Educator Pipeline
Where Memphis-Shelby County Schools (MSCS)’ newly prepared teachers come from, and how the programs that prepare them are rated. The Tennessee State Board of Education publishes an Educator Preparation Report Card each February. Each edition covers three graduating classes (the 2025 edition is the 2022–2024 classes) and follows those graduates into Tennessee public schools.
Read this before quoting a number
- Placement counts are three-class totals, not one year’s hiring, and each edition shares two classes with the one before. They count new graduates of Tennessee programs by the first district they taught in. They do not count experienced, out-of-state or uncertified hires.
- Retention means still teaching in any Tennessee public school, not staying in Memphis. It describes the program’s graduates statewide.
- Ratings are shown for the 2025 edition only. The State Board changed its scoring that year (80 points instead of 90, and a different licensure-exam measure), so a rating can not be compared with an earlier year’s.
- Anything the State Board withheld for fewer than 10 people shows as “Suppressed,” never zero.
New teachers placed in MSCS
427
from the 2022–2024 classes, down from 798 for the 2018–2020 classes (-46%).
Programs supplying them
15
programs placed at least one graduate in MSCS. The three largest supplied 61% of them.
Statewide new-teacher supply
2,953+
teachers entered the 2023-24 class across all Tennessee programs, versus 3,702+ in 2014-15. A “+” means some small programs’ counts are withheld, so the true total is higher.
New teachers whose first Tennessee job was in MSCS, by Report Card edition
- 2021 edition2018–2020 classes798
- 2022 edition2019–2021 classes778
- 2023 edition2020–2022 classes670
- 2024 edition2021–2023 classes541
- 2025 edition2022–2024 classes427
Each bar is a three-class window, so neighboring bars overlap and the change from one to the next is the newest class replacing the oldest. This is the supply of newly prepared Tennessee teachers, a measure of one part of the pipeline. MSCS’s total hiring and its vacancies are not in this file (see the data gaps below).
| District | New teachers placed |
|---|---|
| Memphis-Shelby County Schools (MSCS) | 427 |
| Achievement School District (ASD) | 38 |
| Bartlett City Schools | 37 |
| Collierville Schools | 36 |
| Germantown Municipal School District | 21 |
| Arlington Community Schools | 10 |
| Millington Municipal Schools | 10 |
| Lakeland School System | 8 |
Counts, not rates: districts differ greatly in size, so these are not a measure of which district is better at attracting teachers.
The programs that place teachers in MSCS — 2025 Report Card
Rates describe each program’s graduates statewide over its 2022–2024 classes, not only those who came to Memphis. “n” is the number of graduates behind each rate.
| Program | Placed in MSCS | Overall rating | Employed in year 1 | Still teaching, year 2 | Still teaching, year 3 | Effective (LOE 3+) | Student growth (TVAAS 3+) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| University of Memphis | 119210 in 2021 | Exceeds | 79.8%n=346 | 96.1%n=207 | 84.4%n=96 | 92.0%n=462 | 55.9%n=102 |
| Teach For America - Memphis | 93207 in 2021 | Meets | 97.1%n=103 | 98.7%n=78 | 63.0%n=46 | 81.7%n=131 | 69.2%n=52 |
| Memphis Teacher Residency | 4970 in 2021 | Exceeds | 92.7%n=55 | 100.0%n=37 | 88.5%n=26 | 94.4%n=90 | 85.7%n=35 |
| Union University | 3991 in 2021 | Exceeds | 84.0%n=119 | 95.6%n=90 | 86.7%n=60 | 93.9%n=196 | 78.7%n=47 |
| Christian Brothers University | 3731 in 2021 | Exceeds | 83.1%n=59 | 100.0%n=34 | 70.0%n=10 | 95.8%n=72 | 84.6%n=26 |
| University of Tennessee - Martin | 3128 in 2021 | Meets | 94.0%n=772 | 94.9%n=573 | 86.6%n=283 | 92.9%n=1,333 | 48.4%n=223 |
| Freed-Hardeman University | 2516 in 2021 | Meets | 68.9%n=148 | 92.8%n=83 | 88.9%n=36 | 89.6%n=164 | 48.6%n=37 |
| University of Tennessee - Knoxville | 106 in 2021 | Meets | 84.6%n=696 | 92.2%n=421 | 82.8%n=192 | 86.6%n=1,029 | 55.5%n=229 |
| Relay Graduate School of Education | 955 in 2021 | Exceeds | 92.6%n=81 | 88.6%n=70 | 69.4%n=49 | 91.9%n=99 | 85.4%n=41 |
| Bethel University | 629 in 2021 | Meets | 84.1%n=44 | 94.1%n=34 | 89.5%n=19 | 87.7%n=73 | 50.0%n=18 |
| Middle Tennessee State University | 44 in 2021 | Meets | 89.2%n=668 | 94.6%n=515 | 88.2%n=288 | 94.3%n=1,152 | 61.3%n=212 |
| Austin Peay State University | 2none in 2021 | Meets | 94.3%n=560 | 96.5%n=396 | 89.7%n=185 | 88.8%n=928 | 57.8%n=199 |
| East Tennessee State University | 12 in 2021 | Exceeds | 79.3%n=517 | 92.5%n=320 | 89.8%n=137 | 93.8%n=731 | 62.4%n=133 |
| Lee University | 1none in 2021 | Meets | 76.1%n=343 | 90.3%n=216 | 78.6%n=117 | 78.9%n=456 | 53.6%n=97 |
| Tennessee State University | 13 in 2021 | Meets | 95.1%n=82 | 94.1%n=68 | 85.0%n=40 | 94.0%n=133 | 86.4%n=22 |
| All Tennessee programs | — | — | 84.6%n=8,558 | 94.2%n=5,765 | 85.1%n=2,901 | 90.5%n=12,825 | 58.9%n=2,738 |
Programs with fewer than 10 graduates in a measure have it withheld. Pathways that ask for a fixed commitment, such as two-year teaching fellowships, will show low year-3 retention by design, so a low number there is not by itself a judgment on quality. The full set of domain ratings (candidate profile, employment, provider impact, candidate assessment) is in the downloadable data.
How many teachers each of these programs puts into Tennessee each year
Teachers entering each annual class (completers plus job-embedded candidates), statewide. A program that shrinks here sends fewer teachers to every district, including Memphis.
| Program | 2014-15 | 2015-16 | 2016-17 | 2017-18 | 2018-19 | 2019-20 | 2020-21 | 2021-22 | 2022-23 | 2023-24 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| University of Memphis | 208 | 165 | 103 | 144 | 160 | 146 | 158 | 105 | 107 | 135 |
| Teach For America - Memphis | 157 | 108 | 138 | 124 | 97 | 87 | 72 | 42 | 34 | 27 |
| Memphis Teacher Residency | 55 | 57 | 48 | 38 | 38 | 24 | 33 | 28 | 12 | 15 |
| Union University | 201 | 179 | 121 | 107 | 85 | 63 | 77 | 62 | 29 | 29 |
| Christian Brothers University | 36 | 18 | 38 | 16 | 13 | 20 | 12 | 8 | 23 | 28 |
| University of Tennessee - Martin | 208 | 167 | 181 | 251 | 269 | 209 | 281 | 231 | 256 | 295 |
| Freed-Hardeman University | 60 | 137 | 61 | 41 | 40 | 48 | 29 | 32 | 46 | 61 |
| University of Tennessee - Knoxville | 210 | 184 | 188 | 148 | 167 | 165 | 184 | 199 | 225 | 274 |
| Relay Graduate School of Education | Suppressed | Suppressed | 71 | 93 | 75 | 89 | 97 | 45 | 22 | 14 |
| Bethel University | 35 | 106 | 50 | 29 | 30 | 11 | 25 | 15 | 15 | 14 |
| Middle Tennessee State University | 311 | 315 | 338 | 263 | 223 | 265 | 252 | 271 | 241 | 198 |
| Austin Peay State University | 162 | 166 | 187 | 128 | 149 | 146 | 161 | 146 | 177 | 235 |
| East Tennessee State University | 204 | 157 | 171 | 170 | 173 | 184 | 176 | 168 | 182 | 168 |
| Lee University | 137 | 133 | 167 | 144 | 170 | 124 | 139 | 125 | 128 | 91 |
| Tennessee State University | 51 | 45 | 43 | 49 | 39 | 35 | 27 | 28 | 26 | 25 |
| All programs | 3,702+ | 3,501+ | 3,614+ | 3,136+ | 3,191+ | 3,034+ | 3,019+ | 2,785+ | 2,891+ | 2,953+ |
What this page does not have yet
The pipeline is only part of the picture. These measures matter for the same question, and each is listed with who holds the data.
Data gap: Teacher vacancies at the start of the school year
Held by Memphis-Shelby County Schools (MSCS) Human Resources · not collected or published
No official, dated vacancy count is published, and counts reported in the news use different definitions. Chalkbeat Tennessee (Oct. 13, 2026) reports that in an August survey 35% of MSCS school leaders said every teaching position was filled and in place by the first day, down from 41% a year earlier, and that the district set a target of under 100 vacancies after 226 last year. Those are reported figures, not district data, and the survey's author is not named.
SourceData gap: Teacher turnover by school
Held by Tennessee Department of Education (TDOE) · a source exists; not yet added here
TDOE's teacher-retention file has school-level rows; this dashboard currently uses only the MSCS district rate. Chalkbeat reports one MSCS school lost about two-thirds of its teachers in 2024-25.
Data gap: Teacher working-conditions survey
Held by Tennessee Educator Survey (TDOE with the Tennessee Education Research Alliance) · a source exists; not yet added here
School- and district-level results are published as Excel files. MSCS was left out of the 2026 survey because too few educators responded, so the most recent MSCS results are a year older than the other figures here.
Data gap: Out-of-field and inexperienced teachers
Held by Tennessee Department of Education (Title I equity reports) · a source exists; not yet added here
TDOE's annual Student Access to Effective Teachers reports count inexperienced teachers (under two years in Tennessee) and teachers working on a waiver license, by district. They are published as PDF.
Data gap: Why teachers leave MSCS
Held by Memphis-Shelby County Schools (MSCS) · not collected or published
Chalkbeat reports that MSCS does not conduct exit interviews or collect data on why teachers leave, so there is nothing to publish.
Source: Tennessee State Board of Education, Educator Preparation Report Card (editions 2021–2025; earlier editions in the archive). Placement files are matched to the rating files by program name, because the placement files carry no program code. Data covers Tennessee-prepared teachers only.