Teacher Recruitment and Retention Survey (TRR) 2024

Survey Background

Partners from the Colorado Department of Education (CDE) and the Colorado Department of Higher Education (CDHE) have identified the need to improve teacher recruitment and retention in the state, and particularly for teachers of color. REL Central’s CDE and CDHE partners wish to answer the research question “What factors are related to teacher recruitment and retention, particularly for teachers of color?” To address this research question, the partnership team designed the Teacher Recruitment and Retention (TRR) survey to be included with the Teaching and Learning Conditions Colorado (TLCC) survey that is administered statewide to teachers every other year.

Survey development was guided by findings from six focus groups conducted in April 2023 (three with teachers of color and three with white teachers) and a literature review of related surveys. Survey items were designed to complement existing items on the TLCC survey, focusing on the following five categories that reflect factors that relate to recruitment and retention:

Motivations, Preparation, and Pathways. How and why educators entered the profession, including motivators and experiences, and preservice work;
Effective Leadership. Trust in, respect for, and feelings of support from both school-level and district-level administration;
Faculty Network. Collaboration, mentorship, relationships, and factors that prevent a sense of isolation among coworkers in a school setting;
Community Connections. Family engagement and opportunities to engage in community partnerships; and
Respect for the Profession. Societal expectations and protection of educator professionalism (e.g., time, autonomy, resources, treatment).

The resulting 29-item survey was reviewed and approved by the CDE Data Advisory Committee and was administered through the TLCC in early 2024. The survey was designed to be administered in blocks so that each respondent saw only a portion of the questions, reducing survey fatigue.

The details within this report are intended as a supplement to the detailed survey results available within the statewide TLCC reporting.

A pdf version of the reporting on this page is available. Questions about the TRR and this reporting may be sent to the Research and Impact office at CDE.

Key Takeaways

Teachers of color demonstrate slightly higher levels of satisfaction and enthusiasm for teaching as compared to white teachers
Satisfaction and enthusiasm for teaching are the biggest predictors of intent to continue teaching
Other significant predictors of intent to continue teaching include feeling that:
- school leadership works to build trust among staff
- the evaluation process provides teachers with actionable feedback for improvement
- teachers have an adequate level of influence on school decisions
Overall, only 38% of teachers agreed that their role models when they were a student included a teacher of color.
Teachers of color were 1.5 times more likely to report having a teacher of color as a role model when they were a student.

Top Recruitment and Retention Factors

Respondents were asked to rank order, from 1 to 3, the importance of factors that may be related to their primary motivations to become a teacher. The bar chart below demonstrates the mean ranking for each of the three factors, disaggregated by race/ethnicity. Rankings between the two groups were nearly identical, with both teachers of color and white teachers identifying supporting students as their most important motivation to become a teacher, but only by a narrow margin over feeling that teaching is a career suited to their personal abilities, and feeling that teaching enables them to give back to society.

Bar chart showing primary motivations to become a teacher. Teachers of color and white teachers all indicated that the following motivations were generally equally important: (a) teaching enables me to give back to society; (b) teaching is a career suited to my abilities; and (c) teaching will allow me to support students in need.

Similarly, respondents were also asked to rank order, from 1 to 7, the importance of factors that may be related to their decision to remain in the teaching profession. The bar chart below demonstrates the mean ranking for each of the seven factors, disaggregated by race/ethnicity. For both teachers of color and white teachers, compensation and student connections were ranked as the top factors influencing the decision to stay in the teaching profession. Overall, there were minimal observed differences between teachers of color and white teachers in their rankings of factors that influence their retention.

Bar chart showing factors influencing teacher retention. Generally, for teachers of color and white teachers, seven factors were ranked from most important to least important in the following order: (1) compensation; (2) student connections; (3) effective leadership; (4) respect for the profession; (5) faculty networks; (6) preparation and pathways, and (7) community connections.

Differences between Teachers of Color and White Teachers

While teachers of color and white teachers generally responded to the TRR survey similarly, including no discernible difference in their intentions to continue teaching, there were a few notable differences for some key items. For the item, “I’m satisfied with my choice to become a teacher,” teachers of color, on average, had stronger levels of agreement (3.23, between agree and strongly agree) than did white teachers (3.16, between agree and strongly agree). This difference was statistically significant (p < .001), although small (Cohen’s d = .09).

For the item, “I still have as much enthusiasm for teaching as when I began,” teachers of color, on average, also had stronger levels of agreement (2.84, between disagree and agree) than did white teachers (2.68, between disagree and agree). This difference was also statistically significant (p < .001), also with a small effect size (Cohen’s d = .16). These results suggest that, although the differences are small, there are real differences between teachers of color and white teachers in their satisfaction and enthusiasm for teaching, with teachers of color having slightly higher satisfaction and enthusiasm.

Bar chart showing that teachers of color had stronger agreement with the following two items when compared to white teachers: (a) I'm satisfied with my choice to become a teacher; and (b) I still have as much enthusiasm for teaching as when I began.

Using a multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA), statistically significant differences between teachers of color and white teachers were also detected on the following three items:

I have had good teachers as role models.
My role models when I was a student included teachers of color.
I had at least one teacher of color in my PreK through grade 12 experience.

For the first item, “I have had good teachers as role models,” white teachers, on average, had stronger levels of agreement (3.48, between agree and strongly agree) compared to teachers of color (3.41, between agree and strongly agree, p < .001) with a small effect size (Cohen’s d = .12). For the second and third items, “My role models when I was a student included teachers of color” and “I had at least one teacher of color in my PreK through grade 12 experience,” teachers of color demonstrated statistically significantly (p < .001) higher levels of agreement (2.55 and 2.76 respectively) than white teachers (2.21 and 2.46 respectively) with medium effect sizes (Cohen’s d = .37 and .31, respectively). In fact, teachers of color were 1.5 times more likely to report having a teacher of color as a role model when they were a student than white teachers, highlighting the need for increased diversity in the teacher workforce. This finding suggests that when students of color have at least one teacher of color as a role model, they are more likely to become a teacher in the future.

Bar chart showing high levels of agreement for both white teachers and teachers of color on the item,

Predicting Intention to Continue Teaching

Using logistic regression to attempt to predict teachers’ intention to continue teaching, there were several items that were found to be statistically significant in the prediction model (detailed in the table below). Being a teacher of color was also included as a predictor in the model. Together, these predictors accounted for 5.8% of the variance in teachers’ intention to continue teaching (Tjur’s D = .058).

The biggest predictors of intention to continue teaching were the items, “I’m satisfied with my choice to become a teacher” and “I still have as much enthusiasm for teaching as when I began.” Although being a teacher of color was a negative predictor of intention to continue teaching, because teachers of color tended to score higher on these two items, overall intention to continue teaching for both teachers of color and white teachers were very similar.

Three additional items that positively predicted intention to continue teaching were regarding school leadership:

School leadership works to build trust among staff.
The evaluation process provides teachers and support personnel with actionable feedback for improvement.
Teachers and support personnel have an adequate level of influence on important school decisions.

Predicting Intention to Continue Teaching – Logistic Regression Results Summary Table

Predictor	Effect on Intention to Continue Teaching*	95% Confidence Interval	p value	Interpretation
Being a teacher of color	0.83	[072, 0.96]	< .0001	Being a teacher of color is associated with a small decrease in the intention to continue teaching.
Satisfaction with becoming a teacher	1.28	[1.17, 1.39]	< .0001	When teachers feel satisfied with their choice to become a teacher, they are more likely to intend to continue teaching.
Enthusiasm for teaching	1.91	[1.76, 2.08]	< .0001	As teachers report higher levels of enthusiasm for teaching, they are more likely to intend to continue teaching.
School leadership facilitates trust	1.16	[1.07, 1.27]	< .0001	When teachers agree that school leadership works to build trust among staff, they are more likely to intend to continue teaching.
Teacher evaluations provide quality feedback	1.18	[1.09, 1.28]	< .0001	As teachers express that the evaluation process provides them with actionable feedback for improvement, they are more likely to intend to continue teaching.
Teachers have influence on important school decisions	1.10	[1.01, 1.20]	< .0001	When teachers feel they have an adequate level of influence on important school decisions, they are more likely to intend to continue teaching.

*This number represents the odds ratio, which is the odds that the outcome will occur given a particular event, compared to the odds of the outcome occurring without that exposure.

In summary, for building leaders wishing to recruit and retain a diverse teacher workforce, the results from the TRR survey indicate that teachers of color and white teachers have similar primary motivations to become teachers and stay teachers. Teachers of color are 1.5 times more likely to have had a teacher of color as a mentor when they were students, and teachers of color demonstrated slightly higher levels of satisfaction in and enthusiasm for teaching than did white teachers, indicating a higher level of commitment to the teaching profession. For all teachers, cultivating a culture of trust in school leadership, providing quality feedback through the evaluation process, and allowing teachers to have influence in decision-making may increase teachers’ likelihood of intending to continue teaching.