Study: Ohio's charter schools show alarming teacher turnover

COLUMBUS, Ohio –Nearly half of the teachers in Ohio's charter schools quit their jobs each year, with the majority leaving teaching altogether, according to a new study.

From 2000 to 2003, between 44 and 52 percent of charter school teachers quit their positions each year. Few took other jobs in teaching.

In comparison, between 6 and 11 percent of teachers in traditional public schools left their positions during each of those years. Even in major urban, high poverty public schools, the teacher attrition rate was only between 9 and 19 percent.

This high attrition rate is just one of several major problems involving teacher conditions in Ohio's charter schools, according to the study conducted by The Ohio Collaborative.

Results also showed that, compared to public schools, charter schools had much higher pupil-teacher ratios and had teachers who were significantly younger, less experienced and less credentialed than their public-school peers.

“Before we did this study, I don't think we realized how different teaching conditions were in the charter schools compared to the public schools,”said Darleen Opfer, director of The Ohio Collaborative, and associate professor of educational policy and leadership at Ohio State University.

The Ohio Collaborative is an educational research group initiated by the Ohio Board of Regents and housed at Ohio State. It includes 150 affiliated faculty from the state's education colleges.

Opfer co-authored the study with Dwan Robinson, research assistant for The Ohio Collaborative, and graduate student in education at Ohio State.

Opfer and Robinson used data from the Ohio Department of Education to compare teachers at the state's 248 charter schools with those at public schools.

The results showed many areas of concern, Opfer said.

For example, charter schools had an average of 30 pupils for each teacher in 2004, compared to 19 pupils per teacher in traditional public schools. The pupil-teacher ratio in charter schools increased significantly from 2003, when there were 24 pupils per teacher.

One reason for the high pupil-teacher ratio may be the huge growth in charter schools. Their enrollment grew 35 percent from 2003 to 2004, to a total of 57,000 students. Meanwhile, the number of teachers rose only 6 percent. At the same time, there was a 27 percent decline in enrollment for public schools along with an 8 percent decline in teachers.

“Charter schools have grown so fast that they can't hire enough teachers,”Opfer said. “Many people think of charter schools as these small, intimate learning environments, but that's not how it is now. They may eventually get there, but they aren't there yet.”

One of the hopes that many people had for charter schools was that they would attract older business professionals who wanted to become teachers, and veteran teachers who wanted a new challenge. That doesn't seem to be the case, according to the results of this study.

While just over 40 percent of public school teachers were under 40 years old in 2004, about 65 percent of charter school teachers were under that age. One of three charter school teachers is in his or her 20s, while in regular school districts about one in six teachers is in that age group.

Partly because of their young age, charter school teachers do not have many years of teaching experience. In fact, about 78 percent of charter school teachers have less than 5 years of teaching experience, compared to only 27 percent in regular school districts.

“When charter schools were conceived, many thought that veteran teachers would welcome a new environment with fewer constraints and restrictions where they could be more creative,”Robinson said. “But we are not seeing that in the data. The veteran teachers are not going to the charter school environment.”

Added Opfer, “Charter schools aren't attracting people who have worked and have experience in other fields and are deciding to become teachers. These are people who are right out of college who don't have much life or work experience, and no teaching experience.”

The lack of teaching experience also shows in the credentials of charter school teachers. Nearly half of charter school teachers (45 percent) have long-term substitute licenses, which are generally given to teachers who don't meet the qualifications for a regular license. In comparison, only 2 percent of public school teachers fall in that category.

The study showed many charter schools operate in urban, high-poverty areas where the majority of students are minorities. The good news is that charter schools also have significantly more minority teachers than traditional public schools. In 2004, charter schools had 56 percent Black students and 26 percent Black teachers. This compares to public schools which averaged 16 percent Black students and 6 percent Black teachers.

“We want to see teachers who reflect their student population, and charter schools are doing better than public schools in that sense,”Opfer said.

Robinson noted that charter schools are relatively new in Ohio – the first opened in 1997.

“A lot of charter school proponents say these schools are too new to fairly assess how well they are doing,”Robinson said. “But this is what the data shows now, and it is not very encouraging.$rdquo;

Robinson and Opfer said that these results don't mean there are no good charter schools. But parents who are considering sending their children to a charter school should be asking the administrators about the teacher conditions: teacher-student ratio, teacher experience and credentials, and teacher turnover.

“Parents should know the goals of the schools they are considering, and whether there are plans to fix conditions where they need help,”Robinson said.