Teacher Attrition and Mobility in the Pandemic

Abstract

We contextualize the magnitude of teacher attrition during the pandemic, including from the 2020–2021 school year to the 2021–2022 school year, using longitudinal data on teachers in Washington since the 1984–1985 school year. The teacher attrition rate after the 2020–2021 school year (7.3%) increased by almost one percentage point from the attrition rate after the 2019–2020 school year (6.4%), but these rates are well within the range of turnover rates observed during pre-pandemic years. The increase in turnover during the pandemic was also smaller than pre-pandemic differences in turnover between high- and low-poverty classrooms in the state, and these inequities in turnover between high- and low-poverty classrooms decreased during the pandemic relative to pre-pandemic years.