In a time when simply carrying out the essential functions of their jobs is a herculean task, educators have been faced with the additional challenge of addressing contentious, politicized topics in their schools and classrooms. Drawing from nationally representative samples of teachers and principals who completed the 2022 State of the American…

Principal and teacher well-being is a matter of immediate concern for principals and teachers themselves and for the students they teach. Stress on the job can negatively affect educators' physical health, and poor teacher wellness and mental health are linked with lower-quality student learning environments and with poorer academic and…

This survey wanted to obtain a national picture of teacher and principal turnover at the end of the 2021-2022 school year and districts' staffing shortages at the beginning of the 2022-2023 school year, researchers surveyed 300 district and charter network leaders in the American School District Panel from October to December 2022. Key findings…

This technical report provides information about the sample, content, and administration of the 2022 State of the American Teacher (SoT) and State of the American Principal (SoP) surveys. The SoT survey was completed by 2,360 American Teacher Panel members, and the SoP survey was completed by 1,540 American School Leader Panel members. The…

The emergence of COVID-19 in the United States in spring 2020 forced nearly all U.S. schools to transition rapidly to remote learning. However, a minority of U.S. public schools were prepared for a crisis on the level of COVID-19. Using responses to the American Educator Panels, RAND researchers investigate how schools' pre-pandemic planning…

This report presents school district leaders' views about staff turnover, hiring, and districts' financial outlooks at the end of the 2020-2021 school year. Based on the survey responses of 292 district leaders from the American School District Panel (ASDP), the authors found that teacher and principal turnover had not increased substantially…

This technical report provides information about the sample, survey instrument, and resultant data for the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) surveys that were administered to principals and teachers via RAND's American Educator Panels (AEP) in spring 2020. The AEP COVID-19 surveys focused on how teachers and school leaders navigated the…

In spring 2020, the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic led to an unprecedented and sweeping shift in the landscape of public schooling in the United States. Beginning in March, schools across the country closed their doors and adopted remote learning supports that varied in degree and type. In May 2020, researchers from the RAND…

U.S. school districts have taken widely varied approaches to reopening public schools for the 2020-2021 school year. The divergence stems from the highly localized approach to both schooling and addressing the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic and differences in COVID-19 transmission rates among communities. To develop a national…