Teachers who switch grades: negative effects

Research on teacher stability typically focuses on the extent to which teachers remain in the same school, district, or the teaching profession from one year to the next.

This study investigates another facet of stability—whether teachers remain in the grade they teach. Drawing on administrative data from a large district in California, the study find that high shares of teachers switch grades. Disproportionately, these are early career teachers who come from low-achieving or high-minority schools.

Teachers who switch grades leave schools at higher rates than their colleagues and exhibit lower impacts on their students’ achievement. For teachers who switch to a nonadjacent grade, these negative effects can wipe out any gains due to increased experience and can persist in the year after the switch occurs.