Teachers are leaving the profession at an alarming rate. Beginning teachers are one of the largest groups of teachers to leave the profession every year. This paper examines the common internal and external conflicts that first-year teachers struggle with in order to create their teaching identity and how that affects their retention. Through the analysis of educational experts and their evidence-based research, the conflicts of new teachers have been collected and analyzed to determine the reasons why new teachers are not staying in the profession. Conclusions are drawn regarding how education teachers, district/school officials, and political officials can make changes so that first-year teachers will remain in the teaching profession
