There were 150 undergraduate music majors with me in Theory I.

My graduating class was 9.

My student teaching cohort was 7.

Two of those who graduated with me were transfers from other universities.

How's *that* for retention problems?

And as for your "started with me" remark - of those 9 who graduated, two got undergraduate performance degrees.

Three (myself and one other band director, and one orchestra director) are still teaching. The other four dropped within five years.

The retention issue is real - but as I stated below, I believe it's largely due to the fact that we have TONS of people who graduate from college not knowing what the real world is like.

Too many graduate thinking teaching is going to be like rehearsing a college ensemble or their top high school band. They (by and large) were never in the second, third, or fourth ensembles (or higher in the really big schools). They don't know how to teach via drilling - they expect kids to go home and practice because that's what THEY did. And when they're confronted with the reality of bad attitudes, kids in band because their friends are, kids who can't play with good tone, they sink or swim based upon their own dedication to the TEACHING craft, not their MUSICAL one.

That, IMO, is where the retention issue really lies. Too many people graduate without knowing the reality of teaching - to say nothing of getting saddled with a Music Appreciation elective, or parents who insist their kid needs to play the drums in spite of no coordination whatsoever because "tuba is for the dumb fat kid (heard my fourth year teaching)" or the like.

They need to know what an ARD meeting looks like.

They need to learn about WICOR strategies and all the CRAP we deal with on a day to day basis in the classroom.

They need to know about the latest buzzwords, about things like CHAMPS, about PBIS, Cornell Notes, and all of the stuff that's NOT BAND that we all have to do on a DAILY basis.

And then, when they know about that, it's time to learn how to teach that seventeenth chair clarinet player whose reed is more lipstick than cane.

If we prepared teachers more for a WORST case scenario, and not so ivory-tower perfect world, retention would improve hundreds of percentage points. But no, we just keep hearing "my principal is crazy" and "it's too much time" and "too demanding" when the reality is, we need to learn how to manage all the other JUNK and just get back to the classroom and TEACH. And we need young teachers to learn to teach kids who DON'T KNOW HOW TO LEARN.