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Tools & Playbooks


Interactive Tool
Let’s Talk: Starting a Conversation About Teacher Turnover
Interactive Tool
| High teacher turnover undermines student achievement, and replacing teachers consumes valuable staff time and resources. This tool can be used to estimate the cost of teacher turnover in a school or district and to inform local conversations about how to attract, support, and retain a high-quality teacher workforce.
Interactive Tool
Person working at laptop screen with interactive map
Interactive Tool
| What does the data say about teacher working conditions in each state? This interactive map rates each state on how attractive and equitable the teaching workforce is compared to the national average. The tool also includes indicators of teacher supply and demand, such as teacher turnover and expected student population growth.
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Empty classroom with a chalkboard and teacher's desk.
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| An estimated 400,000-plus teaching positions in the United States are either unfilled or filled by teachers not fully certified for their assignments, based on the most recent state-reported data. Because of variations in state policies, the severity of shortages and access to well-qualified teachers differs greatly from state to state.
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A teacher helping a student with an assignment in a classroom.
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| Student access to high-quality learning should not be predetermined by race, yet racial disparities in education persist. The State Handbook for Advancing Racial Equity offers a framework that state education leaders and policymakers can use to assess and advance racial equity in education through state-level strategies.
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Empty classroom with a chalkboard and teacher's desk.
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| A review of reports on the teacher workforce and state agency documents covering the 2020-21 or 2021-22 school years found that, at a minimum, there were 314,134 teaching positions either left unfilled or filled by teachers not fully certified for the subject matter they were teaching.
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Rainbow colored abacus interspersed with dollar bills
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| The tool is designed to cost out the elements needed to establish a community school relative to a typical public school, guiding users through several steps to help them estimate costs. The tool was designed with input from national and local community school practitioners, researchers, and policymakers.
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RCA logo
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| Performance assessments provide students with authentic ways to demonstrate learning, cultivate academic knowledge and 21st-century skills, and prepare for college-level work. School, district, and network leaders should use quality criteria to examine their performance-based assessment policies and structures to foster deeper learning for all students.
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| Because performance assessments surface examples of how students use their academic and nonacademic learning in authentic situations, they can help admission officers at higher education institutions more fully understand applicants. But a college’s abilities to effectively use reliable evidence of student learning in the admission process depends on how they frame the “ask” for these materials.
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Woman speaking with other adults in group setting
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| The Districts Advancing Racial Equity tool provides a practical and accessible resource for understanding, assessing, and advancing racial equity within school districts. The tool captures research-informed, high-leverage aspects of schooling that school leaders can use to create systems that build on the strengths of and respond to the needs of students of color.
Interactive Tool
Map of California school districts
Interactive Tool
| How are California school districts and counties impacted by the state’s persistent teacher shortages? An interactive map enables policymakers, advocates, parents, caregivers, and others to answer that question by exploring data in critical areas, such as the percentage of teachers on substandard credentials, the share of beginning teachers, and the rates of teacher turnover—a critical factor driving shortages.