Six Years of Change: What Statewide Trends Reveal About California’s Teaching Workforce
Introduction
What does California’s newest teacher data reveal about the diverse educators entering the classroom — and those who stay?
Recently released statewide data from the California Department of Education provides the most comprehensive picture of California’s teaching workforce since pre-COVID, covering over 285K teachers across the state.
This new brief, the first of two briefs, analyzing new California educator workforce data from SY 2019-20 through SY 2023-24, reveals post-pandemic shifts in experience, credentialing, subject-area staffing, and workforce composition. It indicates a decline in experienced teachers and a growing share of first-year and undercredentialed educators in main subjects. It also highlights changes in the racial composition of the workforce, with increases of Latine and Asian teachers, and continued declines of Black and white teachers.
These trends point to urgent challenges and opportunities for strengthening preparation pathways, improving retention, and advancing a more stable and diverse teacher workforce in California.
Read Brief 2: Who Leads California’s Schools? New Insights from Statewide Administrator Data
The second brief focuses on school and district leaders, analyzing trends among principals and superintendents in race/ethnicity, gender, education, and experience. It identifies areas of progress—including growing representation of women and administrators of color—as well as differences between leadership and teacher workforce patterns.
Findings
Finding 1: The numbers of experienced teachers decreased* and inexperienced teachers increased.
This suggests both decreased teacher retention and increased recruitment post-COVID.
Finding 2: The number and percentage of Latine** and Asian teachers increased.
This suggests of successful retention (or reduced attrition) of teachers of color, particularly considering documented patterns of turnover.
Finding 3: The number of white teachers decreased.
This can be linked to demographic change, broader workforce aging and the loss of experienced educators.
Finding 4: The number and percentage of Black teachers decreased.
Black teachers face higher turnover rates compared to white teachers, describing burnout, unequal workloads, lack of support, isolation, and emotional labor burden. Retaining Black teachers may require more deliberate supports, peer networks, and institutional change to counteract systemic pressures disproportionately affecting Black (especially female) teachers.
Finding 5: The percentage of inexperienced teachers increased for critical subjects such as English Language Arts, Mathematics, and Science.
This could be due to increased recruitment and decreased retention post-COVID.
Finding 6: The percentage of undercredentialed teachers increased for critical subjects such as English Language Arts, Mathematics, and Science.
These teachers may be working on emergency permits, with intern credentials, or credentialed teachers teaching out of field in subjects they are not officially certified in, which increased during COVID.
Finding 7: A master’s degree continued to be the most common level of educational attainment among teachers. A bachelor’s degree is the second most prevalent level of attainment among practicing teachers.
The evolving trends in educational attainment in California reflect the persistence of credentialing pathways and a growing shift towards more accessible, integrated teacher preparation programs.
Finding 8: The gender composition of the teacher workforce remains stagnant.
The proportion of female teachers remains stable at around 72.7%.
The percentage of male teachers has minimal fluctuation, at around 27.3%.
Despite ongoing efforts to address the teacher workforce gender gap in California, there have been no significant changes over the past three decades.
*Newly released data from CDE for the 2024-25 school year published after the completion of this analysis reports an increase in the number of experienced teachers. The new data shows 88.3% of K–12 teachers in California in 2024–25 are considered experienced, representing an increase of 4,929teachers since the 2023–24 school year.
**Newly released data from CDE reports the numbers of Hispanic or Latino/a/e teachers continued to climb during school year 2024–25 — rising an additional 2.1% to 74,974.
Recommendations
Establish statewide metrics and goals for a capable, sustainable, and diverse teacher workforce.
Strengthen teacher mentorship to address the rising number of inexperienced teachers post-COVID.
Expand and sustain recruitment pathways for teachers of color.
Expand student teacher pathways without compromising the quality of preparation programs.
Focus on credentials in critical shortage fields.
Develop comprehensive succession planning to mitigate retirement-driven attrition.
Address persistent gender imbalances.
Strengthen data collection and transparency on teacher diversity and credentialing.
Advance data-informed policy decision-making.
Leverage existing state investments and funding opportunities to strengthen recruitment, preparation, and retention efforts.
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