Utah’s state and local policymakers “should be alarmed at the high numbers of teachers leaving the state teaching core, particularly in the first few years,” recent public policy reports caution.
More than half — 56 percent — of the public school educators who started teaching in 2008 left the profession by 2015, according to a recent report by the Utah Education Policy Center at the University of Utah.
“Compared to the national average, beginning teacher turnover rates are very high in Utah,” the report says.
The report “Beginning Teacher Turnover in Utah Between 2008-09 and 2014-15,” followed nearly 2,700 teachers over eight years.
For educators ages 26-30, 54 percent left over the same period, followed by teachers ages 40 and above at 48 percent. The age group with the lowest percentage of educators leaving the profession were teachers ages 31-39.
Source: Deseret News