How are States Leveraging Micro-Credentials to Improve the Teacher Workforce?
Blog Post

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June 20, 2025
Nearly five years ago, New America published an in-depth report on harnessing the potential of micro-credentials for K-12 educators. At a time when concerns were mounting about a declining supply of teachers and a less well-prepared educator workforce, the report explained how micro-credentials can provide employers with a way to verify that teachers and other educators have developed small, specific skills, and how the process of earning high-quality micro-credentials offers educators an impactful professional learning experience. It also shared insights about promising state and local efforts to formally incorporate micro-credentials into their educator policies
Today states continue to attempt to address teacher shortages through a variety of different initiatives, so we set out to investigate what has—and hasn’t—changed about the educator micro-credential landscape and how states are using this tool to address shortages and other educator workforce policy goals.
New America’s recent report, “When Micro Goes Macro: A Nationwide Review of States’ Educator Micro-Credential Policies,” explores if and how state educator policies are explicitly allowing or encouraging the use of micro-credentials. We found that over 60 percent of states (32, including the District of Columbia) now do so, a 23 percent increase from 2020.
This national review found six educator policy areas where states (including DC) are explicitly incorporating micro-credentials: (1) educator preparation, (2) initial certification, (3) curated professional development, (4) license renewal, (5) acquisition of additional endorsements, and (6) license advancement.
Fourteen of the 32 states explicitly include educator micro-credentials in more than one policy area.
Most states are still only dipping a toe in the water, incorporating micro-credentials into only one of these educator policy areas. That said, one of the biggest changes relative to the 2020 state policy review is that 14 of the 32 states explicitly including educator micro-credentials do so in more than one policy area. Arkansas and Utah incorporate micro-credentials in the greatest number of educator policy areas, with four each. While nearly all of the state policies focus exclusively on teachers, a few focus on school administrators.
The most common way states are using educator micro-credentials is to promote ongoing professional development for current educators. This happens either via curated learning opportunities on topics of state priority (13 states), or as an option for teachers to fulfill state license renewal requirements (15 states).
The policy area with the greatest percent increase in states’ utilization of educator micro-credentials is initial certification—10 states now have a policy in this area, whereas no states did in 2020. Many of these states have incorporated micro-credentials in their initial certification policies in an attempt to balance their need to broaden the pool of educators to address shortages with their desire to maintain quality by having candidates demonstrate their readiness to enter and continue in the profession.
Table 1 summarizes the results of the state scan by policy type and by year.

We would still describe states’ growing use of micro-credentials as “promising,” since they can help states better identify, develop, and retain a skilled, diverse educator workforce capable of helping students meet their full potential. Specific examples of how micro-credentials can do this include:
Role of Micro-credentials in State Policy | Effects on Educator Workforce |
---|---|
Reduce barriers to entering profession without hurting quality | Fewer vacancies unfilled or filled by under-qualified hires, more diversity |
Better identify candidates for specialized/advanced career opportunities | More effective and diverse educators in specialized/advanced roles |
Promote engagement in active, relevant professional learning | More satisfied, more effective workforce, and less turnover |
Unfortunately, many of the offerings that states are labeling as micro-credentials are unlikely to have these kinds of positive impacts on the educator workforce. That’s because these offerings don’t appear to reflect the key characteristics of high-quality micro-credentials, which include the opportunity to engage in a rigorous cycle of inquiry and to apply competencies in a real-world setting. (For more on the five conditions that make a micro-credential high quality, see the gray box in the introduction to our report.)
However, there are a few state efforts underway to ensure educator micro-credential quality.
One is the Micro-Credentials Partnership of States, convened by digiLEARN and RTI, and consisting of Arkansas, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Wyoming. The Partnership has worked to develop a common set of Quality Assurance Standards (QAS) for educator micro-credentials and an accompanying rubric for assessing micro-credentials against those standards. While state use of these tools is still in its early stages (they were published in June 2024), North Carolina has officially adopted the QAS rubric for determining which micro-credentials will hold currency within state educator policies, and the other states are also beginning to incorporate it as a micro-credential vetting tool.
Another effort to ensure quality is happening in Illinois, where micro-credential providers must submit documentation to the State Board of Education for each micro-credential they want to offer toward license renewal. The Board then assesses the micro-credential offering with the state’s quality assessment rubric, which includes evaluation of the micro-credential’s design, alignment to the state teaching and learning standards, and the process for evidence submission and evaluation.
How states have designed micro-credential policies varies significantly as well. Policy design should depend on whether policymakers want to use micro-credentials to validate competencies (e.g., assessing whether a teacher has the skills to be successful as an instructional coach) and/or to help develop competencies (e.g., helping teachers learn how to apply science of reading principles within their instruction). New America’s 2021 Model State Policy Guide offers detailed recommendations for state policymakers on leveraging educator micro-credentials for license renewal, ongoing professional learning, and career advancement opportunities that draw upon lessons learned by early adopter states and districts.
Here are all six of our recommendations for states interested in harnessing the potential of educator micro-credentials:
- Develop a formal, rigorous, and transparent process for ensuring the quality of educator micro-credentials.
- Curating a set of micro-credentials that directly address priorities for educator and student learning.
- Designing the requirements and incentives associated with any educator micro-credential policies to align with the intended goal(s) of that policy.
- Raising educators’ and local education leaders’ awareness of and engagement with micro-credentials by communicating with them clearly—and repeatedly—about what high-quality micro-credentials are, how they work, and how they can help them and the students they serve.
- Providing local education leaders the training necessary to support educators in successfully earning high-quality micro-credentials, including by helping them align educators’ work on high-quality micro-credentials with their curriculum and with instructional coaching.
- Deploying data and research to better understand and harness educator micro-credential potential, such as by using information gathered from implementation of a micro-credential pilot to improve the program prior to statewide rollout.
While we were pleased to see expanded state interest in micro-credentials in our recent policy scan, we hope that the trend we’ll see in coming years is states making smart choices about selecting and incorporating micro-credentials in educator policies, as they seek to fully realize their potential.
For more background on educator micro-credentials, see the introduction section of the "When Micro Goes Macro" report, or visit New America’s collection of publications on the topic.