Teacher Retention and Career Commitments Among DeLeT Graduates: The Intersection of Teachers' Background, Preparation for Teaching, and School Context

Abstract

This article analyzes the career commitments and retention patterns among graduates of the DeLeT program (Day School Leadership Through Teaching) who were prepared for day-school teaching at Brandeis University and Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion. Employing t-tests to analyze survey responses, we identify factors that shape and support teachers' career commitments to Jewish day schools. Our findings suggest that those who stay in Jewish day school teaching are likely to do so because of more commitment to the Jewish community, greater perception of effective teacher preparation experience, and better school support in comparison to those who leave teaching in this setting. These findings are consistent with a multi-layered understanding of teachers' lives and career commitments, which is illustrated in the interaction between person, program, and setting.

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank the editor and anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments. We are grateful to Sharon Feiman-Nemser for her continuous support of this project and for commenting on an early draft of this article. We also wish to thank Susan P. Fendrick for offering helpful suggestions and edits. This work was funded in part by a grant from the Jim Joseph Foundation and by the DeLeT Longitudinal Study project at the Mandel Center for Studies in Jewish Education at Brandeis University.

Notes

¹In developing our survey, we found survey instruments that were developed by Center X at the University of California at Los Angeles, the Pathways to Teaching Study in New York City, and the School and Staffing Survey and Teacher Follow-up Survey to be especially helpful. We also incorporated several items on Jewish identity from the work of Bethamie Horowitz (2003) and adopted commonly used demographic items from sociological studies.

²A copy of the survey can be downloaded at: http://www.brandeis.edu/mandel/pdfs/DeLeT_Alum_ track_survey_April_2008.pdf

³The description in this section is based on a report titled The DeLeT Alumni Survey: A Comprehensive Report on the Journey of Beginning Jewish Day School Teachers (Tamir, Feiman-Nemser, Silvera-Sasson, & Cytryn, 2010), produced by the DeLeT Longitudinal Study at the Mandel Center for Studies in Jewish Education at Brandeis University.

⁴Universities and colleges were divided into three tiers. In tier 1, which consists of elite colleges, average SAT scores range from 650 to 730. In tier 2, SAT scores range from 580 to 649, and in tier 3 SAT scores range from 500 to 579. Data were retrieved from www.princetonreview.com. For a more expansive discussion about this topic, see: “Choosing to Teach in Urban Schools Among Graduates of Elite Colleges (Tamir, 2009).

⁵This uncertainty regarding short-term plans might be related to the structure of the job market and the way young professionals conduct themselves today (Johnson et al., 2004) and/or to the fact that JDSs do not offer tenure to their teachers, which makes teachers less certain about their short-term professional plans.

FIGURE 2. DeLeT alumni career plans (next year and in 5 years). (color figure available online)

⁶This factor consists of the following items: (a) teaching allows me to contribute to the Jewish community; (b) it is fulfilling to incorporate Judaism into the various subjects I teach; (c) it is a stepping-stone to leadership in the Jewish community; (d) it allows me to live by the Jewish calendar; and (e) it gives me a sense of being part of a community.

⁷This factor consists of the following items: (a) I enjoy working with children; (b) teaching can promote social justice; (c) I have the personal qualities to be a good teacher; and (d) I have always wanted to be a teacher.

⁸This factor consists of the following items: (a) it provides job security; (b) there is a lot of autonomy in teaching; (c) I enjoy my subject matter(s); and (d) teaching is a flexible career conducive to parenting/family life.

⁹This variable approaches but does not meet accepted levels of significance (p < .05).

¹⁰“Thinking about your current school (or, in case you are not teaching, the school where you last taught), use the following scale to indicate to what extent you agree or disagree with each of the following statements.”