Indicator: Teacher experience Breadcrumb Home Indicators Teacher Experience Definition Students have equitable access to experienced teachers. Recommended Metric(s) Percentage of teachers with less than one year, one to five years, and more than five years of experienceView CEDS ConnectionsPercentage of Pre-K teachers with less than one year, one to five years, and more than five years of experiencePercentage of K12 teachers with less than one year, one to five years, and more than five years of experienceCEDS Connections offer guidance, including data elements and step-by-step analysis recommendations, for how to calculate select metrics. Type(s) of Data Needed Administrative data Why it matters Research consistently shows that more experienced teachers make greater contributions to student achievement, especially compared to teachers who are early in their careers.1, 2, 3, 4 After teachers gain about five years of experience, however, the difference between a more or less experienced teacher (that is, one with 10 versus 5 years of experience) is not significant.5 Students do not have equal access to experienced teachers; Black and Latino students, and those from low-income households, are more likely than their peers to be taught by teachers who are newest to the profession.6, 7 In 2016, 9 percent of teachers in schools with a low share of students of color were in their first or second year of teaching, compared with 17 percent of teachers in schools with a high proportion of students of color.8 What to know about measurement Data on teacher experience can be tracked as part of districts’ or states’ staff data management systems. About one-third of states with a Quality Rating and Improvement System (QRIS) for their pre-K programs include experience indicators as part of their program quality ratings.9 K–12 districts must report school-level data to the Civil Rights Data Collection (CRDC) on the number of teachers in their first and second years of teaching, and commonly base salaries on teachers’ years of experience. Source frameworks This indicator appeared in three source frameworks reviewed for this report. Our recommendations draw from a definition put forth by the National Academies which focuses on group differences in access to novice, experienced, and certified teachers. The thresholds selected in our proposed metric align with research by Kraft and Papay mentioned above. References 9Build Initiative & Child Trends. (2020). Quality compendium. https://qualitycompendium.org/1Harris, D. N, & Sass, T. R. (2001). Teacher training, teacher quality and student achievement. Journal of Public Economics, 95(7-8), 798–812. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jpubeco.2010.11.0092Rockoff, J. E. (2004). The impact of individual teachers on student achievement evidence from panel data. The American Economic Review, 94(2), 247–252. https://www.jstor.org/stable/35928913Kraft, M. A., & Papay, J. P. (2014). Can professional environments in schools promote teacher development? Explaining heterogeneity in returns to teaching experience. Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, 36(4), 476–500. https://doi.org/10.3102/01623737135194964Clotfelter, C. T., Ladd, H. F., & Vigdor, J. (2007). Teacher credentials and student achievement: Longitudinal analysis with student fixed effects. Economics of Education Review, 26(6), 673-682. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.econedurev.2007.10.0025See Kraft & Papay (2014).6Herzfeldt-Kamprath, R., & Ullrich, R. (2016). Examining teacher effectiveness between preschool and third grade. Center for American Progress. https://www.americanprogress.org/article/examining-teacher-effectiveness-between-preschool-and-third-grade/7Rahman, T., Fox, M. A., Ikoma, S., & Gray, L. (2017). Certification status and experience of U.S. public school teachers: Variations across student subgroups (NCES 2017-056). National Center for Education Statistics, Institute of Education Sciences, U.S. Department of Education. https://nces.ed.gov/pubsearch/pubsinfo.asp?pubid=20170568Cardichon, J., Darling-Hammond, L., Yang M., Scott, C., Shields, P. M., & Burns, D. (2020, February). Inequitable opportunity to learn: Student access to certified and experienced teachers. Learning Policy Institute. https://eric.ed.gov/?id=ED603398