Missouri is struggling with teacher shortages. In its public schools, which serve nearly 900,000 students, shortages have typically been concentrated in urban and rural areas, and in content areas of special education, math, and science. Recently, however, shortages have begun broadly impacting more schools in more parts of the state and more…

Providing Missouri students a highly qualified, appropriately credentialed workforce has grown steadily more challenging over the past decade. Unsurprisingly, the pandemic made it even harder. Multiple surveys indicate Missouri educators' growing dissatisfaction over the last two years. These data, coupled with figures on declining enrollment in…

The low number of male elementary and early childhood teachers is problematic in the United States (National Center for Educational Statistics, 2020). Of the 1.8 million public school elementary teachers (pre-Kindergarten-6th grade) in the 2017-2018, male elementary teachers accounted for 11% of the total (NCES, 2020). Colleges of education have…

The COVID-19 pandemic required schools to be more flexible in relation to their selection of an instructional modality, adopting virtual or hybrid schedules for instruction if face-to-face instruction was not possible (Rogers & Ishimoto, 2020). This change led to educators conducting classrooms virtually and interacting with students and…

A four-day school week (4dsw) is becoming more common, especially in areas across the western United States. States with large rural areas are spearheading this change. For example, Colorado, Idaho, Missouri, Montana, New Mexico, Oklahoma, and South Dakota have more than 500 districts using a 4dsw. The transition to the 4dsw and the debate over…

States and local education systems hold the primary responsibility for delivering public education in the United States. During the past several years, the quality of the American education system has become national policy priority, replete with school reform efforts designed to hold all students to high standards, increase student achievement,…

Teachers are the most important school-based factor for student growth and achievement. Yet, for years, enrollment in the nation's schools of education has been in decline, and local education agencies (LEAs) have struggled to retain teachers. In many places, the stresses of the COVID-19 pandemic have exacerbated these issues, requiring states to…

Innovation in education is vital for responding to emerging challenges, such as the COVID-19 pandemic, and for building progress on longstanding challenges in schools. The infusion of substantial, highly flexible pots of federal relief dollars created an opportunity to pilot new programs and initiatives. Many states and districts opted to invest…

The four-day school week (4dsw) is growing in popularity, especially in rural areas across the western United States. RAND Corporation researchers addressed knowledge gaps about the 4dsw by conducting a large-scale study of the implementation and outcomes of the 4dsw that involved the collection of original data in numerous districts across Idaho,…

Career Technical Education (CTE) teacher recruitment is a challenge that has dogged state CTE leaders for decades. According to a recent survey of State CTE Directors, 98 percent said that increasing access to industry experts is a high priority in their state. And 20.4 percent of rural districts with CTE teacher vacancies report that CTE…

Persistent and consistent criticism of our nation's educational system has increased pressure on school districts and teacher education programs to improve the quality of teachers in our public schools. While there is research regarding the characteristics of effective teachers, the difficulty is often in identifying and hiring those teacher…

This qualitative research study was focused on equitable access that promotes a more balanced distribution of highly effective teachers across school systems, particularly in those settings where there are higher concentrations of underserved student populations. Research has shown the lowest poverty students were twice as likely to have access to…

Career and technical education (CTE) programs of study are subject to rigorous state and federal accountability systems that provide information on key student outcomes. However, while these outcome measures can form a basis for identifying high- and low-performing programs, they are insufficient for answering underlying questions about how or why…

Each year, governors take the stage to highlight accomplishments and outline policy priorities for their states. In an effort to provide up-to-date information on education policy trends, Education Commission of the States tracks all education policy proposals and accomplishments featured by governors in these State of the State addresses. At the…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to examine the characteristics of teacher incentive pay programs used by midsize to large school districts in Missouri. Design/methodology/approach: This study primarily used the Teacher Compensation Programs (TCP) survey data. The TCP survey was developed by the authors to understand the nature and…