Many school districts across the United States are facing the difficult combination of teacher shortages and growing (and diversifying) student populations. We studied statewide data from Idaho from the 2011–12 to 2016–17 school years on changes in student enrollment and demographics and teacher workforce composition and turnover.

We found that while the number of students in Idaho grew by about 6 percentage points over the study period, each year about 20 percent of teachers did not return to their school to teach. An aging workforce, coupled with this turnover, means that Idaho’s teacher pool is becoming less experienced. At the same time, many schools are struggling to keep up with increasing numbers of English learner students, despite relatively consistent numbers of people completing teacher preparation programs. Read the full report for more details on these findings, and more.

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