Poor data shadows pandemic principal attrition rate challenges |
Evolving data suggests that principal attrition rates during the pandemic paint a complex picture further blurred by challenges around data availability. A new review of pandemic-era data on principals in Nebraska, Texas, and Pennsylvania from 2014 to 2022, found that principal attrition fell in 2020-21, the first full school year of the pandemic, and rose the following year. The increase was not necessarily higher than in pre-pandemic years however, according to Edward Fuller, an associate professor of education at Penn State University and Andrew Pendola, an associate professor at Auburn University, in Alabama. Of the three states they studied, only Texas' principal attrition rate was higher in the 2021-22 school year than in the years immediately preceding the pandemic. The data also show differences in attrition among the type of schools that principals led and whether they were located in cities or rural areas. Rates varied by school level too. In Texas, all three levels—elementary, middle and high school—followed the same pattern of declining in the first full pandemic year and increasing the second year. In Pennsylvania, the reduction showed up at all levels that first year but was more pronounced in elementary and middle schools. In the 2021-22 school year, however, attrition rose at all levels, with the highest increase, a 2.2 percentage point jump, in high schools. Rates also varied by school location. In Texas, principal attrition rates fell for all locations—city, town, rural, suburban—in 2020-21, but the increases were highest the following year in schools in the suburbs and in towns. Though principal attrition rates in cities were higher than in town, rural, and suburban schools in Pennsylvania, they generally held steady during the pandemic. Notably, while states have administrative data that give a window into principals' movement in the pandemic years, they're not readily available to the public, and national data on principal turnover and attrition from the U.S. Department of Education's National Center for Education Statistics won't be published until the fall. Frustratingly therefore, the education community can't get critical insights into what's happening in schools or make nuanced decisions about how to address the challenges without knowing the depth of the principal churn.