School districts across the country are reporting difficulties in hiring high-quality teachers, and states are being asked to respond. However, without data on the extent, geographic spread, and specific content areas of the shortages, state leaders may be responding in generic ways that fail to adequately address the real challenges specific to their locale.
In order to understand what data states do have and how they’re presenting it to the public, we surveyed the landscape of how states track information on teacher supply and demand. The slide deck below presents our findings. It provides a roadmap for states that want to learn more about their specific teacher landscape and improve the pipeline of high-quality teachers into their schools.
Although this deck was not intended as a systematic overview of every state’s consideration of teacher supply and demand, it may serve as a launching point for state leaders to think creatively about what’s possible, both in terms of what data to collect and how to share it with the public. While each state operates within its own unique context, state leaders must take inventory of how many teachers are in their education pipelines, in what subjects those teachers are training, and whether those candidates are able to find and keep jobs related to their training.
Download the full slide deck here, or read it in the viewer below.
*Note: This slide deck has been adapted from a project in partnership with Advance Illinois. We thank them, and the Joyce Foundation, for their support in making these lessons public. Any errors are our own. The graphs and figures in the deck are pulled directly from state reports (with links in the appendix).
