Many school districts experience difficulties attracting and retaining teachers, and schools in urban areas serving economically disadvantaged and minority students appear particularly vulnerable to these problems. This paper investigates factors that affect the probabilities that teachers will switch schools or exit the public schools entirely. Researchers used matched student/teacher panel data on Texas public elementary schools to gain a better understanding of the effects of salary and other school factors on teacher transitions. These data permitted a detailed description of student demographic and school characteristics and pre- and post-move comparisons for teachers who switched schools within Texas or left the Texas public schools. Teachers were divided by experience, school community type, ethnicity and other factors so researchers could examine differences in the responsiveness to salary and student characteristics on the basis of teacher experience, race, and ethnicity. Results indicate that teacher mobility is much more strongly related to characteristics of students, particularly race and achievement, than to salary, although salary exerts a modest impact once compensating differentials are taken into account. Non-black, non Hispanic teachers systematically prefer non-black, non-Hispanic students, while the opposite is true for black and Hispanic teachers. (Contains 56 references.) (SM)