North Carolina’s Department of Instruction released its latest report on teacher retention and teacher candidates data. EdNC.org did a post on initial findings summing up quickly with:

A quote from State Board Chair Eric Davis really stood out to this teacher.

“If you care about the next generation of North Carolinians, you will support investing in them. … We all need state leaders who strongly believe in us and our communities, and in the vital role that our public schools play in healthy, vibrant communities. And of all the investments, having a great teacher in every classroom is vital to the health of our public schools, our public school students, and our society as a whole.”

You can access the report on DPI’s website.

And the dashboard approach does allow for a positive spin to be placed on the situation of optimally filling the teacher pipeline. But drill down on these categories and you to see a continuing and disturbing trend.

State Superintendent Catherine Truitt and her administration have claimed that advanced roles and their plan for a new teacher licensure program will reinvigorate the teacher pipeline, but it really is built on merit pay and an ignorance of what would really recruit teachers to the profession like higher salaries and due process rights.

Take that “ENROLLMENT” category for example.

The overall trend represented there does not look all that bad since it is easy to claim that the pandemic affected trends in education. But click on it and more is revealed.

There are far fewer candidates now than a decade ago.

And this data chart shows a decrease of 11% since 2014.

That percentage is even steeper if measured against Truitt’s time on office. Also remember that in 2014 graduate degree pay increases and due-process rights were taken away from new teacher hires and that longevity pay was taken away from all veteran teachers.

None of those have been remedied.

Look at the “EARLY-CAREER RETENTION” category.

92% of teachers who taught WITHIN 3 years remained.

The operative word here is “WITHIN.” Just drill down on that link.

“WITHIN” does not mean the same as “AT LEAST” because the number of teachers who stay “AT LEAST” three years is much lower than 92%. In fact it drops to 78%.

A little misleading.

In fact, almost 4 in 10 teachers leave the profession in North Carolina after the fifth year.

And it doesn’t show retention after 5 years.

What about after 10? 15? or even 25? Looking at the salary schedule, it might be easy to see why teachers would be reluctant to stay in the profession. Who wouldn’t want to remain a teacher in North Carolina when you know that your salary will be frozen for ten years?

Oh, and that part about eliminating retiree health benefits for new teachers should be mentioned as well.