Lost to the System? A Descriptive Exploration of Where Teacher Candidates Find Employment and How Much They Earn

We use data on over 14,000 teacher candidates in Washington state, merged with employment data from the state’s public schools and Unemployment Insurance system, to investigate the career paths and earnings of teacher candidates in the state. Around 75% of candidates are employed in some education position in each of the 5 years after student teaching, but we find considerable movement from education positions outside of public schools into public school teaching positions in the first few years after candidates complete student teaching. Candidates with STEM endorsements and candidates who graduated after the Great Recession are disproportionately likely to be employed in public K–12 teaching positions compared with other education positions. Finally, candidates employed in K–12 public schools earn considerably more on average than candidates employed outside of public schools, but due to the considerable compression of teacher salaries, many candidates who do not enter teaching—particularly candidates with STEM endorsements—earn more than they would have in K–12 public schools.

This paper has been published in the May 2022 issue of Educational Researcher, and can be found here.