Title
Authorizing the Committee on Education to hold hearings to examine the recent report on high teacher attrition and understand its root causes, impact on teacher and student morale, as well as its effects on learning outcomes.
Body
WHEREAS, A February 2024 report released by Pennsylvania State University’s Center for Evaluation & Education Policy Analysis found that the School District of Philadelphia loses teachers at high rates, which has considerable effects, both direct and indirect; and
WHEREAS, The study, which analyzed teacher attrition rates from the 2017-2018 through 2021-2022 school years, found increasing rates of teacher attrition across district and charter schools. In the 2021-2022 school year, for example, almost 1 in 3 Philadelphia teachers, both district and charter, left their jobs; and
WHEREAS, Philadelphia’s teacher workforce represents an outsized proportion of teacher attrition statewide. While Philadelphia employs around 20 percent of all teachers in the Commonwealth, they comprise about 30% of the Commonwealth’s teacher attrition; and
WHEREAS, Charter and district teachers with 1 year of experience that were employed in 2018 left their jobs at rates of 50.5% and 44.7%, respectively. For district and charter teachers with 5 years experience, the gap widened, with 35.8% of charter teachers and 21.4% of district teachers leaving the profession altogether; and
WHEREAS, There is a common perception that Philadelphia school teachers leave the city for higher paying teaching jobs in the suburbs, though in actuality, the data suggests that less than 1% and 2.2% of Philadelphia teachers in the 2018 and 2022 cohorts left their jobs for , respectively; and
WHEREAS, We saw considerable learning loss over the COVID-19 pandemic and teacher effectiveness is widely understood to improve dramatically in the first 5 years of experience. As we look to fill vacancies in education and provide quality education for our city’s students, these dynamics are important to understand; now, therefore, be it
RESOLVED, BY THE COUNCIL OF THE CITY OF PHILADELPHIA, That it hereby authorizes the Committee on Education to hold hearings to examine the recent report on high teacher attrition and understand its impact on teacher and student morale as well as its effects on learning outcomes.
End