In-Depth Look at the Pipeline Into Teaching: Insights From a State Longitudinal Data System

• In Event: Teacher Recruitment, Preparation, and Workforce Diversity

Abstract

As enrollments in teacher certification programs have steadily declined across the United States, many stakeholders are now predicting a teacher shortage crisis nationwide. Consistent with national trends, between 2010-11 and 2015-16, STATE has experienced substantial statewide declines in educator preparation program (EPP) enrollment (48%) and completion (32%). Moreover, STATE has seen a steeper decline (by about 3%) among students of color enrolling in and completing certification programs. Considering these trends, it is critical to understand where we are losing all potential educators, but with growing evidence of the academic and non-academic benefits of having teachers of color for all students, and especially students of color, it is even more critical to understand where we are losing these particular potential teachers. This study is, to our knowledge, the first statewide analyses to consider the differential attrition between Black and White students across such a comprehensive set of key stages in the pipeline of potential teachers from high school through certification.

We use STATE Higher Education Commission data from all public institutions in the state covering roughly 2 million students over the past 15 years. These data include high school graduation information, admission information (e.g., high school GPA, ACT/SAT scores), college semester enrollment data, degree data for associate’s (AA), bachelor’s (BA), and master’s (MA) degrees, and student demographic information. We merge these data to the STATE teacher longitudinal data set, including licensing and employment records for all teachers employed in STATE public schools.

Overall, we find significant differences across multiple stages of the pipeline for potential Black and White teachers. We find that Black students are less likely to enroll in a public postsecondary institution than their white peers (23% vs. 35%, diff. 12%). Conditional on enrollment, we find that Black college students are more likely to leave the teaching pipeline in earlier stages. Specifically, they are less likely to persist after receiving an AA in a teaching field (59% vs. 68%, diff. 9%) and to complete a BA in a teaching major even after declaring a major in a teaching field (64% vs. 71%, diff. 7%). On the other hand, we find no preference differences in teaching majors between Black and White college students (17% of college students declare at least one semester in a teaching major) and that Black students are slightly more likely to be employed as a teacher after licensure (78% vs. 77%, diff 1%).

Our results have the potential to inform current and future recruitment practices for Black teachers, pointing towards the need to strengthen the recruitment and retention of Black teachers earlier in the pipeline in order to bolster and diversify the educator workforce for the direct benefit of all students.

Authors

• Emanuele Bardelli, University of Michigan - Ann Arbor

• Matthew Truwit, University of Michigan

• Matthew Ronfeldt, University of Michigan