Overview

Teacher certification, education and experience are all important to take into consideration when making hiring and other staffing decisions. As districts and states spend the majority of their budgets on payroll it is imperative for these resources to be monitored. When teachers are not trained in the subject or grade they are teaching, districts must step in by either training or by moving the teacher to a better placement for their skill set. These indicators can also help districts ensure that low-performing or high-need schools have equitable resources. If there are gaps in resources across the district, leaders can work to close resource gaps by moving teachers to high-need areas through incentives.

There are several indicators one can look at when determining if a teacher is qualified for a given position. The first is their certification. All 50 states require teachers to hold some sort of certification in order to teach in a public or charter school. These certifications are earned when a teacher demonstrates knowledge of teaching and curriculum for a given grade or subject area. Just as a certification demonstrates that a teacher has a certain set of knowledge, an undergraduate or graduate degree does the same.

The years of experience a teacher has can help determine students’ success. Students with more experienced teachers do better on standardized tests and go on to earn more than students with less experienced teachers. The Teacher Experience metrics in the Ed-Fi Dashboards allow school and district administrators to set a threshold at which a teacher is considered "experienced" and show the percentage of teachers in a campus or district at or above the threshold.

 Teacher Experience Metrics