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…

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…

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…

This article examines three interlinked problems facing public schools today: how to recruit, retain, and pay our teachers. The article begins with an overview of the current situation in the United States, paying particular attention to schools in areas where minorities are the majority. It goes on to examine some of the causes of teacher…

The purpose of this study was to determine which, if any, specific factors are deterring male teachers from pursuing elementary education. The number of male elementary teachers in America's public school systems had continued to decline, and this survey sought to discover what specific factors had contributed to this. This study surveyed 231 male…

This report presents data on the Missouri teacher labor market, using existing administrative records about the state's public schools, teachers staffing them, and students attending them from 1994-95. Data are presented on: enrollment growth (size and distribution of public school enrollment changes); Missouri's teaching workforce (size and…

State control over education appears to be increasing as a result of state efforts to develop specific programs in response to calls for educational excellence. Missouri's Excellence in Education Act of 1985 was just such an effort and was aimed particularly at improving teaching by attracting and retaining teachers of high quality. The act…

The purpose of this publication is to focus attention upon a rapidly growing development in public school administration--the increasing interest in personnel administration as a process which can be identified through a description of certain formal functions which every school district must perform. The existence of adequate personnel policies…