Teacher Turnover, Student Proficiency, and Economic Mobility: The Case of Forsyth County, NC Elementary Schools

Headnote

Forsyth County, North Carolina has the third lowest rate of upward economic mobility of any other county in the United States. One of the strongest correlates of upward mobility is the quality of schools in the local system. Using 2018 and 2017 NC Public School Report Card (SRC) data for Forsyth County elementary schools, I find that the annual rate of teacher turnover is a significant predictor of student profidency levels. Schools where the majority of students test at profident levels tend to have lower teacher turnover, holding constant other important factors. Schools with high turnover disproportionately serve economically disadvantaged children. Redudng turnover can improve student outcomes in elementary school, espedally for those students who come from underprivileged families. I argue that the Forsyth County school system can assist in reversing low mobility rates by targeting teacher turnover, espedally in low-performing schools.

Keywords: Forsyth County, economic mobility, student performance, teacher turnover

Introduction

Since the early 1940s, economic mobility rates in the United States (US) have been steadily declining (Chetty, Grusky, Heh, Hendren, Manduca, and Narang, 2017). Chetty et al. (2017) estimate that during the 1940s, over 90 percent of all domestic-born children reached higher income levels than their parents. By the 1980s, however, only 50 percent of children achieved this (Chetty et al., 2017). Chetty, Hendren, Kline, and Saez (2014) find that mobility rates vary significandy across the country, by county and even census tract. In their study, Forsyth County, North Carolina is identified as having the third lowest rate of upward mobility among all US counties (Chetty et al., 2014). Within this county, a child bom to parents in the bottom quantile of the income distribution has less than a 5 percent chance of reaching the top quantile as an adult (Chetty, et al., 2014). This is a surprising finding, considering Forsyth County is home to a thriving city (Winston-Salem), well-respected higher education institutions (i.e. Winston-Salem State University, Wake Forest University, Forsyth Technical Community College), and many innovative organizations. Researchers have taken notice, with recent studies focusing on the local factors that may have contributed to the county's predicament, ranging from transportation quality to spatial mismatch (Richardson, 2019; Madjd-Sadjadi and Zeoli, 2019).

According to Chetty et al. (2014), five factors are the most...