The Trilemma of Teacher Retention

Economists are big fans of trilemmas. One example is Dani Rodrik’s ‘inescapable trilemma of the world economy’, whereby Rodrik argues that ‘democracy, national sovereignty and global economic integration are mutually incompatible: we can combine any two of the three, but never have all three simultaneously and in full.’

I’ve been wondering whether we can think about teacher retention in similar terms. It strikes me that socio-economic goals, teacher autonomy, and liberal values are also mutually incompatible. Briefly, I’ll attempt to explain why.

Competing goods

My argument is based on three competing goods, chosen because they represent the three main reasons people go into teaching:

• Socio-economic goals — improving the life chances of students.
• Liberal values — sharing a love of the subject for its own sake.
• Teacher autonomy — doing a job you enjoy and that you’re good at.

The problem is, these goods may not all be achievable in one school. For example, a teacher motivated by a wish to improve the life chances of their students is likely to work towards securing them the very best exam results possible. Yet any school aiming to improve their exam results must be strategic. They must choose which students to target for intervention; allocate time between subjects; decide how to spend pupil premium money; and so on.

All this requires increased centralisation. A school in which teachers were supporting students individually and in an ad hoc fashion would be unlikely to maximise pupil progress. This evidently places socio-economic goals in tension with teacher autonomy. The more teachers are asked to follow a centrally planned strategy, the less freedom they have to prepare students exactly as they see fit.

Likewise, a focus on socio-economic goals leads by definition to an instrumental view of education: if you work hard in this subject then you’re likely to get a better paid job in the future. This means that schools seeking to maximise pupils’ exam scores must inevitably sacrifice at least some of their liberal values.

Balancing goods

In the early years of the coalition government, when Michael Wilshaw was in charge of Ofsted, a number of schools came to prominence advocating a back-to-basics approach. This involved tackling behaviour in order to improve outcomes. Leaders of such schools weren’t too prescriptive about pedagogy: teachers were allowed to teach pretty much as they pleased in the classroom, albeit with a restricted view of curriculum (the exam specification) and some fairly onerous assessment policies.

While this approach purported to offer a balance between socio-economic goals and teacher autonomy, it was based on the instrumental view of education described above. Liberal values were not welcome in these schools (having worked in one, I know this from experience). This had a stifling effect on teachers whose primary motivation was love of the subject, compelling many of them to leave.

The current vogue in schooling is for ‘traditional’ or ‘knowledge-rich’ approaches. Schools following this approach seek to balance socio-economic goals with liberal values, broadening the curriculum to offer students a rich academic experience. To support these goals, such schools typically use research from cognitive psychology to inform their pedagogy and assessment practices.

While this has marked a profound (and welcome) shift away from the ‘exam factory’ schooling of the Wilshaw years, there has undoubtedly been a loss of teacher autonomy as a consequence. Rosenshine’s principles of instruction; Doug Lemov’s TLAC techniques; retrieval practice, interleaving and dual coding: ideas like these have all narrowed the scope of what is permissible in the classroom.

Many teachers find this style of schooling overly prescriptive. Just as teachers who love their subject are likely to feel stifled at the first kind of school, a teacher who is good at their job and doesn’t like being told what to do is unlikely to stay at this second kind of school for long, regardless of how well their pupils do in exams.

Finally, there are many schools that seek to balance the two seemingly compatible goods: liberal values and teacher autonomy. Teachers are employed who love their subjects, and they are allowed to teach their classes in whichever way they feel is appropriate.

The problem with this approach is that the school is likely to lack a coherent vision. Good behaviour is difficult to maintain without consistent expectations being upheld. Strategic thinking around exam time is difficult to turn into reality, as described above. All this is likely to lead to worse outcomes in exams, whatever other benefits there are to such an approach. Consequently, any teacher motivated primarily by socio-economic goals is likely to become disillusioned fairly quickly.

A not-very-actionable conclusion

It’s an educational truism that nothing matters more than the quality of the teacher in the classroom. Such teachers are motivated by all three of the goods described above. While no school can achieve all three in full, the most successful ones are likely to be those who achieve a reasonable balance between them, because it is those schools who will retain their best staff.