As more American teachers reach retirement age, new data suggest fewer teachers who generally have less preparation are ready to replace them.
The majority of U.S. teachers are prepared for the classroom via a traditional four-year college-based degree or certificate programs, generally including pedagogical and subject matter training as well as student teaching. But more teachers than ever enter the profession through alternative preparation programs, according to new national teacher-preparation data from the American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education, which represents university-based teacher training programs.
These alternative programs, often geared toward career changers, offer more condensed training, generally without student-teaching before a teacher becomes responsible for a classroom. While the alternative pipeline grows, it hasn’t made up for the loss of teachers earning full education degrees. Education colleges enrolled a third fewer would-be teachers in 2022-23 than they did a decade ago, and awarded 3% fewer bachelor’s degrees and 5% fewer master’s degrees than last year, AACTE found.
The data come with a caveat: Not everyone who earns a bachelor’s or master’s degree or certificate in education is, or becomes, a new teacher. More than 90% of the bachelor’s degrees AACTE tracked focused on instruction for particular grades, subjects, or student populations, and degree-holders include active classroom teachers looking to specialize. At the graduate levels, especially, many are expanding skills or seeking credentials to move up in their careers, such as to administration or curriculum development. IPEDS tracks certificates awarded by institutions, not state-issued teaching certificates or licenses.
The results suggest school and district leaders could continue to face staff shortages and new teachers in need of ongoing professional development, although teacher labor markets are heavily local and some states do a better job of meeting market needs than others.
“We’re back in a position where the data are not trending in the right direction,” said Jacqueline King, a research and policy consultant for AACTE.
AACTE analyzed information from the federal Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System, the largest federal data collection on American colleges and universities, as well as non-higher education preparation programs, that participate in federal financial aid programs from 2003 to 2022, as well as provisional 2023 data.
The update does not include federal data on teacher preparation reported under Title II of the Higher Education Act. The IPEDS data were released just before widespread layoffs at the National Center on Education Statistics, which administers most of the Education Department’s data collections. Title II data have been delayed and are expected later this year (the most recent data from that collection date from 2022-23 and are limited to state reporting).
Many alternative-preparation programs do not provide mentorship or clinical practice before teachers become responsible for a classroom, although some then provide them with intensive mentoring. Studies find teachers prepared through alternative programs are much more likely to leave the profession than those prepared through degree programs.
It’s not clear, meanwhile, that university-based programs tend to produce better teachers than alternative programs, although teachers with no preparation at all tend to fare worse in the classroom.
Special education—nationally the most difficult-to-fill teaching specialty—accounted for about 11% of all education degrees and certificates.
However, alternative-preparation programs, both in and outside of higher education, have provided a pathway for more paraprofessionals and other non-teaching staff—including a higher share of people of color—to become educators.
“People assume, when there’s a new teacher at school, it’s some young person who went to an ed. school,” said Heath Morrison, the CEO of Teachers of Tomorrow, one of the country’s largest short-term alternative teacher-preparation programs. “We need to rethink the whole idea of the teacher pipeline. How do we start getting more career changers interested in teaching? ... How do we get more subs and paras, who obviously have an inclination to be in the classroom, what they need to become teachers?”
Women continued to vastly outnumber men for all education certificates and degrees, but the data show more people of color entering the field. While prospective teachers remain mostly white, nonwhite candidates earned at least 5 percentage points more associate, bachelor’s, master’s, and doctoral degrees in education in 2022-23 than in 2016-17.
In all, more than 70% of those awarded a bachelor’s degree in education in 2022-23 were white, compared to 58% of those who earned bachelor’s degrees overall.
“Education is still not as diverse as other undergraduate fields, for sure, but it was [an] improvement, so it’s a positive sign,” King said.
