Where are Philly’s teachers going? Here’s what new research on city educators leaving the profession says.

Philadelphia teachers leave the profession at significant rates — so high, in fact, that the numbers of educators quitting teaching are larger than the number of graduates of local teacher-preparation programs, according to a new analysis out of Pennsylvania State University.

The research comes amid a nationwide teaching shortage, in a state that recently recorded its lowest-ever number of teaching certificates issued.

Here are some takeaways from “Where Did They Go? Examining Teacher Career Pathways in Philadelphia County,” the research out of Penn State’s Center for Evaluation and Education Policy Analysis, examining teachers employed by any traditional public or charter school in Philadelphia for the school years from 2017-18 to 2021-22.

Teacher attrition reached its highest level in 2022, with 13% of Philadelphia School District teachers leaving and 23% of charter teachers. That’s up from 2018, when 16% of charter teachers and 7% of district teachers quit.

And while attrition generally grew over the study period, charter educators left at rates that were sometimes almost double those of district teachers. Charters can employ uncertified teachers, and most charter workforces are not unionized.

Charters generally employ higher numbers of newer teachers: nearly 74% of charter teachers had 10 or fewer years of experience; 40% of district teachers were veterans of 10 years or fewer.

Overall, nearly 1 in 3 Philadelphia teachers, district and charter, left the profession in 2021-22 — 28.6%. That number was “extraordinarily high,” the researchers said. That was up from a low of 16.7% for the 2020-21 cohort, a year in which most Philadelphia schools conducted only virtual education for most or all of the year.

Nationwide, teachers are generally most likely to leave the profession in the first five years of their career.

But the rates at which Philadelphia teachers, district and charter, leave in the first five years surprised even Ed Fuller, Penn State education professor and the lead author of the study, along with Xinran Zhang. (The study was commissioned by Elevate 215, a Philadelphia-based education nonprofit.)

Fuller and Zhang found that 20% of charter teachers left the profession in their first year, compared with 18% of district teachers. By teachers’ fifth year in the classroom, attrition dropped considerably for district teachers — 9% of district teachers with five years of experience left the teaching profession, but 17% of charter teachers quit after five years’ experience.

The researchers also conducted five-year analyses, examining the percentage of teachers who had left the profession within five years for both the 2018 and 2019 Philadelphia cohorts.

The attrition rate among teachers with one year of experience in the 2018 cohort was about 50% in the charter sector, and 45% in district schools. For those with five years’ experience, 36% of charter teachers employed in 2018 were no longer employed by 2022, and 21% of district teachers.

The five-year retention trend for charter teachers hired in 2019 was particularly grim, the researchers found. Overall, less than 50% of inexperienced teachers who started in 2019 were left in the education profession.

“That’s extra high,” said Fuller. “How do you build a teacher pipeline when you’re losing that many people? It’s difficult.”

(Though that cohort includes years impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic, Fuller said he believes the numbers are still representative of Philadelphia teacher attrition.)

Teacher effectiveness improves most in the first five years of teaching experience, research shows. It follows, the researchers wrote, that “retaining early careers is an important strategy in improving teacher effectiveness and, hence, student outcomes.”

Most charter teachers who quit their jobs left education altogether.

In 2018, of the 16% of charter teachers who left their jobs, 13% exited teaching. Similarly, most district teachers who left did not remain in the field — of the 7% who quit in 2018, 6% left teaching altogether.

And though commonly held wisdom suggests Philadelphia teachers often leave the school district for jobs in better-paying suburban schools, where working conditions are often superior, the data do not bear that out.

For the 2018 cohort of teachers, just 1% of district teachers moved to a teaching job in another district or charter school. For the 2022 group, 2.2% moved to another district or charter.

Charter teachers, however, moved to other charters or to a district school at a rate five times higher than that of district teachers leaving for elsewhere.

Because Philadelphia employs such a large percentage of all Pennsylvania teachers, high Philadelphia attrition affects the state’s educational bottom line significantly.

Philadelphia employs about 20% of all Pennsylvania teachers, but it comprises about 30% of all teacher attrition. Furthermore, the researchers found, “the number of teachers leaving the profession in Philadelphia County exceeds the number of newly prepared teachers by local teacher preparation programs.”

That means to staff classrooms, Philadelphia district and charter schools either cope with a high number of teacher vacancies, hire teachers from outside the state, or, increasingly, hire teachers who lack full teaching credentials.

Fuller believes that teachers on emergency certifications likely contribute appreciably to Philadelphia’s attrition rates.

Those teachers without credentials “are not fully prepared,” Fuller said. “Teaching is really hard no matter where you start, but we’re placing these teachers in really difficult positions, and they’re not prepared, and they have to try to get certified while they’re teaching.”

Teachers leaving has a real price to students — and even other educators, particularly if their colleagues quit midyear, which sometimes requires other teachers covering classes. There are also financial ramifications. The Learning Policy Institute estimates a cost of $27,000 for each teacher that leaves, resulting from the direct costs schools bear for replacing teachers, and the indirect costs of decreased student outcomes.

To fix the problem, Fuller said the state must increase the number of students in teacher preparation programs.

Philadelphia district and charter teachers who weighed in on a recent survey said pay would be the biggest incentive to make those who are thinking about leaving stay in the profession.

But working conditions are also paramount, those surveyed said. Fuller agrees.

“You’ve really got to work on the working conditions in schools,” he said. “If you hate the working conditions, it doesn’t matter how much money you make.”