There are at least four ways teachers may enter a new school: directly after receiving a new degree, exiting a different career, transferring from another school or type of position in a school, or after a break from teaching. The data used in this report span 25 years, from 1987 to 2012, providing an overview of these four key sources of newly hired teachers in the United States using the Schools and Staffing Survey
(SASS).

Four administrations of SASS (1987–88, 1999–2000, 2007–08, and 2011–12) provide data tracing the demographic characteristics, experience, qualifications, and prior year activities of newly hired K–12 teachers in the United States. Newly hired teachers are those who are new to teaching or those who are in a new position at a school in a different district or system in the academic year of the survey administration and taught at least half time or more at the school.