The Current and Future Educator Workforce in Wisconsin’s Rural Schools - WCER Working Paper No. 2025-4

Oct 15, 2026

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This paper examines Wisconsin’s rural educator workforce by summarizing key characteristics of the current teacher workforce and how they have shifted over time, then documenting how the state’s approved educator preparation programs (EPPs) attract, prepare, and retain future rural educators. Findings indicate uneven access to EPP relationships driven largely by geographic distance, plus many rural staffing-oriented program models that warrant further intentional rural focus. The study closes with issues and potential policy recommendations.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryResearch & Report

FormatPDF

Pages54

Reading Time2 h 16 min

AccessFree to download

Abstract

Part 1: Demographic Trends in the Rural Educator Workforce

Declining teacher numbers in rural districts

Distance from educator preparation programs and remote subtype limitations

Growth of emergency credentials in rural districts

Teacher racial composition and student diversity implications

Part 2: EPPs and Partners Recruiting, Preparing, and Retaining Rural Educators

The Current and Future Educator Workforce in Wisconsin’s Rural Schools WCER Working Paper No. 2025-4 October 2025 Jenny Seelig1 and Bradley Carl2 1NORC at the University of Chicago Education and Child Development [seelig-jenny@norc.org](seelig-jenny@norc.org) 2Wisconsin Evaluation Collaborative (WEC) Wisconsin Center for Education Research School of Education, University of Wisconsin–Madison [bradley.carl@wisc.edu](bradley.carl@wisc.edu) Keywords: Rural schools, educator shortages, teacher recruitment Suggested citation: Seelig, J. & Carl, B. (2025) . The current and future educator workforce in Wisconsin’s rural schools (WCER Working Paper No. 2025-4). University of Wisconsin–Madison, Wisconsin Center for Education Research. © 2025 by Jennifer Seelig and Bradley Carl. All rights reserved. Any opinions, findings, or conclusions expressed in this paper are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the funding agencies, WCER, or cooperating institutions. Readers may make verbatim copies of this document for noncommercial purposes by any means, provided that the above copyright notice appears on all copies. WCER working papers are available at [https://wcer.wisc.edu/publications/working-papers](https://wcer.wisc.edu/publications/working-papers) The Current and Future Educator Workforce in Wisconsin’s Rural Schools Jenny Seelig and Bradley Carl ABSTRACT This paper builds upon previous work investigating Wisconsin’s rural educator workforce by (a) summarizing key characteristics of the current teacher workforce in Wisconsin’s rural schools and how these may have changed over time; and (b) documenting ways in which the state’s approved educator preparation programs (EPPs) are helping attract, prepare, and retain future rural educators. We find that rural districts have uneven access and relationships with the state’s EPPs, which is largely (although not exclusively) a function of their physical distance from EPPs. We also find a wide range of programs and partnerships that EPPs have developed to help meet the staffing needs of rural schools statewide, such as dual-credit courses and placements specifically in rural districts for practicum and student teaching experiences, although we recommend that EPPs and other postsecondary institutions review the extent to which these are intentionally rural-focused. We close by summarizing several key issues that emerged from our inquiry into how Wisconsin’s EPPs and other organizations are supporting both current and future rural teachers and offer potential policy recommendations for addressing these issues. The Current and Future Educator Workforce in Wisconsin’s Rural Schools Jenny Seelig and Bradley Carl Executive Summary Despite increased awareness in recent years of staffing challenges faced by rural school districts in Wisconsin—which comprise nearly three-fourths ofthe state ’s 400+ local school districts and educate nearly half of all students statewide—rural communities continue to struggle with attracting and retaining educators. This is the second of two papers by the authors exploring staffing challenges facing Wisconsin’s rural educator workforce. Our first paper (Carl & Seelig, 2023) looked at the rural educator workforce primarily from the demand side, and found that rural districts are not waiting on state or federal policymakers to solve longstanding staffing challenges for them but instead are actively implementing a mix of strategies (such as“grow your own,” or GYO, initiatives) to address teacher shortages. Our first report also confirmed, however, that we lack important contextual information about key characteristics of our state’s current rural educator workforce, and how those have changed (or not) over time. Importantly, there has also not been a review of the supply side of the rural educator pipeline, in the form of what Wisconsin’s 40+ approved educator preparation programs (EPPs) are doing to help addr

FAQs

What does the paper say about the demographic composition of teachers in rural districts?

Teachers in rural districts have remained overwhelmingly (95%) white over the past two decades despite increasing student diversity, with implications discussed in the findings.

Oct 15, 2026

Uploaded by Bintang