Should I Stay or Should I Go? Comparing Teacher Mobility in Florida's Charter and Traditional Public Schools

Abstract

Currently, we know very little about the mobility decisions of charter public school teachers and how these compare to the decisions made by traditional public school teachers. In addition, it is unclear whether the teachers who leave charter schools tend to be weaker or stronger than their peers. Using statewide administrative data, I begin to answer these questions by studying the magnitude and nature of teacher turnover in Florida's charter public schools compared with turnover in the state's traditional public schools. It appears that Florida's charter school administrators may be better able to recruit and retain teachers with high academic skills than their traditional counterparts. In addition, the mobility patterns exhibited by Florida's charter school teachers differ from those exhibited by traditional school teachers in important ways, including greater sensitivity to accountability measures and less sensitivity to salary considerations. I thank Steve Mangum, Kathy Peck, and Jeff Sellers of the Florida Department of Education for their assistance in obtaining and interpreting the data. I also thank Jeffrey Brooks, Douglas Harris, Stacey Rutledge, JimWyckoff, participants at the 2006 Annual Meeting of the American Education Finance Association, and an anonymous reviewer for their valuable comments. Any remaining errors are solely my responsibility.