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Research shows that an effective teacher is one of the most significant school-based levers influencing student achievement and students’ life outcomes.  Missouri students need teachers who are prepared with the content knowledge and instructional skills to make a positive impact on their learning from day one.

Schools across Missouri currently face difficulties in finding enough appropriately certified teachers and in maintaining a stable teacher workforce. Over the past decade, the educator ecosystem in Missouri has faced growing challenges, particularly in the number of vacancies and inappropriately filled teaching roles.

Over the past two years, the State Board of Education’s Teacher Recruitment and Retention Blue Ribbon Commission took a close look at teacher pay, climate and culture and provided a series of legislative and policy changes intended to support teacher recruitment and retention. Since then, the state has implemented several of the recommendations, including increasing the starting beginning teacher salary to $40,000, appropriating money for a teacher baseline salary grant and reinstating funding for the Career Ladder Program. The Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education’s Office of Educator Quality has also led exciting new initiatives such as the introduction of state-funded Grow-Your-Own program grants, the TeachNow professional development program for new teachers and the continued support of the Beginning Teacher Assistance Program (BTAP). While these recent changes are promising, they alone are not enough to address the challenges facing Missouri. It is crucial that Missouri students are prepared to face the economy of the future—and that begins with effective, high-quality teachers. Ensuring those teachers reach, stay and thrive in the classroom.

The highest percentage of vacancies filled appropriately are in rural districts, while the highest overall number of vacancies filled inappropriately are in cities and suburbs

• When looking across all certification areas, the highest percentage of vacancies filled inappropriately are in rural geographic locales. In 2023, 32 percent of all vacancies in remote rural districts and 23 percent of all vacancies in distant rural districts were filled inappropriately.
• However, the top ten districts with the highest number of vacancies filled inappropriately are in cities and suburbs

Teacher vacancies particularly affect students of color and students from low-income backgrounds.

• The districts with the highest number of vacancies tend to serve a higher proportion of students of color and students from low-income backgrounds as compared to Missouri’s overall student population.

In the 2023-24 school year, almost a third of first-year teachers had substitute certifications or no certification.

• 24 percent of first-year teachers had substitute certification while another 6 percent had no certification. An additional 23 percent of first-year teachers were certified through alternative certification routes, ABCTE or out of state. When disaggregating by geography, only a little over third of first-year teachers in city (36 percent) and rural (38 percent) districts completed a Missouri EPP.

​​Our report highlights six key recommendations to help strengthen Missouri’s teacher pipeline:

1. ​Launch targeted communications campaigns that elevate the value proposition of becoming a teacher in Missouri and increase awareness about pathways into the profession
2. ​Define the essential components of high-quality teacher preparation experiences and support EPPs to integrate these components effectively.
3. ​Expand financial strategies to support candidates to and through preparation programs.
4. ​Address unnecessary structural barriers that prevent aspiring educators from accessing and persevering through EPPs.
5. ​Improve how teachers experience the profession through increased focus on effective leadership and professional learning.
6. ​Develop and implement systems that provide transparent and accessible data to inform actors across the educator ecosystem and build capacity for use of that data.