Early Childhood Teacher Turnover Rates

Educator turnover rates are one of the critical factors affecting early childhood
education outcomes. The U.S. has faced challenges in staff retention in early childhood
workforce, which presents key insights into how a shift in policies addressing educator
retention might be pivotal in supporting reduced turnover rates. Grant, Jeon, and Buettner
(2019) explore high turnover rates of early care and education teachers and the impact on the
quality of education. According to the authors, high turnover rates are associated with poor
working conditions, including increased emotional exhaustion, dissatisfaction with workplace
terms, and stress.
According to the findings of the study, teachers’ working conditions, intrinsic
motivation, and psychological functioning have a remarkable impact on their likelihood to
remain employed or in the ECE field. For numerous ECE centers in the public sector, having
high turnover rates in the ECE field is costly, both financially and in organizational
functioning, specifically the organizations’ ability to offer consistent quality education to
learners (Grant et al., 2019) . The same trend has also been observed in certain privately-run
centers where teachers tend to quit their job due to unfavorable working conditions.
The study shows that teachers who perceive better working conditions are less likely to
intend to leave their job and demonstrated a greater professional commitment. These findings
are consistent with other studies that found increased turnover rates among teachers who
perceived a ‘negative’ working environment, especially due to increased professional
stressors (Totenhagen et al., 2016) .
This article is useful for administrators in the public and private sector as it highlights
some of the challenges that affect ECE and how different solutions, such as ensuring higher
intrinsic motivation among staff could lead to better professional commitment. Moreover,
this study also shows that intrinsic motivation, rather than extrinsic motivation, results in

3
teachers who are more interested in better outcomes for children. Overall, reforms in the field
should be focused on improving teacher’s retention and commitment, which would in turn
have a positive impact on well-being.

4

References

Grant, A. A., Jeon, L., & Buettner, C. K. (2019). Relating early childhood teachers’ working
conditions and well-being to their turnover intentions.
Https://Doi.Org/10.1080/01443410.2018.1543856, 39(3), 294–312.
https://doi.org/10.1080/01443410.2018.1543856
Totenhagen, C. J., Hawkins, S. A., Casper, D. M., Bosch, L. A., Hawkey, K. R., & Borden,
L. M. (2016). Retaining Early Childhood Education Workers: A Review of the
Empirical Literature. Http://Dx.Doi.Org/10.1080/02568543.2016.1214652, 30(4),
585–599. https://doi.org/10.1080/02568543.2016.1214652