The state playbook for teacher recruitment, development, and retention

As teacher shortages continue, statewide systems to build up the profession are necessary. Missouri provides an example of how states can proceed.

At a Glance

Missouri partnered with the Community Training and Assistance Center to understand what practices are most successful and identified the following eight cornerstones for effective teacher recruitment and retention:

• Alignment of recruitment, development, and compensation
• A statewide system
• Campaigns to elevate teaching
• Collaboration and constituency-building
• Targeted funding
• Strategic policy initiatives
• Teacher development
• Teacher voice

The shortage of classroom teachers is a national urgency. At the start of the 2024-25 school year, 74% of public schools had difficulty filling one or more vacant positions with a fully certified teacher (National Center for Education Statistics [NCES], 2024). Moreover, public schools in high-poverty neighborhoods fill a lower percentage of vacancies with fully certified teachers (NCES, 2024). Now, when high-quality educators are most needed, the challenges of recruiting and retaining teachers are significant and escalating. One state’s unique response to this challenge offers lessons for others.

The Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) used nearly $50 million from the Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief fund for teacher recruitment and retention. DESE used these funds to establish a grant program for local education agencies (LEAs), educator-preparation programs (EPPs), and community colleges (CCs) across the state to strengthen their existing strategies and experiment with innovative approaches.

The Community Training and Assistance Center (CTAC) partnered contractually with DESE to evaluate the implementation of the grants and identify successful strategies. From this collaboration, CTAC developed a playbook of eight cornerstones for a successful state system for teacher recruitment, development, and retention.

Cornerstone No. 1: Effective teacher recruitment and retention requires the support of a state system.

The decision to become or remain a teacher is influenced by interconnected factors within a state educational system. Some (e.g., certification) are policies at the state level, some (e.g., teacher voice) are practices at the school and district level, and some (e.g., salary) can be policies and practices at both the state and district levels. Focusing only on one or two factors without anticipating and making major changes at other levels is unlikely to address a state’s teacher shortage.

By approaching these issues at a state level, a state education agency (SEA) is able to help all districts make progress in recruiting, developing, and retaining teachers. Districts have different levels of organizational capacity and resources for attracting teachers. Further, districts serving low-income students, students of color, and rural communities are often at a competitive disadvantage financially and, therefore, lose teachers to wealthier districts. To ensure high-quality teachers for all students, in all districts, it is the better part of wisdom to create a state system for teacher recruitment and retention.

There are three tools of public policy: legislation, regulation, and the bully pulpit. A state system for recruitment and retention must draw on all three.

An SEA can take the lead by convening diverse parties in support of recruitment and retention, informing funding and policy decisions, serving as a repository of evidence-based best practices, and building the capacity of districts and partners.

For example, the Missouri State Board of Education convened a Blue Ribbon Commission on Teacher Recruitment and Retention. The board ensured that half of commission members were business leaders from across the state, and half were legislators and representatives of professional organizations. The board’s strategic selection of commission members communicated clearly that a high-quality teacher workforce also matters to stakeholders outside education.

Cornerstone No. 2: Statewide campaigns are needed to elevate the teaching profession.

Perceptions about the teaching profession are at or near their lowest level in 50 years. The 2024 PDK Poll found that 61% of Americans would not want their child to become a teacher; and the 2023 PDK Poll found that a majority of Americans believe teachers are undervalued, underpaid, and overworked (PDK International 2023, 2024). These negative perceptions might prevent potential teachers from considering the field. At the same time, feelings of being unsupported in the profession may cause current teachers to leave. For these reasons, we must improve the perception of the teaching profession and build support for teachers.

A statewide promotional campaign should promote the value of teaching, strengthen the culture of respect and support for teachers, and enhance the climate and culture for the profession across the state. In essence, the campaigns should showcase the value, joy, and impact of teaching as a profession. This would have the potential to not only make teaching more appealing for future teachers but also to encourage stronger support for practicing teachers to keep them in the field.

Multiple sectors have used similar campaigns to elevate the status of their professions. These include health care campaigns to recruit nurses, state campaigns to fill public jobs, teachers unions’ efforts to recruit new teachers in multiple states, and federal efforts to improve recruitment to America’s armed forces.

Cornerstone No. 3: Effective teacher recruitment and retention requires collaboration and constituency-building.

Collaboration (with internal players and external stakeholders) is a must for recruiting and retaining teachers. However, traditional approaches to partnership often result in minor changes to business-as-usual practices. Instead, an effective state system needs to encourage partners to invest in and take ownership of the strategies for recruitment and retention.

An example of this collaboration in Missouri was the creation of a statewide Recruitment and Retention Task Force. This task force, which has been in place for the past three years, includes the leaders from all professional education associations in the state. These organizations are interdependently investing and collaborating to bolster educator recruitment and retention.

Collaborative efforts require states to include constituents and partners at three levels:

1. Teacher recruitment and development leaders: Key practitioners from the SEA, districts, EPPs, and community colleges.
2. Policy makers and practitioners: The governor, the state legislature, business and community leaders, and the teacher and administrator organizations.
3. Government, nonprofit, and other stakeholders: Other state departments (e.g., Department of Labor, Department of Higher Education and Workforce Development) and other key stakeholders (e.g., foundations, nonprofit organizations, the media).

All three levels are needed to ensure there is sufficient expertise and support for changes in funding, policy, and practice to advance teacher recruitment and retention throughout the state.

In Missouri, leaders at all levels are owning the responsibility to take a hands-on role in addressing recruitment and retention. With the SEA as the catalyst, the state’s educational and governmental sectors are demonstrating their commitment by aligning their expectations, investing both short-term federal resources and long-term state resources, and synchronizing their efforts.

Cornerstone No. 4: Funding is essential and must be targeted.

To attract and hold on to teaching talent, states need funding for both compensation and non-compensation purposes. The state needs to target funding for maximum impact on the greatest areas of need. This means that states will have to say no to some requests so that they’re able to say yes where it will be most beneficial. It also means that a state system must provide reasonable guidelines for how funds will be used, while also encouraging LEAs, EPPs, and CCs to be innovative.

Funding for compensation purposes

Leaders across the educational spectrum highlight the importance of focused and sustained funding to raise teacher baseline salaries across a state. Raising baseline salaries helps reduce the difference between salaries of teachers and other professions that require similar levels of education. Reducing this “pay penalty” can encourage more people to enter teaching.

In Missouri, starting teacher pay and average teacher pay have historically been among the lowest in the country. However, the governor and state legislature increased the baseline teacher salary in 2024. The state has also provided Teacher Baseline Salary Grants to all eligible LEAs to cover the full cost of salary plus payroll benefits and increase teacher pay for every starting teacher. For teachers with more than two years of teaching experience, the state is spending more than $60 million on a career ladder program that offers additional compensation to teachers who take on additional duties and responsibilities.

Funding for non-compensation purposes

District efforts to be innovative in encouraging new candidates to enter the teaching profession require funding for purposes beyond compensation. Missouri LEAs, EPPs, and CCs highlight three promising practices:

• Funding recruitment grants to LEAs, EPPs, and CCs who participate in Grow Your Own initiatives designed to recruit future teachers from among current students.
• Offering stipends for teacher candidates in educator residency or registered apprenticeship programs.
• Providing scholarships to help prospective teachers with student loan debt. The state’s commitment to these scholarships will grow annually over five years. Recipients commit to teach in the LEA where they received support, establishing a unique teacher pipeline into that LEA.

Cornerstone No. 5: The tools of public policy need to be used strategically.

There are three tools of public policy: legislation, regulation, and the bully pulpit. A state system for recruitment and retention must draw on all three. Legislation and regulation signal the state’s priorities and frame the policy direction and pathway to implementation, while the bully pulpit enables leaders to build public understanding of and support for the changes. Two examples below are areas that can be addressed by using these tools of public policy.

Routes to teacher certification

The routes to becoming a classroom teacher have expanded during this teacher shortage era. They include traditional preparatory and alternative certification programs, as well as a broad range of other possibilities. These can encompass test-based certification without coursework, preparation from other states and countries, and elevation of substitute teachers and student teachers as teachers of record.

The voices of current teachers are pivotal when conducting outreach to potential candidates — they are effective recruiters for new teachers.

States increasingly value alternative routes for teacher certification that make it possible to hire novice teachers who have not gone through traditional teacher-preparation programs. When considering alternative options, states need to be willing explore innovative routes to teacher certification, while having meaningful standards for that certification. This requires states to strike a balance between eliminating unnecessary barriers and maintaining enough requirements to ensure teacher readiness.

A key first step is for states to conduct a detailed review of the criteria for teacher certification and propose any feasible adjustments. These adjustments can then be embedded, as appropriate, into legislation or regulation. The SEA must speak regularly and clearly about how these adjustments will provide new classroom-ready teachers while eliminating unnecessary requirements and cost.

Residencies and apprenticeships

The state can take the lead in promoting policy actions and use the power of the bully pulpit to assemble key partners to support innovative approaches to preparing teachers through hands-on experience. Apprenticeship programs allow potential future teachers to receive training while working in schools and earning a paycheck (Will, 2023). State policies can help ensure that educator residencies have rigorous and intentional selection criteria, relevant coursework, structured coaching and mentoring, and evaluation (Fitz & Yun, 2024; National Center for Teacher Residencies, 2014). In addition, states can set the conditions to promote the success of residencies. These include developing strong partnerships with EPPs and teachers’ associations, providing financial supports, and aligning recruitment with teacher subject-area shortages (Fitz & Yun, 2024; Worley & Zerbino, 2023).

Cornerstone No. 6: Funding and policy decisions trigger decisions related to teacher development.

The state cannot leave educator development to chance. A state system for recruitment and retention must anticipate how funding and policy decisions will impact the requirements for teacher development. For example, an increase of novice teachers and teachers who have received less formal preparation means districts and schools must spend more time on their development.

At the same time, the state needs to recognize that experienced teachers who remain in the profession also have developmental needs. Districts and schools need to support experienced teachers to become both experts who can rapidly advance students and teacher leaders who influence other teachers’ practices.

States should pay particular attention to how their policies affect these key elements of educator development:

Induction

Research shows that induction affects teacher commitment and retention, teacher instructional practices, and student achievement (Glazerman et al., 2010; Ingersoll & Strong, 2011; Schmidt et al., 2017). Research also finds that less than 1% of teachers actually receive a comprehensive induction (Smith & Ingersoll, 2004; Weathers, 2004). Having teachers who enter from various pathways with different levels of preparation requires districts to rethink their induction strategies.

A comprehensive induction program is multiyear and instructionally focused. In a state system for recruitment and retention, the SEA needs to provide districts with a framework for induction that includes the content needed to accelerate teacher skills, approaches and sequences for delivery of the content, and methods for determining the impact of the induction.

In response to low teacher retention data, particularly related to the first couple years of teaching, the state of Missouri has two significant requirements for comprehensive induction. The Beginning Teacher Assistance Program requires two years of training to ensure new teachers develop critical skills and knowledge, participate in support networks, and experience success as a new teacher. New teachers in Missouri also participate in two years of required mentoring.

Principal leadership

Principals play a pivotal role in teacher recruitment and retention. Effective principals have lower rates of teacher turnover because principal support is a deciding factor in teachers’ decisions to remain in their schools, even more important than salary (Grissom & Bartanen, 2018; Learning Policy Institute, 2017). Moreover, principal leadership is second only to effective instruction among school-related factors that contribute to student achievement (Grissom, Egalite, & Lindsay, 2021).

Despite the importance of principals, their development is largely left to individual districts. Developing effective principals and enhancing their leadership ability to recruit, develop, and retain teachers lends itself to a state-level response. The Missouri Leadership Development System (MLDS) is a highly successful system for building the capacity of principals in five leadership domains and at each phase of their careers from Aspiring (pre-certificated), to Emerging (initial career entry), through Developing (mid-career), and ultimately Transformational (exceptional).

MLDS includes specific training on how to address teacher recruitment and retention. In particular, it strengthens principals’ capacity to build cultures and structures that enhance teachers’ professional and personal growth. Six years of annual, comprehensive evaluations have documented praise from superintendents, principals, and teachers in Missouri.

Statewide and regional professional development

A state system to develop teacher capacity must have a delivery mechanism to share evidence-based practices, provide LEAs with current research, and build learning communities across districts.

The Missouri Teacher Development System (MTDS) provides a competency-based approach for developing teachers statewide with just-in-time learning, support for different phases of new teacher learning, and statewide networking opportunities. The impact on teacher retention rates is striking: 90% of teachers in MTDS remain in the profession after five years compared to just 63% of educators who do not participate in MTDS. The program’s success demonstrates the value of involving teachers in learning together as a cohort.

In addition, Missouri has a statewide network of professional learning centers called Regional Professional Development Centers. These centers provide teachers with training, coaching, and instructional materials. Some trainings occur in regional meetings with staff from multiple schools, and others occur on-site with trainers coming directly to the school. Having regional centers ensures teachers throughout the state have high-quality professional learning opportunities nearby.

Cornerstone No. 7: A state system needs to recognize the importance of teacher voice.

The voices of current teachers are pivotal when conducting outreach to potential candidates — they are effective recruiters for new teachers. As Darrion Cockrell, Missouri’s 2021 Teacher of the Year, emphasizes, teachers are walking billboards for the profession (Missouri Schoolwide Positive Behavior Support, 2022). Current teachers can heavily influence students’ aspirations to become a teacher.

Teacher voice is also key to pinpointing where teachers most need development and what school factors are most critical to retention. Incorporating teacher voice helps ensure that state systems for recruitment and retention respond to the aspirations and needs of new teachers, which may differ from those of veteran teachers.

Promoting teacher voice at state and local levels requires two-way communication between the SEA and LEAs, as well as direct communication with teachers. The SEA should share evidence-based practices for enhancing teacher voice as part of its general guidance on school improvement for all districts as well as its targeted guidance for schools in Comprehensive Support and Improvement status. The more enterprising LEAs are often knowledgeable and skilled in engaging teachers as partners in school improvement, and SEAs should find ways for other local districts to learn from their successes.

At the same time, the SEA must also create opportunities for teachers to offer input directly at the state level and then use their ideas, opinions, and suggestions to inform state policy. In Missouri, a Teacher Advisory Committee meets directly with the commissioner of education multiple times throughout the year. This provides opportunities for the commissioner to hear directly from teachers who represent all types of classrooms across the state.

Cornerstone No. 8: Teacher retention requires the alignment of three factors — recruitment, development, and compensation.

In a state system for teacher recruitment and retention, retention is a dependent variable. Retaining teachers depends on attracting promising and well-prepared teacher candidates to the teaching profession, supporting their growth and development, and providing professional and appropriate compensation. Retention is higher when a state system intentionally and effectively addresses recruitment, development, and compensation. These three factors are the leading indicators of success, while retention itself is a lagging indicator.

Engaging multiple, varied partners to collaborate on efforts to boost recruitment results in an increase of well-prepared new teachers in the workforce. Using state-administered programming for teacher and principal development is an effective way for states and districts to provide effective professional development, which results in teachers being more successful in their teaching. Using regulations and statutes to promote appropriate levels of compensation results in teachers feeling appreciated and compensated for the very challenging work that they perform. When working in tandem, recruitment, development, and compensation result in improved retention rates of teachers. 

References

Carver-Thomas, D. & Darling-Hammond, L.(2017). Teacher turnover: Why it matters and what we can do about it. Learning Policy Institute.

Fitz, J. & Yun, C. (2024). Successful teacher residencies: What matters and what works [Brief]. Learning Policy Institute.

Glazerman, S., Isenberg, E., Dolfin, S., Bleeker, M., Johnson, A., Grider, M., & Jacobus, M. (2010). Impacts of comprehensive teacher induction: Final results from a randomized controlled study (NCEE 2010-4027). U.S. Department of Education.

Grissom, J.A., & Bartanen, B. (2018). Strategic retention: Principal effectiveness and teacher turnover in multiple-measure teacher evaluation systems. American Educational Research Journal, 56 (2).

Grissom, J. A., Egalite, A. J., & Lindsay, C. A. (2021). How principals affect students and schools: A systematic synthesis of two decades of research. The Wallace Foundation.

Ingersoll, R.M. & Strong, M. (2011). The impact of induction and mentoring programs for beginning teachers: A critical review of the research. Review of Educational Research, 81 (2), 201-233.

Missouri Schoolwide Positive Behavior Support (2022). Becoming the educator I needed as a kid.

National Center for Education Statistics (2024). School pulse panel (2021-22, 2022-23, 2023-24, and 2024-25). U.S. Department of Education, Institute of Education Sciences.

National Center for Teacher Residencies. (2014). Building effective teacher residencies.

PDK International. (2023). The 55th annual PDK Poll: Continued support for teachers; growing support for a four-day school week.

PDK International. (2024). The 56th annual PDK Poll: Federal focus on education initiatives wins broad public support.

Schmidt, R., Young, V., Cassidy, L., Wang, H., & Laguarda, K. (2017). Impact of the New Teacher Center’s new teacher induction model on teachers and students. SRI International.

Smith, T.M. & Ingersoll, R.M. (2004). What are the effects of induction and mentoring on beginning teacher turnover? American Educational Research Journal, 41 (3), 681-714.

Weathers, J. (2004). Tapping the potential: Retaining and developing high quality teachers. Alliance for Excellent Education.

Will, M. (2023). Teacher apprenticeships are booming in wake of shortages. Here’s what you need to know. Education Week.

Worley, L. & Zerbino, N. (2023). Teacher residencies offer compelling solution to staffing shortages, although at a large investment. The Brookings Institution.

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This article appears in the Fall 2025 issue of Kappan, Vol. 107, No. 1-2, pp. 63–67.