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Educators are leaving their jobs at a rate that is likely to prove unsustainable for the national school system in the long term, according to The Wall Street Journal (subscription).

What’s going on: “Public-school teachers … are still leaving the profession in higher numbers than before the pandemic, a Wall Street Journal analysis of data from 10 states show, though departures have fallen since their peak in 2022. The elevated rate is likely due to a combination of factors and adds one more challenge to schools battling learning loss and frequent student absences.”

• The figures are the most comprehensive recent collection of national teacher exit data.
• In some of the states studied, turnover was small, but in states including Virginia, North Carolina and Arkansas, “teachers were leaving in substantially higher numbers than they were prepandemic.”

Why it’s important: The nation’s public schools are unlikely to be able to continue absorbing the impact, University of Pennsylvania Graduate School of Education Dean Katharine Strunk told the newspaper.

• And loss of teachers has been linked to lower student test scores, according to the article.

​​​​​​​Why it’s happening: The average teacher salary of $66,000 has not increased significantly in decades, adjusting for inflation, which could be making jobs offering remote work options more enticing.

• Some teachers who have left the schools cite a lack of support from administrators regarding student behavior, and others point to “political battles over issues such as how race and gender are discussed in class.”

​​​​​​​What to expect: While the number of people studying to become teachers has remained steady in the past few years, that could become a problem in the near future.

• “Educators and researchers expect that the depletion of federal pandemic-relief funds will force schools to limit hiring.”