Statements from Education Leaders in Support of NCTAF's Cost of Teacher Turnover Study

Wendy D. Puriefoy, President and CEO

Public Education Network (PEN)

"Public Education Network (PEN) applauds NCTAF’s seminal work in calculating the financial and student achievement costs of teacher turnover in some of the nation’s largest school districts,” said Wendy D. Puriefoy, president and CEO of Public Education Network. “High teacher turnover is a very serious problem plaguing far too many of our schools. School districts with large numbers of economically vulnerable children, including many studied by NCTAF, suffer the most when quality teachers leave too soon or cannot be recruited in the first place. PEN and our member local education funds have long recognized the critical need to do more to retain and train highly qualified teachers. In our recently released No Child Left Behind Act position statement, we recommend that any re-authorization of the act should provide resources to help teachers become more effective in data- and student-focused school environments. Effective teachers who are contributing to measurable student achievement are less likely to leave school districts or the profession. We share NCTAF’s hope that school leaders will use this new information on teacher turnover costs to make better, more coherent human resource investments in teachers because they are central to quality public education. And every child in America deserves a quality public education."