Despite enacting well-intentioned policies to improve teacher recruitment and retention, many states continue to face significant staffing challenges, particularly in high-need schools and hard-to-staff subjects such as math, science, and special education. Two years ago, the National Council on Teacher Quality (NCTQ) set out to explore the…

Texas reduced new teacher preparation requirements in 2001 to allow more alternate paths to licensure. Within 5 years, this policy change resulted in more than half of the state's new teachers being alternatively licensed. Using a series of first difference models, this study examines the relationship between the increased supply of new teachers…

News headlines across the country continue to include policy updates, new strategies, and other information relating to the continuing teacher shortage in the United States. School-based agricultural education is not immune to the teacher shortage. Agriculture teacher shortages have been documented for more than a century. Extensive research has…

Texas reduced new teacher preparation requirements in 2001 to allow more alternate paths to licensure. Within five years, this policy change resulted in over half the state's new teachers being alternatively licensed. Using a series of first difference models, this study examines the relationship between the increased supply of new teachers in…

The current supply of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) teachers in the teacher labor market is not meeting the demand required by schools and districts needing highly qualified STEM teachers to fill vacancies. The study in this policy brief addresses the potential factors contributing to math and science teacher turnover to…

Strengthening teacher supply is a key policy objective for K-12 public education, but understanding of the early teacher pipeline remains limited. In this descriptive analysis, we leverage the universe of applications to a large public university in Texas from 2009 to 2020 to examine the pipeline into teacher education and employment as a K-12…

This study investigates whether a principal's likelihood of hiring a teacher of color is sensitive to the racial composition of students in the school. We used an administrative dataset from Texas including 59,157 principal observations and 662,997 teacher observations spanning 2000-2017 to consider whether or not the disappearing diversity in a…

Strengthening teacher supply is a key policy objective for K-12 public education, but understanding of the early teacher pipeline remains limited. We leverage the universe of applications to a large public university in Texas from 2009-2020 to examine the pipeline into teacher education and employment as a K-12 public school teacher. A unique…

Studies show that historically underserved students are disproportionately assigned to less qualified and effective teachers, leading to a "teacher quality gap." Past analyses decompose this gap to determine whether inequitable access is driven by teacher and student sorting across and within schools. These sorting mechanisms have…

While there is a robust literature examining the patterns and causes of teacher turnover, few articles to date have critically examined the measures of turnover used in these studies. Yet, an assessment of the way turnover is measured is important, as the measures become the means by which the "problem" of turnover becomes defined and…

The need for teachers across the United States is anticipated to increase as a result of turnover. Student enrollment within Texas continues to grow, requiring an additional supply of teachers beyond those needed to replace departing educators. Whether assuming a vacated position or accepting a new one, many of these teachers will be new to the…

Research shows that teachers affect student learning more than any other factor. The Educator Effectiveness Research Alliance, a collaborative partnership of educators, policymakers, and researchers, seeks to improve educator quality through research and analytic technical support. Initially focused on Texas, the alliance has expanded to include…

Districts across the country are facing severe shortages of teachers--especially in certain subjects (math, science, special education, career and technical education, and bilingual education) and in specific schools (urban, rural, high-poverty, high-minority, and low-achieving). The severity of the teacher shortage problem varies significantly by…

This brief is the first in a series of reports examining the teacher shortage dilemma. It considers what the research says about teacher shortages and highlights recent state task force findings. Designed to guide state leaders in policy decisions, the briefs that follow examine five strategies states are using to address shortages: (1)…

In Texas, and some other states, there is a documented shortage of physics teachers, in terms of both number and qualifications. The shortage in Texas is due as much to teachers leaving the field (attrition) as to a lack of teachers entering. There are efforts under way to prepare more and better-qualified physics teachers who will stay in the…