The State of the Teacher Workforce

A State-by-State Analysis of the Factors Influencing Teacher Shortages, Supply, Demand, and Equity

PUBLISHED JULY 27, 2023

This map highlights key factors available from national data that reflect and influence the supply and demand for teachers in each state, including conditions of teachers’ work and equitable access to qualified teachers. Many of these factors describe the appeal of the teaching profession in a given state and help to signal whether states are likely to have an adequate supply of qualified teachers to fill their classrooms. Others describe the extent to which students in different contexts have access to qualified teachers.

Based on a broad set of individual indicators of the teaching workforce, each state is assigned the two following ratings:

  • Teaching attractiveness rating: This rating builds on measures of teacher compensation, working conditions, school resources, qualifications, and teacher turnover to indicate how supportive each state appears to be of teacher recruitment and retention. Ratings are on a 1-5 scale, with 1 (the lightest color) being the least attractive and 5 (the darkest color) being the most attractive.
  • Teacher equity rating: This rating indicates the extent to which students have equitable access to a well-qualified teaching workforce within a given state based on school composition of student race/ethnicity and family income. Ratings are on a 1-5 scale, with 1 (the lightest color) being the least equitable and 5 (the darkest color) being the most equitable.

The map below displays these ratings, along with the individual indicators included in each rating. Beyond these mapped indicators, the table below summarizes additional factors influencing teacher supply and demand, including information about the teacher pipeline, current teacher workforce, student enrollment, and teacher financial strain.

 

 

The data are drawn from national data sources, representing the most recent data available for analysis as of April 2023. Interpretations of the data should keep in mind that the sources for various statistics represent different academic years (ranging mainly from 2017–18 to 2021–22). Some states may have recently experienced changes in policies or conditions which would change the statistic reported if it were collected today. In addition, some indicators are estimated based on a sample of teachers and, in some cases, sample sizes are relatively small. We follow the National Center for Education Statistics guidelines for reporting and note any estimates that should be interpreted with caution.

Complete notes and source information are available at https://learningpolicyinstitute.org/state-of-teacher-workforce-notes-sources. Last updated April 2023.

Suggested citation: Learning Policy Institute. (2023). The state of the teacher workforce: A state-by-state analysis of the factors influencing teacher shortages, supply, demand, and equity [Interactive map]. https://learningpolicyinstitute.org/product/state-of-teacher-workforce-interactive