What teachers need: research into why teachers leave the profession is helping lawmakers craft better policies to hold onto them.

• Author: Exstrom, Michelle

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Todd Allen, a young, enthusiastic special education teacher, was living his lifelong dream of working in an urban school. In his first three years, he was optimistic about his career. He felt he was making a difference in the lives of his students.

But after his fourth year of teaching, things changed. Allen became disillusioned by the ever-mounting federal and state administrative requirements for special education and the disappearance of aides. He left his hard-to-staff position and went into fifth grade general education.

Dustin Kramer faced similar frustration. He was a middle school social studies teacher in his rural home town, but after seven years grew frustrated with a disengaged principal who rarely visited his classroom and made little effort to enforce appropriate student behavior. He felt a similar lack of support from his superintendent. He often worked late hours and questioned whether it was all worth only $37,000 per year. Kramer ended up leaving teaching to try his hand as a financial adviser.

While frustrated employees often look for new jobs, teachers are of particular concern because new and veteran teachers are leaving in large numbers, and many older teachers will soon be retiring.

"Teacher turnover is not cost free. We have long recognized this in the private sector, and now we need to recognize this in the public education sector as well," says Richard Ingersoll, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania. "There are significant costs associated with recruiting, inducting, mentoring and training new hires."

Researchers have long conducted national studies to understand why teachers leave the profession. A new effort, however, is focusing on studies at the state and district level that lawmakers say is giving them new insights into why teachers quit.

At least 10 states have made these efforts in the last two years and have found some surprises, including that low salaries are not the top reason teachers leave.

A DIFFERENT APPROACH

Ingersoll has reported that about one-third of new teachers leave the classroom within the first three years, and as many as half leave after just five years. And a new report from the National Commission on Teacher and America's Future predicts that as many as 50 percent will retire over the upcoming decade. School districts all over the country struggle, in particular, to get and keep math, science and special education teachers.

Using a national survey of...