn by doing. Continuity for a student depends on teachers being able to do this with fidelity, but that becomes harder when teachers leave.

鈥淲e always can envision what more teachers can do,鈥� Cobb said. 鈥淎nd we don’t necessarily train them for all the 鈥榤ore鈥� we want them doing. And we don’t compensate them for what they’re currently doing. I think we need to start re-evaluating what all we’re asking a teacher to do.鈥�

This first appeared on and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.

But 15 months later, the superintendent in Gainesville was after the district defied Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis鈥檚 ban on school mask mandates. DeSantis appointed a board member who tipped the majority 3-2 against her. She was the district鈥檚 sixth leader in close to a decade.

鈥淢y district will have a hard time explaining the turnover rate of superintendents and convincing the right person to pull up roots and move to our community,鈥� she said. 鈥淭he governor’s culture war has impacted the work environment so negatively that a school superintendent would be working to push back a very strong current of low morale.鈥�

Far from being an isolated incident, her termination is part of a COVID wave of superintendent firings from the to . The charged atmosphere is a sign of the times, as toxic national and state politics filter down to local school districts.

A recent poll showed a clear decline in parents鈥� opinions toward their local schools. Those on both sides of the culture war have turned out in force at school board meetings 鈥� sometimes calling for superintendents to. But the issues have not been limited to closed schools or classroom controversies. Even run-of-the-mill decisions, like renovating buildings or replacing staff, have toppled careers. With alarming national test scores released Monday and pandemic relief funds running out in two years, the temperature is only likely to increase.

鈥淲e鈥檙e about to hit a different level of vitriol,鈥� said Julia Rafal-Baer, co-founder of ILO Group, a consulting firm that helps future district chiefs find jobs. 鈥淲e鈥檙e asking our leaders to be a sponge for divisiveness.鈥�

鈥楾aking a risk鈥�

The job of leading school systems has always been tricky. As they navigate complex bureaucracies and clashing constituencies from parents to teachers unions, superintendents are paid well (average salaries are in the ) but frequently burn out.

What鈥檚 changing, according to Jeffrey Henig, a professor of political science and education at Teachers College, Columbia University, is that now 鈥渨e鈥檙e seeing a whole range of issues migrate into districts that in the past were somewhat buffered.鈥�

Recent and point to a general increase in superintendent turnover, but none has directly examined the spike in terminations. In conversations with district leaders and their advocates, however, many say the phenomenon is inescapable.

Kevin Brown, executive director of the 3,800-member Texas Association of School Administrators, said in his 31 years in the profession, he鈥檚 never seen more superintendents fired than he has in the past two years. And Steve McCammon, executive director of the National Superintendents Roundtable, a 100-member network, said it鈥檚 becoming common for members to be fired 鈥渨ithout cause鈥� 鈥� legal language that allows school boards to part ways with their chief executives without offering a reason, a hearing or other elements of due process. Previously, he recalled only one instance in the past 20 years. 

鈥淭he stories are out there all over the place,鈥� he said. 鈥淓verything has become a political decision.鈥�

To get a sense of the scope of the issue, 社区黑料 reviewed news clips detailing nearly 40 no-cause firings or forced resignations in 26 states since the beginning of the pandemic. 社区黑料 also sent an informal survey to leadership networks, including the National Superintendents Roundtable, the Council of Great City Schools, Chiefs for Change, ILO Group and Education Counsel, another consulting organization. Out of 70 superintendents who responded, 15 said they鈥檝e seen several district leaders fired or forced to resign since the pandemic began. Twenty said there have been many more. Nineteen worry they might be next.

鈥淭he role of the superintendent has become a punching bag 鈥� during the pandemic and the attacks are personal,鈥� one wrote. 

Another said: 鈥淚 have board members running to remove me, and I run a very strong and high-performing school district. It is a dark and sad time for superintendents.鈥�

As in Alachua, debates over polarizing issues preceded firings in dozens of school systems across the country. 

Snapshot

A COVID Wave of Fired Superintendents

When school boards fire their leaders, it is seldom done with transparency. Payouts to superintendents and non-disclosure agreements typically mean the public doesn鈥檛 get the full story. The map reflects a sample of school superintendents fired 鈥� primarily without cause 鈥� since the start of the pandemic.

When conservatives took over the board in Spotsylvania, Virginia, last January, they , who was set to step down just five months later. The district was embroiled in debates over books with LGBTQ themes, with some board members calling for not only banning, but burning, library books they deemed 鈥渟exually explicit.鈥� After banning several books, the district after a public outcry. 

In 2021, Kevin Purnell of Oregon鈥檚 was among a for simply complying with the law 鈥� in this case, a state mandate that students wear masks. The terminations prompted lawmakers to pass this year that protects superintendents from being removed for following laws. 

The perception that schools prolonged closures to protect teachers rather than serve students fueled a huge backlash from parents. Dozens of parents鈥� rights groups have sprung up since 2020, and Republicans have seized on the issue as a critical plank for upcoming midterm elections.

鈥淪chool leadership failed students and catered to union agendas during the pandemic,鈥� said Sharon McKeeman, founder of Let Them Breathe, which sued unsuccessfully over California鈥檚 mask mandate. McKeeman, who鈥檚 also in the Carlsbad Unified district, told 社区黑料 that 鈥渋t鈥檚 time for leadership that will put students鈥� needs first and help them recoup the learning loss and social-emotional damage they incurred during school closures and COVID restrictions.鈥�

Part of the problem in tracking the issue is that such firings are typically shrouded in secrecy. For 社区黑料, Rafal-Baer of ILO Group analyzed the departures of 210 chiefs who vacated their positions in the nation鈥檚 11 were fired. But based on news coverage, she suspects many more were forced to resign. Superintendents fired without cause often and agreements for everyone involved not to discuss the terms.

鈥淲e never hear the real story,鈥� she said. 鈥淭hey legally can鈥檛 talk.鈥� 

Issues over district management 

But Cheryl Watson-Harris, fired in April from her post as superintendent of the DeKalb County schools in metro Atlanta, refused to go quietly.

Her termination capped off a two-week media storm following the posting of a that exposed mold, crumbling ceilings and other safety hazards at the district鈥檚 oldest school. High school students shot the video after the board voted not to renovate the facility 鈥� an action she . 

Even before she walked into the job, Watson-Harris knew the district had a reputation for turmoil. Before they hired her, board members named former New York City schools Chancellor Rudy Crew as the sole finalist for the job, only to vote against hiring him two weeks later. for discrimination based on age and race, and the board later paid out a $750,000 settlement. Rafal-Baer of ILO Group said she even advised another candidate not to pursue the position.

Nonetheless, Watson-Harris, who previously served as second-in-charge under former New York City Chancellor Richard Carranza, hoped her status as an outsider would help her rise above the district鈥檚 troubled politics. It didn鈥檛 take long for controversy to find her.

She proposed that would require top deputies to reapply for their jobs in an effort to address what she felt was a lack of accountability over school improvement. She the district鈥檚 chief operating officer last year, according to local news reports, after an investigation found he bullied other employees and drank too much alcohol at a work conference. He , arguing that he was falsely accused of 鈥渁 handful of minor violations鈥� and that she retaliated against him for raising questions about accounting irregularities. 

In an interview, Watson-Harris acknowledged 鈥渟potty recordkeeping鈥� in the district, one reason she brought in outside evaluators to review finances and was upgrading outdated systems for managing staff and operations.

The former employee died in a car accident in September near Detroit, according to police reports. His attorney declined to comment on the status of his lawsuit.

Board Chair Vickie Turner declined to answer questions about Watson-Harris鈥檚 termination. The other three board members who voted to fire her, along with the school district鈥檚 attorney, did not respond to requests for comment. 

鈥淲hen you’re dealing with personnel matters such as this, you have to be very, very careful,鈥� Turner said. 鈥淚 don’t think it would be wise to speak to that, because we may have some things that are still not closed.鈥� 

Watson-Harris鈥檚 firing shocked many in the community, even drawing a from Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp, a Republican, who said the board chose 鈥減olitics over students, families and educators.鈥�

With just a month left in the school year, the board spent $25,000 to without her signature. 

鈥淚 could have closed out [the school year] and given people some stability,鈥� Watson-Harris said.

Because she was fired without cause, Watson-Harris believes she was denied a chance to respond to the accusations against her. For that reason, she said, she鈥檚 refused to accept a $325,000 severance package and is considering legal action. 

After watching the district go through four leaders in three years, state Superintendent Richard Woods finds the volatility troubling.

鈥淵ou cannot get any continuity of services and support,鈥� he told 社区黑料, adding that consistent leadership is needed to 鈥渉ave some forward growth.鈥�

鈥業n the spotlight鈥� 

Such churn is becoming commonplace. In her review of the nation鈥檚 500 largest school districts, Rafal-Baer found more than 20 have had two leadership changes since COVID鈥檚 arrival. 

Watson-Harris was both hired and fired during the pandemic. So was Florida鈥檚 Simon, who said she faced similar resistance from a board reluctant to challenge the status quo.

Alachua board member Tina Certain, who voted against Simon鈥檚 termination, said the former superintendent鈥檚 and creation of a teacher advisory committee that included non-union members likely contributed to discontent. 

鈥淓very department I looked at had financial efficiency issues and basic management concerns 鈥� lots of 鈥榯his is how we do things around here鈥� excuses,鈥� Simon said.

That issue came to the fore when she raised questions about the that runs outdoor education programs. She found that scholarships meant for poor students were being awarded to those without financial need, including the child of a former superintendent on a six-figure salary. She 鈥� and shared with 社区黑料 鈥� a text message between the camp鈥檚 director and a former staff member about scholarships given as a 鈥渢hank you for being business partners.鈥� 

An internal investigation of wrongdoing, but the district continues to push for of the camp. The director filed a against Simon, the district and the former camp staffer. He denied the allegations and said he didn鈥檛 violate policies because there weren鈥檛 any in place. His attorney didn鈥檛 respond to requests for comment.

But for DeSantis, it would appear that Simon’s vocal opposition to his COVID policies was the tipping point. 鈥淪he went on the national news and put us in the spotlight in a very negative way,鈥� Mildred Russell, the DeSantis appointee who cast the deciding vote to fire Simon, told 社区黑料.

Simon now leads that backs board members and superintendents who push for equity and inclusion. She doubts she could find another superintendent job in the state. 

鈥淚 think every board in K-12 or higher education would be taking a risk of being in DeSantis’s crosshairs in the event they consider my employment,鈥� she said. 鈥淲e are asking for people to risk financial and professional stability.鈥� 

The governor鈥檚 office did not respond to requests for comment.

DeSantis 鈥� who is setting the GOP鈥檚 agenda on education policy and is widely seen as a potential 2024 presidential contender 鈥� expanded his reach into nonpartisan school board elections this year, 30 candidates in 18 districts. The majority won their races or have moved to a November runoff. Several of the governor鈥檚 candidates were also backed by the conservative organization Moms for Liberty, a parents鈥� rights group, and the , which has spent over $2 million on school board races in several states.

The charged atmosphere nationally is producing leadership candidates who aren鈥檛 seasoned or politically astute enough to withstand the pressure, said Daniel Domenech, executive director of AASA, the School Superintendents Association.

鈥淭here鈥檚 no time to learn,鈥� he said. 鈥淵ou鈥檙e going into battle now.鈥� 

That鈥檚 why Alachua is holding off on looking for a new superintendent, said Certain, the board member.

鈥淲e鈥檙e not going to get anybody who is worth anything at this point because of the turnover,鈥� she said.

Teacher turnover rates are actually about the same as they were before the pandemic, according to through the Annenberg Institute at Brown University. Flush with pandemic relief money and faced with the generational challenge of fostering learning recovery, school districts are hiring for more positions and leaving vacancies open for longer.

A wide-ranging analysis of employment trends from national and state-level sources, the brief does confirm that the K-12 workforce shrank significantly after the onset of COVID-19 and its disruptions to schooling. After roughly a half-decade of steady growth, total public school jobs decreased by roughly 9% through May 2020. The initial drop represented more than twice the number of positions erased during the financial crisis of 2008. 

But the data also suggested that those positions were disproportionately cut from non-teaching ranks. Occupational records from both national and state sources showed measured declines among nurses, administrative support staff, paraprofessionals and other predominantly non-instructional employees. Across all the states included in the study, there was actually generally less teacher turnover during the summer of 2020 鈥� likely the residue of that year鈥檚 severe economic slowdown, which discouraged many from leaving their jobs. (During the summer of 2021, seven of those states saw an average turnover increase of 1.2 percentage points, effectively bouncing back to pre-pandemic levels.)

Confusion about the state of the education field has emerged due to a lack of consistently reported data on millions of school employees, the authors argue. In fact, the report was only made possible by combining several overlapping federal data sets 鈥� each with its own liabilities 鈥� with additional findings from 16 states that publicly reported annual statistics on turnover through the first year of the pandemic.

Matthew Kraft, a Brown economist and the paper鈥檚 lead author, said he was 鈥渧ery concerned鈥� about the increased burnout teachers reported experiencing over the last few years. While a true mass exodus of educators hasn鈥檛 yet occurred, Kraft said that profession-wide exhaustion could someday trigger one. But he added that short-term instability in the education workforce has 鈥渙bfuscated鈥� longer-term issues of working conditions and public funding that demand more thorough examination.

鈥淭here’s no doubt that this story [of educator dissatisfaction and turnover] is catching our national attention, and it’s generating headlines,鈥� Kraft said. 鈥淭he problem is that most of those stories are asking a question for which there is a nuanced response, and nuance isn’t communicated effectively in our sound-bite world.鈥�

Kraft and his co-author, Joshua Bleiberg, culled figures from four surveys conducted by the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics, each collecting regular reports from tens or hundreds of thousands of employers in both the private and public sectors. That information allowed them to not only generate month-by-month estimates of the total number of elementary and secondary education jobs, but also form a clearer view of the large swings in hirings, resignations and layoffs between March 2020 and May 2022.

The pair supplemented that picture with files from 16 state education agencies 鈥� though these additions were complicated by the states鈥� differing definitions of turnover. For the purposes of their study, Kraft and Bleiberg described it as the percentage of teachers in one school year who did not return to the same school or district in the next year.

One possible explanation for the vacancies that did linger was a period of weak job growth after schools were closed in spring 2020. According to one federal survey, K-12 and higher education institutions collectively hired 32,000 fewer educators per month over the first six months of the pandemic. That belt-tightening was likely caused by worries that the austerity measures of the last global economic downturn would be repeated, Kraft remarked.

鈥淲e had lived through the lessons of the Great Recession, which substantially cut education funding over multiple years and led to hundreds of thousands of teachers being laid off,鈥� he said. 鈥淪o schools were cautious, and I think rightly so, about filling positions even from natural turnover.鈥�

After the slashed budgets of the 2010s, few if any observers predicted the federal government would allocate nearly $200 billion in pandemic relief to American schools. If that understandable misapprehension guided decisions during the early phases of the crisis, a general absence of accurate, real-time data has further clouded the picture ever since. 

The deficiencies of public data sources are several, Kraft and Bleiberg note. Some surveys don鈥檛 clearly differentiate among K-12 employees, such that job additions or attrition among non-instructional staff can be conflated with those affecting teachers. Others make it hard to differentiate between public K-12 schools and private institutions (or even colleges and universities). And as with virtually all data regularly collected by the government, figures are subject to serious revisions even months after their initial publication. 

Chad Aldeman is the policy director of Georgetown University鈥檚 Edunomics Lab, a research group that studies education finance. In an email to 社区黑料, Aldeman called national teacher employment data 鈥渁t best a patchwork quilt of federal, state and local databases, much of it several years old.鈥� That disorganization makes it difficult to answer even basic questions, such as how many job openings exist throughout the nation鈥檚 K-12 schools and which specific positions principals and superintendents are hiring.

In normal circumstances, that kind of opacity paves the way to misguided policy choices. But at a time of unprecedented tumult in the labor market, it might come at the cost of critical, one-time resources that could otherwise be spent helping students climb back from years of lost learning. Aldeman said he was aware of cases in which districts were poaching from their neighbors, or even cannibalizing their own workforce, to fill specialist roles.

鈥淚 don’t think state and federal policymakers are taking these data gaps seriously,鈥� he wrote. 鈥淚nstead, states seem to be spending their own money blindly, and I don’t see many thoughtful plans to track the spending alongside student outcomes to make sure the increased staffing levels actually translate into better services for students.鈥�

Kraft said that public confusion over the nature of teacher shortages is a serious concern, pointing to showing higher vacancy rates at high-poverty or predominantly minority schools. The difficulties those schools face in hiring, and the increased stress suffered by their staff, are persistent problems that call out redress through higher pay and better working conditions, he argued; misbegotten narratives based on incomplete information could only make them harder to solve.

鈥淲e are failing these communities by failing to understand the nature of the problem, Kraft said. 鈥淎nd by failing to understand the nature of the problem, we may well diagnose it incorrectly and prescribe remedies that fail to address the underlying, structural inequities.鈥�