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Turnover in Principalship Focus of Research

On good days, Jamie Gillespie loves her job as a high school principal in Edenton, N.C. On bad days, she contemplates switching careers.

Ms. Gillespie has been a principal for six years: one year at Edenton’s John A. Holmes High School and five years previously in Evansville, Wis. New research suggests that she may be one of the survivors in her profession.

Data available from a handful of states suggest that only about half of beginning principals remain in the same job five years later, and that many leave the principalship...