Tackling Teacher Turnover: Post-pandemic Trends Among Missouri’s Early-Career Teachers

Missouri’s teacher mobility is highest among its early-career teachers, especially those in their first five years of teaching in the state’s public schools. In 2023–24, more than one in five early-career teachers departed their school districts or Missouri public education altogether, modestly less than the pandemic-era high the year prior but substantially higher than long-term trends. The most recent cohorts of new, early-career teachers are leaving Missouri public schools faster than earlier cohorts, placing additional strain on the capacities of teacher preparation programs across the state to produce an increasing number of new teachers. To improve teacher turnover and address chronic teacher shortages in the subject matters and school contexts in which they occur, increased focus should be devoted to early-career teachers through new policy reforms and school labor practices.