Accelify has been acquired by Frontline Education. Learn More →

Industry News

New Research Shows Just how Much Losing a Teacher Midyear Hurts Students

October 23, 2018

By: Matt Barnum

Source: Chalkbeat

The consequences of teacher churn were apparent to Esperanza Vazquez, a mother of two from New York City.

“I had an experience with my son where he had a new teacher every week in math,” she told Chalkbeat recently. “That doesn’t help students.”

Now new research backs up Vazquez’s experience, documenting for perhaps the first time the steep consequences for students after teachers leave a classroom in middle of the school year.

The finding comes in a trio of new studies focusing on North Carolina. Together, they suggest that ill effects of teacher turnover identified in previous research may be driven largely by midyear departures; that those consequences extend even to students in the same grade whose teachers stay on; and that midyear turnover may be more common than previously thought, especially in schools serving more students of color and those from low-income families.

Read More »