Number of Underqualified Teachers per 10,000 Students

Comparing states based on their raw number of underqualified can be deceiving. A state like California might have a larger total number of underqualified teachers (24,000) than the District of Columbia (2,130), but it also has a lot more students (6.2 million to the District of Columbia's 90,000 students). Comparing states using a ratio that equalizes their student populations gives a truer look at how present underqualified teachers are in their schools.