Teacher Licensure and Experience

Over ten percent of Vermont’s school-aged children attend one of over 100 independent (private) schools in the state. Some of these students receive monetary vouchers to attend independent schools of their choice because their hometowns lack public schools. Unlike the state’s public schools, Vermont’s independent schools do not require educators to possess state licensure. Given the different requirements posed upon public and independent school educators, the Vermont House Committee on Education asked whether there are significant differences between the teachers employed by public schools and independent schools. To answer this question, we compared the experience and qualifications of Vermont’s independent school and public school educators by performing a quantitative content analysis of current educators’ professional résumés. We found that public school teachers were more likely to pursue undergraduate degrees in Education and to pursue post-graduate education. We also found that independent schools hire a greater proportion of inexperienced teachers, although on average independent school teachers had more teaching experience than public school teachers.