Study Finds Large Racial Gap in Turnover Rates for Public School Teachers

A new study by researchers at the University of Pennsylvania documents that black and other minority teachers in the nation’s public school systems are far more likely to leave the profession than white teachers. The study found that the turnover rate for minority teachers is 24 percent higher than for white teachers. The research found that more than half of the minority teachers worked in high-poverty urban school districts, compared to only 20 percent of white teachers. The difficult learning and working environments in these schools is a major contributing factor to the disparity in teacher turnover rates, according to the study.

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