SD Rates Middlingly in Teacher Attractiveness, Has High Teacher Turnover

Our teachers are plenty handsome, but…

South Dakota is less attractive to teachers than any of its neighboring states except for one—Minnesota! So said the Learning Policy Institute in 2024:

LPI’s complicated distillation of teacher pay, working conditions, school resources, turnover and hiring, qualifications, and (don’t tell Trump!) equity produces a rating of 3.2 out of 5 for South Dakota, just ahead of Minnesota’s 3.1. Best in the region and tied with New Hampshire for best in the nation are North Dakota and Wyoming at 3.8. The least attractive state for teachers is Florida at 1.7 (probably even lower now that Floridians have the lowest flu shot rate in the country and plans to get rid of childhood vaccine requirements).

This map and other data popped up in a consultants’ pitch to Senate Education yesterday morning. Consultant firm Vital Network told Senate Ed that they can help South Dakota address its high teacher turnover rate:

“Almost 10% of your educators leaving in a given year is alarming, but I think also something that we can address,” Vital Network CEO Nathan Eklund told the committee.

According to a study by the consulting group, more than 1,000 South Dakota teachers– nearly 10%– left their jobs last year. Most were employed by another school district in the state, but 17% left education altogether, 16% retired, 15% relocated and 5% were employed by out of state school districts [Gracie Terrall, “10% of South Dakota Teachers Left Their Job Last Year,” KELO-TV, 2026.01.15].

To my surprise but perhaps to the relief of K-12-budget-flatlining Governor Rhoden, Vital Network says pay drives turnover less than working conditions do:

However, Erin Robb, chief strategy and impact officer at Vital, said from its research in North Dakota, teachers who left teaching were going to jobs with lower salaries, but other benefits outweighed the pay.

“Sixty six percent of teachers who left the profession said work-life balance was better,” she said. “Almost 60% of teachers who left said their workload was more manageable in a new job, and that teachers with unsupportive administrators, they’re more than twice as likely to leave their school” [Terrall, 2026.01.15].

But the Learning Policy Institute says you can’t leave teacher pay out of your recruitment and retention strategies:

Another recent analysis found that teachers are three times as likely as all workers in the U.S. to report having multiple jobs. These challenging conditions are prompting policymakers in Mississippi, New Mexico, and elsewhere to raise teacher compensation as one of many important strategies to build a strong and diverse teacher workforce. Raising teacher pay both addresses the immediate crisis and can help to stabilize the profession for the long term. As Antonio Castanon Luna, the Executive Director of the Mississippi Association of Educators, described his state’s pay increase, “It’s an investment in the future of Mississippi…. We will be able to recruit teachers to our classrooms now and for years to come” [Susan Kemper Patrick and Desiree Carver-Thomas, “Teacher Salaries: A Key Factor in Recruitment and Retention,” Learning Policy Institute, 2022.04.14].

Research from the University of Washington agrees—raise teacher pay, lower turnover:

Pay bumps appeared to significantly reduce teacher turnover in all districts—between 3 and 5 percentage points—in the first year after treatment. Effects were especially strong for teachers with eight years of service or above. Hiring patterns showed largely null effects, except for a small but statistically-significant increase of .08 percentage points in hiring of so-called “junior teachers” (those with 4 to 7 years of experience) for every $1,000 increase in base salary post-treatment [Jeff Murray, “Teacher Pay Increases and Their Impacts on Salary Level, Hiring, and Turnover,” Thomas B Fordham Institute, 2024.01.16].

I don’t have specific data handy, but I’m pretty sure that increasing teacher pay will retain more teachers than raising consultant pay.