Why Teachers Stay: 24 Educators on Pay and Purpose
At the end of the school year, we asked every teacher in our pilot program to tell us how it went. Twenty-four responded. The results told us what is working and exactly what teachers want more of.
What keeps teachers in the classroom?
We asked participants to select up to three factors that most influence their decision to stay at their school. The ranking:
| Factor | Share of respondents |
|---|---|
| Students | 79.2% |
| Colleagues | 62.5% |
| Administrative support | 54.2% |
| Pay | 41.7% |
Teachers selected up to 3 factors, so totals exceed 100%. n=24
Students came first, by a wide margin. Pay came last.
Anyone who has taught, or been married to a teacher, or been raised by one, already knew that. But it is worth stating plainly, because it is the premise our entire model rests on.
Teachers are not in it for the money
Eighteen of the twenty-four teachers in our survey have been in the profession eleven years or more. They teach math, reading, science, special education, and early intervention from the elementary grades through eighth grade. They have taught through underfunded budgets, staffing shortages, and years nobody wants to relive.
They keep coming back for the kids.
Here is the problem with that, and it is the reason our organization exists. When people stay in a profession for reasons other than compensation, the system tends to treat their commitment as a resource it can draw on indefinitely. It quietly assumes that dedication will cover whatever the paycheck does not.
So teachers take second jobs. They tutor on nights and weekends. They buy their own classroom materials.
One teacher in our survey described working in a district where there was no classroom budget at all. She bought the books her curriculum required, driving thirty minutes each way to a bookstore every week to pick up the following week's text for her students. She left that district after three years.
That cost doesn't disappear. Teachers pay for it not only out of their own pockets, but also with their time and attention, and ultimately, it's their students who pay the price.
What the supplement did
The measurable effects were on capacity and recognition:
| Measure | Result |
|---|---|
| Positive impact on work life | 92% |
| Reduced financial stress | 88% |
| Felt more valued and recognized | 96% |
| Said the program should continue | 100% |
Removing financial weight from a teacher returns instructional capacity to the classroom. A teacher who is not calculating how to cover the gap has more of herself available for the students in front of her, and that is the outcome we fund.
In our in-person session with teachers, a major theme that kept surfacing was that the program made them feel supported and recognized. They felt that someone actually cared about their well-being.
What they did with the money tracked closely with what they told us about the job. Several spent it on classroom supplies and snacks for their students. One put it toward her mortgage and said it made her feel she had a little more control over her finances. One teacher said the extra income meant the supplies he buys for his classroom were finally covered.
Does a salary supplement improve teacher retention?
The honest answer from our first year is that these teachers would have stayed regardless.
We asked how much the supplement influenced each teacher's decision to keep teaching at their school. Sixteen of twenty-four said it mattered a little or not at all. Five said it mattered a moderate amount. Two said it weighed heavily, and one told us it was the deciding factor for her. In a related question (Without the supplement, how likely would you have been to leave this school?), seventeen said they would have been unlikely to leave without it.
Scale matters to how you read that. Our first-year supplement was $1,000 per teacher. That is real money, and teachers told us it made a difference in their households, but it is not the kind of figure that changes someone's career decision. Our long-term target is $10,000 per teacher per year, and a supplement at that level is an entirely different instrument.
One teacher put it into concrete terms in our in-person session. She currently tutors to augment her income, and a $10,000 supplement would let her stop.
The rest of the survey's financial findings point in the same direction. These are veteran educators anchored by their students and their colleagues, and a $1,000 supplement was never going to buy a commitment they already had. As one teacher said in the session, the supplement is a morale booster, but nobody would stay in a bad environment for $1,000.
What changed was their sense of being supported. Teachers told us the money made them feel recognized by their administration and by people outside the building who had no obligation to notice (they were referring to us, The Educator Fund). That matters on its own, and it compounds. Financial pressure and feeling unseen both take a teacher's attention, and attention is the resource a classroom actually runs on.
What teachers asked for next
Two requests came through clearly, and both are about scale.
The first is reach. Six teachers used that question to ask us to include more people: K-2 teachers, instructional assistants, and support staff. Two others raised it unprompted elsewhere in the survey. One wrote that she wishes her colleagues had the same opportunity. The in-person session sharpened that request into a priority order. Teachers pointed first to elementary instructional assistants, who are directly involved in instruction in those grades, and to teachers in the youngest grades, who build the academic foundation on which everything else rests.
The second is size. Four teachers asked for a larger supplement. One put the case for it directly, telling us that the current amount is not yet sufficient to achieve the full impact we are aiming for, while noting that the support is genuinely appreciated.
She is right about where we are. A program in its first year of funding is working at pilot scale, and pilot scale is a starting point, not a destination. Growing the amount and growing the roster are the same problem: A funding problem.
What worked operationally
Three parts of the program scored near-perfect across the board:
How clearly it was communicated
How easy the supplement was to receive
Whether it arrived when we said it would
Twenty-four of twenty-four teachers gave a perfect score on how easily the supplement was received and whether it arrived on the expected timeline. Twenty-three of twenty-four said the program was clearly communicated.
That is by design. Funds move through the school's existing payroll system, so no participant applies for anything, fills out a form, or follows up on a missing payment. Teachers already carry hours of unpaid administrative work. A support program that adds to that pile is not support.
When we asked the group in person whether anything about the program had surprised them, they said that receiving money without having to do any work to get it was a genuinely unfamiliar experience. That is a low bar, and it says something about how most programs reach teachers.
One teacher noted that the funds arrived during two months when she does not run her usual tutoring, which meant the timing mattered as much as the amount.
Where this leaves us
The model works. Teachers receive the money easily, on schedule, with no added paperwork, and they report real effects on their financial stress and their sense of being valued. Every single participant wants it to continue.
What they want next is more of it, for more of them.
That is the clearest possible instruction, and there is exactly one way to follow it. Every dollar raised expands the roster and increases the amount, and every educator added is another classroom where a teacher operates at full capacity.
If you would like to support our efforts, please feel free to get involved. And if you really want to help drive change, donations are a great way to do so!
