全球智库信息集成服务系统

Authors’ note: CAP uses “Black” and “African American” interchangeably throughout many of our products. We chose to capitalize “Black” in order to reflect that we are discussing a group of people and to be consistent with the capitalization of “African American.”

The state of the teaching profession is an urgent topic for policymakers and the public, especially against the backdrop of increased teacher strikes and walkouts across the country in the past two years.¹ Teacher salaries are far too low, which has led many teachers to work second jobs or qualify for public assistance programs such as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP).² For the first time in years, a majority of parents surveyed by PDK International in 2018 said that they do not want their children to become teachers.³ Due to low salaries, difficult working conditions, and a lack of career pathway opportunities, the teaching profession as a whole cannot compare with other high-status professions such as medicine and law.⁴

Even as teacher wages stagnate and state investment in education declines, teachers are being asked to do more than ever—and enrollment in teacher preparation programs is decreasing significantly nationwide.⁵ This decline has spurred discussion among policy experts about how policymakers should address this issue and whether the decline in enrollment has already or will likely lead to national teacher shortages.⁶

So far, the conversation on falling teacher enrollment has focused largely on this second issue. However, little is known about why enrollment is declining; whether certain groups of students have been shying away from enrollment in preparation programs more than others; and whether the decline is worse in certain subject areas, geographic areas, or types of programs. This lack of detailed information prevents policymakers from developing targeted, effective solutions and could result in a misplaced focus on certain aspects of the problem that ignores more pressing issues.

What is known is that since 2010, total enrollment nationwide in teacher preparation programs has declined by more than one-third; this decline has occurred in the context of increasing enrollment in bachelor’s degree programs nationwide over the same time period.⁷ This means that across the country, approximately 340,000 fewer students elected to enroll in teacher preparation programs in the 2016-17 academic year—the latest year for which data are available—compared with the number of students who enrolled in 2008-09.⁸ Similarly, there was a 28 percent decline in the number of students completing teacher preparation programs in the same years.

However, these national figures tell a limited story. Teacher labor markets are hyperlocal, with most teachers choosing to work within 15 miles of their hometowns.⁹ By examining state-by-state and even institution-by-institution information, policymakers can go beyond top-line national numbers to learn more about the trends in enrollment in each state. As Congress considers reauthorizing the Higher Education Act (HEA) in the coming months, policymakers should add reporting requirements that would enable them to better understand declining enrollment in preparation programs and teacher labor markets more broadly.

This report provides a deeper analysis of those enrolled in and completing teacher preparation programs in the hopes that this new information will help policymakers both create policy and understand areas where further information is needed in order to make informed decisions. This deeper analysis includes information on aspects of teacher preparation program enrollment and completion that are particularly relevant to policymakers, such as racial and ethnic diversity of students, gender diversity of students, and the subjects in which students seek certification.

Many policymakers are currently interested in increasing the racial diversity of the teaching profession, which is important for all students but particularly students of color.¹⁰ Currently, 80 percent of K-12 teachers in the United States identify as non-Hispanic white; 9 percent identify as Hispanic; 7 percent identify as non-Hispanic Black; and 2 percent identify as non-Hispanic Asian.¹¹ The teacher workforce is less racially diverse than the overall U.S. labor force, which is 78 percent white, 13 percent Black, 17 percent Hispanic or Latino of any race, and 6 percent Asian.¹²

Research demonstrates that Black students taught by same-race teachers experience benefits as far-reaching as improved academic achievement, greater educational attainment, and higher academic aspirations. Although there is less research on the benefits of same-race teachers for Latinx students due to small sample size, there is reason to believe that the same effect would hold true.¹³ Likewise, it is important for all students, not just students of color, to see racially diverse teachers in leadership roles in their schools. Yet previous research estimated that 40 percent of schools in the United States do not have any teachers of color on staff.¹⁴ More recent data suggest that teachers of color remain more likely to teach in urban schools and in schools where a greater percentage of students are eligible for free or reduced-price lunch.¹⁵

A less-researched aspect of diversity in the teaching profession is gender diversity. The teacher workforce is majority female, at 77 percent.¹⁶ This dearth of male educators has consequences for both teachers and students. Research shows that when women represent the majority in a profession or field, overall pay declines;¹⁷ historian Dana Goldstein documented this process in detail for the teaching profession in her book The Teacher Wars.¹⁸ While claims of a crisis in boys’ education may be overblown,¹⁹ having both male and female teachers is likely good for students for many of the same reasons that they benefit from a racially and ethnically diverse teacher workforce. Many Black male educators, who comprise only 2 percent of the K-12 teaching force, have written compellingly about the importance of increasing their numbers in the profession.²⁰

In addition to encouraging a more diverse teaching profession, policymakers should also address teacher shortages. While there is some debate and skepticism about reports of a national teacher shortage²¹—the United States may even graduate too many teachers in certain fields, such as elementary education²²—there are demonstrable and persistent teacher shortages across the country in high-demand fields and subjects.²³ These areas include science, math, special education, and English-language learners.²⁴ If the overall decline in interest in preparation programs hides an even steeper decline of teachers who are interested in these high-need subjects and fields, it is critical that policymakers target solutions to address the issue.

Another aspect of this analysis that will interest policymakers is the author’s finding that there are several large teacher preparation programs that are part of the for-profit sector, including those not affiliated with IHEs—a type of program that has seen explosive growth in recent years. For many years, the broader for-profit higher education sector has been the subject of intense scrutiny as a result of poor student outcomes and deceptive practices.²⁵ Students who attend these schools have high default rates,²⁶ are less likely to be employed, and have lower earnings than students who attend public institutions; this disparity in employment and earnings grows even larger for students who attend for-profit colleges that are largely online.²⁷ The HEA does not require programs to specify in their Title II reporting to the U.S. Department of Education whether a preparation program is part of a for-profit entity, so it is unclear how prevalent for-profit IHEs are in teacher preparation. However, the in-depth state profiles in a later section of this report show that for-profit programs that are not affiliated with an institution of higher education are large and growing quickly in some places.

This report provides a thorough and localized descriptive analysis of teacher preparation enrollment and completion trends and proposes that policymakers collect and analyze more data in order to pursue more targeted, informed policy solutions. The key findings of this analysis are as follows:

• Nationally, there were more than one-third fewer students enrolling in teacher preparation programs in 2018 than in 2010. Nearly every state in the nation has experienced declining enrollment in teacher preparation, with some states experiencing drastic declines of more than 50 percent.
• From 2010 through 2018, there was a 28 percent decline in students completing teacher preparation programs. Data on individuals completing teacher preparation programs reveal that from 2003 through 2013, there were more than 200,000 students completing teacher preparation programs; in 2018, however, fewer than 160,000 students completed such programs.
• Contrary to the overall decline in enrollment in other types of preparation programs, alternative preparation programs that are not based at IHEs experienced an increase of more than 40 percent in enrollment between 2010 and 2018. Increasing enrollment in this type of program drove a slight uptick in national enrollment between 2016 and 2018.
• Disaggregating enrollment data by race and ethnicity shows that one-quarter fewer Black and Latinx teacher candidates were enrolled in teacher preparation programs in 2018 than in 2010. Enrollment declined by more than half for those who identified as Native Hawaiians or Pacific Islanders and American Indian or Alaska Native.
• When looking at enrollment by gender, the national percentage declines in enrollment were similar for male and female candidates, although the decline was steeper for men in most states.
• Programs for subjects with persistent teacher shortages, such as science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) and special education, experienced declines in completion from 2012 to 2018. However, these declines were lower than the national decline in completers during the same time period. Notably, there was a 30 percent increase in completers who earned credentials for teaching English-language learners or bilingual education.
• At the national level, it remains difficult to estimate whether the total number of teacher preparation program completers is enough to fill the current need for new teachers. This is even more difficult to determine on a state-by-state basis due to the insufficient data currently collected.

These findings identify several specific and troubling trends that policymakers must address. They also demonstrate that there is still much to understand about certain aspects of teacher preparation programs. The final section of this report provides policy recommendations for the federal government and states on how to provide greater oversight of the non-IHE alternative certification sector and how to gather and report more data on teacher preparation programs and teacher labor markets. Specifically, policymakers should gather and report these data in the following ways:

• Through HEA Title II reporting, the federal government should disaggregate data for both enrollees and completers by race, ethnicity, and gender.
• Through HEA Title II reporting, the federal government should collect cohort graduation rates of teacher preparation programs.
• Through HEA Title II reporting, the federal government should collect information on whether programs are for profit and whether they are primarily online. These categories should be defined in a way that is consistent with other higher education data reporting.
• The federal government should expand data collection on additional indicators of teacher supply and demand.
• States should collect and report information on their teacher supply and demand with support from the federal government.
• States should approach the for-profit non-IHE alternative certification sector with appropriate skepticism and resist opening the floodgates to new, for-profit non-IHE alternative certification programs.
• States should use improved data collection to develop targeted solutions to improve teacher preparation and modernize and elevate the teaching profession.

Since the federal government began collecting relevant data in 2010, the overall trend of enrollment in teacher preparation programs has been a decline, with more than one-third fewer students enrolling in preparation programs in 2018 than in 2010. While there was a slight uptick in national enrollment in 2017 and 2018, the overall downward trend still dwarfs this recent bump. (see Figure 1)

Moreover, as later figures illustrate, the bump in enrollment in 2017 and 2018 was entirely due to an increase in enrollment in alternative certification programs not located within IHEs. While enrollment in traditional preparation programs has declined every year since 2012, alternative, non-IHE preparation programs increased their enrollment by more than 30,000 teacher candidates from 2016 to 2017—an increase of more than 50 percent in one year—and by an additional 4,700 students from 2017 to 2018.

Changes in the number of students completing teacher preparation programs are also an important data point to indicate the potential supply of new teachers. As shown in Figure 2, the decline in students completing teacher preparation programs is less drastic than the decline in enrollment but is still substantial at 28 percent.

Data on the number of students completing teacher preparation programs go back to 2001 and suggest that the recent decline may be due in part to an adjustment to several years in the early 2000s in which the number of completers was especially high. (see Figure 3) Unfortunately, data on enrollment are not available for this time period for comparison. Although the number of completers declined starting in 2008, it was not until 2014 that it reached the low experienced in 2001. For context, the number of bachelor’s degrees conferred in the United States rose consistently each year during this time period—from 1.2 million in the 1999-2000 academic year to nearly 2 million in 2016-17.³¹

Enrollment in teacher preparation programs has declined in nearly every state

The decline in students enrolling in preparation programs varies significantly by state. (see Figure 4) While the decline has been less drastic in some states, nine states have seen enrollment decline by 50 percent or more: Oklahoma at 80 percent, Michigan at 67 percent, Pennsylvania at 62 percent, Delaware at 61 percent, Illinois at 60 percent, Idaho at 55 percent, Indiana at 54 percent, New Mexico at 54 percent, and Rhode Island at 51 percent.

In nine states—New York, Pennsylvania, Illinois, California, Oklahoma, Michigan, Ohio, Indiana, and New Jersey—the decline in enrollees was more than 10,000 from 2010 to 2018. Many of the states with the largest absolute declines are among the most populous in the nation, but a few very populous states such as Texas and Florida are notably absent from this list.

The number of students completing teacher preparation programs has declined in nearly every state

Figure 5 shows that the trend for completers of teacher preparation programs looks much like that of enrollment, with most states experiencing a decline. However, the declines in completers are less drastic than the declines for enrollment. Only four states had a 50 percent or greater decline in the number of teacher preparation program completers from 2010 to 2018: Michigan at 54 percent, Oklahoma at 54 percent, Maine at 53 percent, and Illinois at 53 percent. The states with the largest absolute decline in completers were New York, Pennsylvania, California, and Illinois, which each lost more than 5,000 completers from 2010 to 2018. Virginia, Massachusetts, Nevada, Utah, North Dakota, and the District of Columbia were the only places where the number of students completing teacher preparation programs increased.

Traditional teacher preparation programs are experiencing the most consistent decline in enrollment of all program types

Each preparation program in this dataset is identified as traditional; alternative, IHE-based; or alternative, not IHE-based, as defined by the state in which it is located. Most teachers are prepared through traditional routes: In 2018, 77 percent of enrollment was in traditional teacher preparation programs. However, while these programs still enroll the majority of prospective teachers across the nation, non-IHE alternative certification programs have seen large enrollment growth.

Traditional teacher preparation programs are typically based at a postsecondary IHE, which can be public, nonprofit, or for profit. They often constitute a major or pathway that is part of a bachelor’s degree or master’s degree; less commonly, some programs offer students a five-year combined bachelor-master’s degree. Teachers who graduate from these programs do not start teaching until they have finished all of their certification requirements.³²

Alternative certification programs are typically designed to provide individuals who already have a bachelor’s degree with an alternative pathway to certification and licensure that does not require them to obtain another bachelor’s degree. In these programs, candidates begin teaching before completing all of their certification requirements. Alternative certification programs can be run by a postsecondary institution, delineated here as “alternative, IHE-based.” As with traditional preparation programs, these IHEs can be public, nonprofit, or for profit. Alternative, IHE-based programs will sometimes provide a master’s degree for program completion. Alternative programs can also be run by another type of nonprofit or for-profit organization, delineated here as “alternative, non-IHE.” Requirements such as length of time, coursework, and training for these programs can vary widely based on state laws for teacher licensure and the program’s design.³³

Overall numbers for each state, displayed in Figure 4, mask significant differences in enrollment trends among different types of programs. Though there were large variations by state, traditional teacher preparation programs experienced declining enrollment overall. However, the patterns for other types of programs were much more variable. Over the time period of the analysis—2010 to 2018—enrollment in traditional teacher preparation programs across the United States declined by 43 percent, but enrollment in non-IHE alternative certification programs saw a 42 percent increase. Alternative certification programs in IHEs saw their enrollment decline by 19 percent over the same time period. While many states do not have any programs in either of the alternative program categories, Figure 6 shows that there was high growth in these categories in a number of states that have them.

Because Figure 6 displays the percentage change in enrollment in three types of teacher preparation programs, some information is lost for states that had no enrollment in either type of alternative preparation program in 2010 but