The Michigan’s Education Staff Education Focus Area is a collection of metrics examining staff in Michigan’s public schools. The data presented can help users understand workforce trends using supply, equity, and performance perspectives. Improving trends within these perspectives in turn can improve student achievement and outcomes.
The Overview tab of this report shows high-level statewide data for key metrics. Other tabs within this report are divided into sections with a callout, chart, and narrative. The callouts show either one year summary of data corresponding to the chart, or an average of multiple years of data in the case of trend data. The text in each section explains the data shown and provides research and insight into why the data are important.
The report is updated yearly. Report updates may be found on the Recently Posted Reports page.
This report defaults to a statewide setting. Users can select a district from the location menus in the Staff and Student Demographics, Teacher Retention, and Support Staff tabs that will update all charts with the chosen district’s data.
Some charts include one or two additional menus where users can filter the data by demographic, staffing group, or subject categories.
The Teacher Retention by District and Schools chart found on the Teacher Retention tab allows users to select school levels within the chosen district along with the option to select specific buildings in the selected district.
Data view options include:
- Callouts (high-level or summary data for each section)
- Bar Charts (graphs showing the data for the most recent school year of data available)
- Trend Charts (graphs showing data over time)
The Download Data tab will provide users with a CSV of all the data used in the report.
Location and Comparison Options
- Location setting options: Statewide, District, and School (school-level is only available in one chart in the Teacher Retention section).
- Most charts plot statewide data in addition to the chosen district to allow for comparison within one chart. Other areas of the report provide charts that sit side by side to make for easy comparison.
Logged-in Users
All data are unsuppressed and available to public users. There are no additional data for logged-in users with secure access on MI School Data.
The Center for Educational Performance and Information collects the majority of these data from the Registry of Education Personnel and the Michigan Student Data System. Certification data from the Michigan Online Educator Certification System are used as well. For more information on the MSDS or REP application and reporting rules, please see the CEPI website.
If you have questions not addressed here or in the linked resources, please contact CEPI customer support at cepi@michigan.gov.
Report Labels
See the glossary for additional terms and acronyms used on MI School Data.
Administrator: A full list of assignment codes for those staff classified as “administrator” can be found in the Assignment Codes Table.
Appropriately Certified and Placed Teachers: Teachers whose course and grade taught matches what they are endorsed to teach. These data are district totals taken from the same source of collected data used for the Parent Dashboard, Qualified Teacher charts. Early Childhood content area data are filtered out prior to the rollup.
Full-Time Equivalency: Some metrics in this report use full-time equivalency and some use headcount. FTE is a way of measuring full time vs. part time, with 1.0 FTE representing full time for any role. For example, a full-time teacher who works eight hours a day is counted as 1.0 FTE, and a part-time teacher who works four hours a day is counted as 0.5 FTE. Full and part-time designations are relative, so full time for a teacher could be eight hours, and for a bus driver full time could be five hours a day; each of these assignments would equal 1.0 FTE. The hours needed to be considered full time for each role is a district decision and can vary from location to location. FTE is used in charts displaying demographic data, student/staff ratios, assignments and student enrollment. Headcount is used in all staff retention calculations.
Late Hires: Late hires are those who were hired after the nominal first day of school, which is the day after Labor Day.
Newly Hired Teachers: Includes teachers who are new to the profession along with teachers who are newly hired in the district and have previous teaching experience in another school or district.
Registry of Educational Personnel: State-level data system that collects employment-related data from school districts to comply with the reporting needs of the state and U.S. Department of Education. The REP Data Field Manual is available on the CEPI site under the Manuals menu.
School Levels: Based on minimum and maximum actual grades taught; reported in the Education Entity Master.
Staff FTE: Staff FTE is based on staff employed on the Fall Student Count Day. This group excludes day-to-day substitute teachers (00SUB) and paraprofessionals/aides (00PAR), as well as student teachers (00STU), adult education staff, and pre-k staff. It includes only staff assigned to public schools.
Student FTE: Student FTE is based on students enrolled on the Fall Student Count Day. It excludes pre-k students and non-public students served in non-public buildings.
Student/Teacher Ratio and Student/Support Staff Ratio Data: The staff groups for each of these charts includes only those staff defined as Teacher or Support Staff, respectively. Reviewing the assignment codes included in each group is important in order to understand the data. Please see the Assignment Codes Table to examine who is included in each of these groups.
Support Staff: Support Staff are broken into the following subgroups: Guidance Counselors, Librarians, Non-Instructional Staff, Nurses, Paraprofessionals/Aides, Social Workers and Special Education and Support. A full list of assignment codes for those staff classified as “support staff,” and a further breakdown of each of the subgroups listed in the report can be found in the Assignment Codes Table.
Teacher: This report defines teacher in a slightly different way than is used by the Michigan Department of Education. In this report all counselors and librarians are included in the Support Staff data rather than in the teacher group. The teachers referenced in this report also include only teachers assigned to public schools. This definition for teacher is used throughout all tabs of the report. A full list of assignment codes for those staff classified as “teacher” can be found in the Assignment Code Table.
Data Calculations
Difference in Retention Rate: High–Poverty and Average-Poverty Schools: The callout provides the difference in average teacher retention for the high-poverty and average-poverty schools in the selected location where applicable data are available. The closer the value is to zero, the closer in value the teacher retention rate is in both types of schools. The difference is calculated only for districts that have both average and high-poverty schools. After calculating the difference for each year, the five-year average for each type of school is then calculated and compared. Please see the “High-, Average-, and Low-Poverty Schools” explanation to learn how high, average, and low poverty schools are determined and shown on the accompanying line chart.
Difference Calculations:
Positive value = Teacher retention rate is higher in the high-poverty schools.
Negative value = Teacher retention rate is higher in the average-poverty schools.
Zero value = Teacher retention rates of high- and average-poverty schools are equal.
N/A = District has no average- and/or no high-poverty schools; no calculation.
High-, Average-, and Low-Poverty Schools: This is determined by ordering all schools by the percent of students who are economically disadvantaged. The 25% of schools with the lowest percent of students who are economically disadvantaged are considered “low poverty,” while the 25% of schools with the highest percent of students who are economically disadvantaged are considered “high poverty.” Schools with economically disadvantaged percentages that fall between these thresholds are counted as “average” on the chart.
Difference in Racial Diversity of Students and Teachers: The difference between the percent of staff of color and the percent of students of color enrolled at the school. The closer the value is to zero, the closer the percentage is in both staff and student groups. After calculating the difference for each year, the five-year average for the student and staff group are then calculated and compared.
Difference Calculations:
Positive value = Percent of staff of color is higher than that of students
Negative value = Percent of staff of color is lower than that of students
Zero value = Percent of staff and percent of students of color are equal
N/A = District has no staff or students of color; no calculation
Teacher and Support Staff Retention: Staff retention rates are determined by taking the staff employed by a district during one year and looking at the next year to see if they remained employed that year. It includes staff employed on or after the first day of class (day after Labor Day). For example, staff reported employed in the Fall 2018 and/or End of Year 2019 REP collections are checked the following year (Fall 2019 and/or EOY 2020 REP collections) to verify if they have been retained in their position. Thus, retention is calculated using data from multiple years of REP collections. Additionally, employment must be in the same staff category to count. Administrators, Day-to-Day Substitutes, Student Teachers, Adult Education staff and pre-k staff are excluded. Statewide data in these charts are calculated using the average retention rate of each district in the state.
- Newly Hired Teachers: Retention Rates after Five Years of Employment: This chart is different from other retention charts in the report, as it follows teachers who were all hired in a particular year and shows their retention for each subsequent year they remain employed with the district. Other retention charts show a year-over-year retention rate, with each year’s rate calculated from one year prior only.
- Statewide Teacher Retention Rates: The Statewide Teacher Retention Rates chart uses a different retention calculation than other statewide data in the report. For this chart, “retention” counts teachers who remain employed in the state of Michigan year- over- year. Therefore, this chart is not reflective of teachers who change districts or schools within a district; it counts teachers as retained if they are still employed as teachers in any Michigan public school.
