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Research & Insights

Learn more about evidence-based approaches to strengthening and diversifying your teacher workforce with NCTQ’s reports, guides, and articles.

What’s the Alternative? How some alternative certification programs are shortchanging teachers and students
  • Teacher Prep
  • What’s the Alternative? How some alternative certification programs are shortchanging teachers and students

    State education policymakers must feel like Sisyphus—ever heaving against the boulder of teacher shortages; rarely, if ever, making meaningful progress. But with strong alternative certification policies, filling teacher vacancies does not have to be an eternal struggle.

    July 15, 2025

    State of the States: Five Policy Levers to Improve Math Instruction
  • Elementary Math
  • State of the States: Five Policy Levers to Improve Math Instruction

    Strong math skills open doors to higher earnings, college opportunities, and the fastest-growing careers. If we want students to succeed, we need to better prepare and support our elementary teachers in math instruction. Here’s how!

    June 3, 2025

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    What can California, Texas, and Washington, D.C. teach us about how to diversify the teacher workforce?
    A smiling teacher kneeling beside a pupil's desk
  • Teacher Diversity
  • What can California, Texas, and Washington, D.C. teach us about how to diversify the teacher workforce?

    Nationally, the diversification of the teacher workforce is slowing compared to the diversification of college-educated adults, but California, Texas, and Washington, D.C. are bucking that trend. Explore what factors contribute to their relatively high rates of teacher diversity and how their policies and practices will likely affect teacher quality.

    February 1, 2025

    Clinical Practice Action Guide
  • Clinical Practice
  • Clinical Practice Action Guide

    A strong clinical practice (or student teaching) experience can make a new teacher as effective as one in their second or third year in the classroom—a big gain for those teachers and, more importantly, their students. Providing every aspiring teacher with a strong clinical practice experience requires collaboration from prep programs and districts, often supported by their state.

    August 1, 2024

    Saving our best teachers: The urgency of retention amid layoffs

    Saving our best teachers: The urgency of retention amid layoffs

    As districts face impending fiscal cuts and teacher layoffs, states and districts should take this opportunity to reexamine their approaches to attracting and retaining teachers—especially those who do the most good for students.

    June 27, 2024

    Who’s walking out the door? How does turnover vary among teachers, paraprofessionals, administrators, and staff?

    Who’s walking out the door? How does turnover vary among teachers, paraprofessionals, administrators, and staff?

    Non-teaching staff can have a big impact on student outcomes, yet little research explores how their turnover rates vary and what effects that could have on the school. New research explores turnover among different staffing groups, including which conditions predict churn and which conditions prevent it.

    January 25, 2024

    Policies to Increase Teacher Diversity
  • Teacher Compensation
  • Policies to Increase Teacher Diversity

    Research shows that teachers of color positively impact all students, especially students of color, improving their academic achievement, discipline, attendance, graduation rates, and social-emotional outcomes. Despite their positive impact on students, the teaching workforce remains 80% white while students of color now comprise over 50% of public school students.

    August 1, 2023