Cost of turnover

Costs related to turnover include recruiting and hiring new teachers, special incentives to recruit and retain teachers, personnel processing and transfer costs, training for new hires, and the cost to student learning in the “learning curve” of new teachers (Barnes, Crowe, & Schaefer, 2007).

• In 1999-2000 Chicago spent 5.1 million dollars to recruit and hire new teachers.
• In 2001-2002 New York spent 8 million dollars just for an advertising campaign to hire 12,000 new teachers (Goodnough, 2001).
• In Texas, recruitment, hiring and training costs to the state run into the hundreds of millions of dollars every year (Texas Center for Educational Research, 2000).
• In 2003-2004 turnover costs ranged from $4,366 in a small district in New Mexico to $17,872 in Chicago (Barnes, Crowe, & Schaefer, 2007).
• In 2005, a national study reported average costs of a teacher leaving a school at $12,652 (Alliance for Excellent Education, 2005).