Recent European Union (EU) documents call for higher quality teacher education as a vital initiative in the European Parliament’s commitment to education (Caena, 2014). In OECD surveys, European countries demonstrate a problem ensuring an adequate supply of teachers mostly due to low public sector salaries, the rise in teacher retirements, and increased student enrollments (Ingersoll, 2012; Commission of the European Communities, 2007). Recruiting and sustaining professionals is a challenge for the EU, and other countries including the U.S., who intend for teachers to become lifelong learners, a key aspect of the European Commission’s core teacher competencies (Caena, 2013).
However, in weighing why teachers enter the profession, the voices of teacher candidates are oftentimes missing from larger teacher education policy conversations; educators must look to how teachers themselves articulate their desires to join the profession. We examine 82 accepted teacher candidates’ admission essays to understand their reasons to teach. Our study targets teacher preparation completers who have gone on to be successful teachers, with the majority remaining in the classroom. Undoubtedly, there is a level of performativity in admission materials (Miller, 2005), but arguably an analysis of such documents offers teacher educators insights that can inform the recruitment and retention of highly qualified candidates in the profession.
Additionally, there is an increasing press in the EU for more field-based teacher education (European Commission 2015; Mattson, Eilertsen, & Rorrison, 2011). The teachers in our study completed a field-intensive residency program, and are now teaching in urban classrooms. Early evidence from teacher residencies demonstrates high retention rates (Berry et al., 2008). Specifically, our studies of program graduates indicate that up to five years post-graduation, 93% of residents remain teaching, the majority (96%) in high need schools, and in the shortage areas in which they were certified. Also, studies conducted in 2012-2015 indicate that residents see their residency experience as helpful and crucial to their beginning teaching career (Kolman, Roegman, & Author, in press; Reagan, Author, Roegman, & Zuckerman, 2015).
Although the U.S. has seen an influx of teachers entering the profession, teacher attrition is especially high, with 30-50% of teachers leaving the field after only three to five years (Darling-Hammond, Holtzman, Gatlin, & Heilig, 2005; Ingersoll & Merrill, 2012; Ingersoll & Perda, 2012). Furthermore, attrition rates of first-year teachers have increased by about one-third in the last twenty years (Ingersoll, 2012). Research indicates that more qualified candidates are most likely to leave the profession, and more likely to leave struggling schools for better schools. For example, the overall rate of teacher turnover is close to 18% in urban schools (vs. 16% overall), and, is even more pronounced in high poverty schools (22%) and among teachers with less than 3 years experience (20%) (Goldring, Taie, & Riddles, 2014). Teacher retention is especially of concern in shortage areas (Billingsley, 1993; Connelly & Graham, 2009; Ingersoll, 2001). However, against this trend, our data demonstrate that our highly qualified teacher candidates with strong backgrounds and excellent GPAs are committed and staying in challenging schools and shortage certification areas.
Therefore, in looking at this counter trend, we return to teacher candidates’ voices and articulations of their intention to teach. This study addresses not only the committed teachers’ reasons for entering the profession, but also seeks to discover what prospective teachers say they expect from teaching, and what they expect to do. Thereby, the study addresses how this group of teacher candidates articulates:
1. why they want to be teachers
2. what they expect from teaching, so as to ascertain what they expect to do
3. what their insights might mean for the recruitment and retention of teacher candidates
