The retention and attrition of early-career music teachers: a survival analysis

Abstract

Over 30 states have experienced a shortage of music teachers in the past decade. The attrition of early-career teachers is one of the largest contributing factors to the rising demand for teachers nationally, but there is a lack of rigorous empirical research examining characteristics associated with attrition of music teachers. I leveraged data from the Maryland Longitudinal Data System to examine early-career music teachers’ retention and attrition patterns between 2013 and 2020 using descriptive statistics and discrete-time survival analysis (N = 6430). On average, 74% of early-career music teachers retained their current position each year, 8% moved to a different school in Maryland, and 18% of left public school music teaching in Maryland. Survival analysis indicated that half of all music teachers left public-school music teaching in Maryland within their first five years of teaching. Attrition risk was greatest in years two and three. Other factors associated with attrition risk included sex, race, ethnicity, school grade level, aspects of school culture, the student body, school and district urbanicity, and the number of teachers employed by the school district. Discussed policy recommendations include mentorship programs, teacher compensation, school resources, comprehensive family leave, and music teacher recruitment.

Keywords:

• Music education
• teacher shortage
• teacher attrition
• survival analysis
• arts education policy

Acknowledgement

We appreciate the feedback received from the MLDS Center and its stakeholder partners. All opinions are the authors’ and do not represent the opinion of the MLSD Center or its partner agencies.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s)

Data availability statement

Data for this study were drawn from the Maryland Longitudinal Data System (MLDS) Center. https://mldscenter.maryland.gov.

Additional information

Funding

This research was supported by the Maryland Longitudinal Data System (MLDS) Center.