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Staff Qualifications

States have long been concerned with ensuring the qualifications of teachers and other educational staff. The tables in this section focus on certification and licensure standards for teachers and administrators. Additional national information about K-12 school staffing is available from the NCES National Teacher and Principal Survey (NTPS). Please visit the State Education Practices table archive for more tables on staff qualifications.


Data Tables

Table 7.1 Test requirements for initial certification of elementary and secondary teachers, by type of test and state: 2017 and 2018
Table 7.2 State standards and requirements for administrator licensure, by state: 2018

Please note: Data on this site are drawn from a wide variety of sources, primarily outside NCES. These data are largely self-reported by the states. Each source collected the data using research methods specific to its organization. Readers should take care when comparing data from different sources as the data may not be comparable due to differences in procedures and timing of data collection. Updates to this site occur as source organizations release new data. This site is intended as a broad reference tool and not meant to serve as a comprehensive repository of policy developments.

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