New report finds Tennessee is bucking the national trend for who’s going into teaching

A stock image of a student receiving guidance from an instructor on a course project.

New data from the National Council on Teacher Quality found Tennessee is bucking the trend of college educated adults from historically disadvantaged groups moving away from becoming teachers.

According to a new report from the council featuring data up to 2022, there were nearly four percentage points fewer teachers from historically disadvantaged groups, including Hispanics and African Americans, than expected in Tennessee when compared against working-age adults from those groups with degrees. That gap has shrunk by about .7 percent since 2014.

Graphic by National Council on Teacher Quality

The National Council on Teacher Quality found the exact opposite is occurring nationally where the gap of expected teachers from historically disadvantaged groups is noticeably smaller than Tennessee but growing. The study found nationwide there were 1.5 percentage points fewer teachers from historically disadvantaged groups than expected, and that percentage has grown by 2.6 percentage points in the eight-year span.

Analysts said in a brief on the recent findings that the dashboard they created with the data “reveals critical trends” that show the need for “course corrections” to strengthen teacher diversity and improve outcomes for students. The data also suggests that the racial diversity of the teacher workforce is growing at a slower pace than the racial diversity of college-educated adults.

Graphic by National Council on Teacher Quality

“This trend indicates that, increasingly, Black and brown adults who earn college degrees are either choosing other professions or electing to leave the classroom after becoming teachers,” the brief read. “We know teacher diversity matters to all students, especially students of color, and many states and districts have been trying to reach the goal of increasing teacher diversity. This data signals that we are off course from that destination.”

According to the brief, building a diverse teacher workforce “begins with improving the K–12 educational experience for students of color.” It said that providing students of color and other traditionally marginalized groups with college and career readiness supports and opportunities to explore teaching careers while in high school could help promote a more diverse teacher pipeline moving forward.

“It will increase students’ rates of high school graduation and college matriculation, strengthen the teacher pipeline, and increase the diversity of the pool of available talent for the teaching profession,” the brief said.

The brief added that programs like teacher apprenticeships and “grow-your-own programs” similar to those in Tennessee could help to make teacher preparation more accessible to a broader population of aspiring teachers. In addition, analysts said that recruiting a diverse student body must also be a priority for all colleges and universities in order to reverse trends and make the educator workforce more representative.

“After all, undergraduate teacher preparation programs, which typically admit students after they complete their sophomore year, can only admit candidates based on who is already enrolled in their institution. There are also thousands of people from historically disadvantaged groups with some college experience who were unable to earn their degrees. Strategies to shore up the teacher pipeline must include support for students to persist in their college studies through graduation, such as financial assistance, inclusive campus life, diverse higher education faculty, and academic support systems to help candidates successfully complete coursework and pass teacher licensure tests,” the report said.  

To read the full brief or to view the dashboard, visit the council’s website.