L. Marlow, D. Inman, Maria Betancourt-Smith
Mar 1, 1997
Citations
5
Influential Citations
45
Citations
Journal
The Clearing House
Abstract
Continuing concern in the education field is centered on the disproportionately higher resignation rate for beginning teachers than for teachers who have been teaching for more than ten years. As many as 40 percent of beginning teachers resign during their first two years of teaching (Sclan 1993; see also Futrell 1989; Gunderson and Karge 1992; Karge 1993; Haselkorn 1994). Beginning teachers' reasons for leaving have less to do with insufficient salaries, as one might suppose, than with a lack of professionalism, collegiality, and administrative support (Metropolitan Life 1986; Karge 1993). The beginning teacher finds himor herself in a precarious position. Entering the classroom for the first time can produce a kind of reality shock, and new teachers often mistake the uneasiness they feel as an indication that they have made a mistake in their choice of profession (Grismer 1993). In addition, today's new (and veteran) teachers face a variety of challenging classroom conditions, including multilingual populations, inclusion of students with disabilities in the regular classroom, and large classes. They also must have knowledge and skills in many diverse areas, such as portfolio assessment, technology, cooperative learning, and whole language. These new educational conditions, goals, and reforms compound what is already a complex professional challenge (Haselkorn 1993). New teachers compare their working conditions with those of other teaching and nonteaching jobs, and they evaluate their expectations about teaching against the realities of the classroom (Arnold 1993). If they find that an adequate support system is not available to them, many new teachers will look for it elsewhere. Our purpose in this study