California’s Teacher Supply in 15 Charts
If you follow me on Twitter you probably know that I’ve been sifting through many years of reports from the California Department of Education and the Commission on Teacher Credentialing to learn about California’s supply of teachers. Since I’ve been generating a number of charts, I thought I’d put them all together in one place.
First, for some context, here’s California’s K-12 student enrollment. Between the 1997-98 and 2004-05 school years, student enrollment increased by about 10% and has been roughly flat since. There are now approximately 6.2 million students in California’s K-12 system.
California hired more teachers as enrollment grew, and eventually cut back right around the time of the recession. Last year there were roughly 295,000 teachers in California’s public schools.
As enrollment and hiring has ebbed and flowed, the ratio of students to teachers in California has oscillated between 20-22.
At the same time, student demographics in California have changed substantially, with the proportion of white students steadily falling while Hispanic/Latino students became a majority.
Teacher demographics in California have changed somewhat as well, with white teachers becoming somewhat less California's Teacher Supply in 15 Charts - Paul Bruno: