Harlem’s New Teacher Turnover Rate Is the Highest in Manhattan

City data reveals new teachers are leaving uptown classrooms at high rates.

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By Cayla Bamberger

New teachers in Harlem schools are leaving the classroom at higher rates than anywhere else in Manhattan, according to new city data. The reasons for the high turnover vary, but most are related to difficult working conditions.

A recent report from the city comptroller’s office shows that 29% of teachers in School District 5, which includes central Harlem and adjacent neighborhoods, quit within their first five years in the profession, compared to 22% citywide.

Adapted from NYC Comptroller Scott M. Stringer’s report, “Teacher Residencies:
Supporting the Next Generation
of Teachers and Students.”

“To be an effective teacher is a helluva lot of work,” said Jazmine Denise, 29, a former middle school English teacher at a Harlem charter school. “It takes everything out of you.”

Teacher turnover refers both to those who quit the education system altogether and to those who remain but change schools or shift to administrative roles. The most cited reasons teachers leave after their first year is dissatisfaction with working conditions, according to the comptroller’s analysis of nationwide teacher survey data; the most common complaints were overcrowded classrooms, poor facilities and lack of basic school supplies. 

“A strong educator is the single most important in-school factor for improving academic outcomes of students,” wrote City Comptroller Scott Stringer in the report on teacher retainment.

Meanwhile, inexperienced teachers leave at higher rates in districts serving low-income students. “These schools tend to be chronically under-resourced and are often difficult working environments that lead to high turnover,” said Stringer in the report.

Map of School District 5.

School District 5 runs jaggedly from 116th Street to 155th Street, from the Hudson to the East River. According to the state education department, the district includes 10,549 public schools students  from kindergarten through 12th grade; 48% are black, 40% are Hispanic or Latino and 5% are  white. 

“While Harlem is very gentrifying, my public school system is not,” said Sanayi Beckles-Canton, president of Community Education Council 5, part of the city’s school governance structure. CECs review the district’s educational programs, approve zoning lines and hold public hearings.

“Teacher turnover, teachers leaving like a revolving door, has been created over decades,” she said. “It was due to lack of resources, lack of support services around major factors that families face in my district.” 

Canton said a student’s socioeconomic background is connected to teacher performance. District 5, she said, has “a lot of low-income and working-class families, who pose a lot of issues around transitional housing, around mental health illness, around the lack of special-ed support.” She added, “All those things weigh on a teacher’s ability to teach.” 

Niche’s District 5 Report Card.

Niche, a website that ranks schools on varied criteria, listed District 5 as number 323 out of 429 schools on “Best Places to Teach in New York City Area” for 2020. The ranking comes from multiple reviews from parents and teachers, along with academic and teacher data collected from the U.S. Department of Education. Niche also produced a report card for District 5 that graded its resources and facilities “C+.”  

Inadequate support from school or district leadership is another common reason cited for teacher turnover. “When exiting teachers are asked why they are leaving, they give some version of an answer like ‘I don’t feel well supported by the leadership in my school,’” said Jim Wyckoff, a University of Virginia education professor specializing in teacher workforce quality and student outcomes. 

“Many of those teachers who leave those schools aren’t leaving the profession, they’re just moving to a different school that they feel is a better match for their skills, one where they feel the job is more tenable, one where they feel more supported by the leadership,” he said.

The United Federation of Teachers seemed to agree. “A great deal depends on how people feel about the principal,” said Dick Riley, the union’s press secretary. 

“It was just pretty terrible,” said Denise, recalling her first teaching position when she was 25. “Leadership was a bit inexperienced. And I had no experience.” Before that job, Denise had only taught third graders for six weeks over the summer.

Citywide, 24,391 out of 69,741 of teachers in non-charter public schools — or 35% — have one to five years of experience, according to state personnel data. 

“The revolving door of inexperienced teachers is particularly damaging for the City’s most vulnerable students,” explained Stringer in the report. 

The comptroller referenced Wyckoff’s 2013 research that looked at 850,000 New York City fourth and fifth graders’ academic performance over eight years. The study, “How Teacher Turnover Harms Student Achievement,” found that in grades with the highest teacher turnover, students scored lower on standardized English and math tests. 

“On average when a teacher leaves a position, student achievement declines,” said Wyckoff, a co-author, noting that teachers who left were often stronger than their replacements. In schools with low-performing or high proportions of nonwhite students, such effects were more significant.

“Those may be schools that find it more challenging to recruit new teachers to begin with, so the teachers who are leaving are going to be replaced by people who are even less effective than what typically occurs in other places in New York City,” he explained. 

District 5 performance data suggests a similar pattern. Only 31% of its students are proficient in English and just 25% in math, according to state assessment data.

District 5 Grades 3-8 ELA Assessment Data.

District 5 Grades 3-8 Math Assessment Data.

After the birth of her daughter in February, Denise left primary education to teach writing at a local college. On balancing her students and her newborn, she said, “I couldn’t give them everything and give her everything she needed.”  

On suggested improvements, Denise said, “I think it starts with more effective training of teachers. Part of the stress, the scariest part, is just not knowing what you’re doing. You know your content, your subject area, but to know how to put that together,” she said. “A lot of teacher training programs fall short in that area.”

Denise also suggested stronger behavior management systems. “There are all these elusive things that veterans tell you when you first come in that don’t help.”

“While there are still lots of issues, I do feel we as a district are on a different trajectory,” said Canton. “But you’ve got to also recognize that the damage that has been done in my district has been over three or four decades.”  

Canton said the Community Education Council has been working with the superintendent to offer more resources and support in the schools, “so teachers will want to stay,” she said.

“With time, we’re chipping away at it. We’re making it better, one school at a time, one principal, one teacher, one leader at a time.”

(Featured image by Joaquim Moreira Salles. Assessment data graph from the New York State Education Department.)

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