A Qualitative Exploration of Factors Contributing to Teach For America Teachers Remaining in a Rural, High-Poverty School System Beyond Their Two-Year Contracts

摘要

High teacher turnover is an issue that plagues the nation's education system, particularly rural schools. To address this, much research has been conducted on why teachers leave. However, reasons for why teachers stay in rural schools have not been aptly examined, and understanding this can also provide valuable insight on the problem of teacher retention. With a stated mission of battling another issue of concern in education, inequality, Teach For America (TFA) is an organization that helps rural and high-poverty schools staff their classrooms by recruiting high-achieving, recent college graduates and other professionals to teach in these areas for a contracted term of two years. One rural area that has leveraged the value of TFA is Blue County, North Carolina, which has one of the highest teacher turnover rates in the state. However, while many of its TFA teachers leave immediately after their contractual obligation of two years, others have stayed. This study worked to find out why.;To fill the gap in the literature, this qualitative explanatory case study sought to determine what personal, school, and county characteristics kept some TFA teachers in their initial work assignments in rural, high-poverty schools after their original two-year contracts ended. Through 60-minute, in-depth-interviews, 11 TFA teachers, selected through criterion sampling, were questioned about their personal and school-related reasons for staying in their Blue County position longer than their TFA contracts required. In addition, participants were asked to share the obstacles they faced in teaching in Blue County and their feelings about choosing to stay on after the first two years. Interviews were recorded and transcribed verbatim, then analyzed using the concept of job embeddedness to identify recurring themes.;From the analysis of the findings on the personal and school-related factors cited by the participants, four common themes emerged to explain why these TFA teachers stayed in Blue County past the initial two years; each of these themes aligned with an element of the job embeddedness framework. Emergent themes included a commitment to teaching for TFA and supporting its mission to see students succeed, strong relationships with colleagues and positive relationships with students in the Blue County school as well as with people in the Blue County community, the welcoming nature of the Blue County community, and the support of school colleagues and administrators. Implications for policy and further research are discussed.