Sarah McKenzie, Josh McGee, Gema Zamarro, Andrew Camp & Taylor Wilson
Last Thursday, the Office for Education Policy (OEP) and Department of Education Reform (EDRE) hosted a conference in Little Rock titled Moving Arkansas Education Forward. Secretary Oliva provided the keynote address and the conference included panels on the teacher pipeline, career and technical education (CTE), and other issues in Arkansas education (e.g., 9th grade failure rates, alternative calendars, student growth, etc.). You can find all of the conference materials at the conference website and the presentations are also available on the OEP website.
Given that the legislature is currently considering a bill with significant implications for Arkansas’s teacher workforce, the data presented during the teacher pipeline panel is particularly relevant. For the past two years, OEP and EDRE have been collaborating with the Arkansas Department of Education’s Office of Educator Effectiveness and Licensure to investigate multiple aspects of the teacher pipeline. EDRE graduate student and former teacher Andrew Camp (pictured above) provided an overview of some of the data generated by that collaboration. We review the data Andrew presented below.
We start at the beginning of the teacher pipeline when prospective teachers enter educator preparation programs (EPP). The chart below shows that traditional EPP (i.e., based at an institution of higher education) enrollment has declined slightly over time and that alternative EPP enrollment (e.g., ArPEP and ATC) is making up a larger share of new entrants.
To understand the next few charts, we need to introduce a few definitions related to teacher turnover. We compare data from the beginning of one school year to data from the end of the previous school year to develop measures of turnover. Teachers are placed in one of the following categories depending on what they did between the two school years:
- Exiter – a teacher who leaves Arkansas public school
employment - Switcher – a teacher who switches out of a teaching role but
remains in Arkansas public school employment - Mover – a teacher who moves between Arkansas public schools
- Stayer – a teacher who stays in the same Arkansas public school
Now that we have established definitions, we can dig into turnover. First, we compare the number of EPP completers to the number of teachers leaving the classroom each year. Arkansas EPPs produce about 1,800 fewer teachers than the number who leave the classroom. School districts close that gap by hiring teachers who are reentering the workforce after a break, come in from out-of-state, or are teaching on a licensure exception.
Next, we look at turnover between the 2016-17 and 2021-22 school years, with a particular focus on whether turnover increased following the COVID-19 pandemic. The chart below compares the highest, lowest and average pre-pandemic turnover to the last two school years. We find that turnover increased slightly last year, driven by movers and switchers, but that it was not out of line with pre-pandemic norms. However, other states are seeing a significant uptick this school year (e.g., Washington State and North Carolina), so it is important to continue to monitor these trends.
While looking at the statewide average teacher turnover is informative, schools experience and must grapple with turnover locally. The charts below show that teacher turnover varies widely across districts. The first map shows pre-pandemic turnover and the second shows turnover from last school year, demonstrating a slight increase (lighter colors) in turnover especially in eastern Arkansas.
The third map shows the change between pre-pandemic and last year’s turnover. Red districts experienced a 10 percent or more increase in turnover while blue districts experienced a decline of 5 percent or more. Clearly teacher labor markets vary a lot across the state.
When teachers leave, sometimes districts have a hard time filling vacant classrooms with a certified teacher. Arkansas has a number of licensure exemptions that allow districts to staff classrooms with teachers who are not licensed to teach that subject or grade level. The proportion of teachers on a licensure exemption is one measure of potential teacher shortages. To better understand where Arkansas might have geographic teacher shortages we investigate these licensure exceptions.
In the figure below, the map on the right shows the district-level proportion of teachers on a licensure exemption, and the map on the left shows the childhood poverty rate from the U.S. Census Bureau’s Small Area Income and Poverty Estimates. These maps indicate that eastern and southern Arkansas may be struggling with meaningful teacher shortages. Unfortunately, districts in these areas also tend to have relatively high childhood poverty.
Of course, teacher salaries have a sizeable impact on districts’ ability to recruit and retain teachers. Recent legislative proposals would increase the minimum teacher pay from $36,000 to $50,000. The map below shows the proportion of teachers in each district whose base salary is less than the proposed new minimum. Nearly 50 percent of teachers statewide would likely benefit from the proposed increase. While teachers across the state would benefit, larger proportions of teachers in higher poverty areas would be affected.
Finally, we looked at the wages of teachers who moved between schools, switched to a non-instructional role, or left Arkansas public schools altogether. The figure below compares the wages that teachers earned one year after making an employment change to the wages they would have earned had they stayed in the same school/role.
We find that teachers tend to make more when they change schools or
switch roles and less when they leave the public school system. Note that in this chart, exiters only includes teachers who are under 60 years old and who leave public education but continue to work in Arkansas.
These data indicate that salary increases are likely playing a role in teachers’ moves between schools and switches to non-instructional roles. However, the decrease in wages for exiters indicates that other job conditions and life circumstances may be playing a larger role in those choices than does salary.
Research consistently shows that teachers are the most important school-related factor for student success. As Arkansas works to ensure that every child receives a high-quality education and the opportunity to reach their full potential, teachers will undoubtable play a staring role. It is important that we continue to use data and evidence to better understand the teacher pipeline and inform policy decisions. Stay tuned for more updates from the teacher pipeline project!