Data visualizations that tell a story...
Teacher Development & Effectiveness
The “match” between a teacher’s student teaching experience and early-career experiences appears to matter for teaching effectiveness. As shown below, teachers tend to have higher “value added” (i.e., their students tend to score higher on standardized tests than we would predict) when their current school has similar student demographics as their student teaching school.
The inservice teacher who supervises a candidate’s student teaching placement (the “cooperating teacher”) also appears to be important for future teacher effectiveness. As shown below, teachers who had an effective cooperating teacher are about as effective as first-year teachers as teachers who had an average cooperating teacher are in their third year.
Source: Goldhaber, D., Krieg, J. M., & Theobald, R. (2017). Does the match matter? Exploring whether student teaching experiences affect teacher effectiveness. American Educational Research Journal, 54(2), 325-359.
Source: Goldhaber, D., Krieg, J., & Theobald, R. (2018). Effective Like Me? Does Having a More Productive Mentor Improve the Productivity of Mentees? CEDR Working Paper No. 11232018-1-1. University of Washington, Seattle, WA.
Teacher Recruitment & Hiring
Teachers tend to get hired near where they do their student teaching. But student teachers are not spread evenly throughout the state. As shown below, teachers are more likely to host student teachers in some areas of the state (particularly near large teacher education programs) than others.
The distribution of student teaching in the state may have implications for the ability of districts to recruit teachers. As shown below, areas of the state with that host fewer student teachers also tend to have more emergency substitute teachers than areas of the state that host more student teachers.
Source: Krieg, J., Goldhaber, D., & Theobald, R. (2018). Teacher candidate apprenticeships: Assessing the who and where of student teaching. CEDR Working Paper No. 11212018-1-1
Source: Data provided by Washington State Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction, Teacher Credentialing Office.
Teacher Shortages
Data on teacher candidates from Washington show a substantial mismatch between the supply and demand for teachers with different endorsements in the state. As shown below, in a typical year, far more candidates graduate with endorsements in elementary education than leave the workforce, while more teachers leave the workforce in STEM and (in some years) special education than there are candidates to replace them.
These differences in supply and demand have important implications for the entry of different kinds of teacher candidates into the state’s teaching workforce. As shown below, candidates with endorsements to teach STEM or special education are much more likely to become public school teachers in Washington than candidates with only an endorsement to teach elementary education.
Source: Goldhaber, D., Krieg, J., Theobald, R., & Brown, N. (2015). Refueling the STEM and special education teacher pipelines. Phi Delta Kappan, 97(4), 56-62.
Source: Goldhaber, D., Krieg, J., Theobald, R., & Brown, N. (2015). Refueling the STEM and special education teacher pipelines. Phi Delta Kappan, 97(4), 56-62.
Teacher Workforce Diversity
The student body in Washington public schools is considerably more diverse than the state’s teaching workforce. As shown below, there are about five times as many students of color as teachers of color in the state, and the gap has grown considerably over time.
We have found that candidates of color are less likely to enter the state’s teacher workforce than white candidates, though we don’t know whether this reflects the preferences of candidates or school systems.
Source: Goldhaber, D., Theobald, R., & Tien, C. (2018). Educator and Student Diversity in Washington State: Gaps and Historical Trends. The Washington Educational Research Association Education Journal, 10(2), p. 3-9.
Source: Goldhaber, D., Krieg, J., & Theobald, R. (2014). Knocking on the door to the teaching profession? Modeling the entry of prospective teachers into the workforce. Economics of Education Review, 42, pp. 106-124.