A 51-jurisdiction atlas of teacher certification requirements for instructing classified English Learners.
State education agencies (SEAs) implement identical federal civil-rights protections through divergent credentialing regimes. This catalog records the resulting variation: which credentials each SEA offers and the requirements attached to those credentials.
Less than 3.0%
3.0% to less than 6.0%
6.0% to less than 10.0%
10.0% or higher
Hover or focus a state for a summary; click to open the full per-state record.
- 31/51states offer a bilingual education credential
- 31/51offer ELD as a standalone certification
- 3/51mandate SEI training for all teachers
National mean: 8.8% classified ELs (51-SEA average; see per-state records for as-of dates and sources).
All 51 jurisdictions
Each card links to the full per-state record with credentials, sources, and policy timeline.
- Alabama AL · 4.7% EL
- Alaska AK · 10.8% EL
- Arizona AZ · 8.2% EL
- Arkansas AR · 8.1% EL
- California CA · 17.4% EL
- Colorado CO · 13.0% EL
- Connecticut CT · 11.3% EL
- Delaware DE · 13.3% EL
- District of Columbia DC · 14.1% EL
- Florida FL · 9.5% EL
- Georgia GA · 7.7% EL
- Hawaii HI · 10.0% EL
- Idaho ID · 5.8% EL
- Illinois IL · 16.4% EL
- Indiana IN · 7.0% EL
- Iowa IA · 7.0% EL
- Kansas KS · 8.0% EL
- Kentucky KY · 8.5% EL
- Louisiana LA · 5.3% EL
- Maine ME · 3.1% EL
- Maryland MD · 12.6% EL
- Massachusetts MA · 13.1% EL
- Michigan MI · 6.4% EL
- Minnesota MN · 9.6% EL
- Mississippi MS · 3.1% EL
- Missouri MO · 3.8% EL
- Montana MT · 2.4% EL
- Nebraska NE · 7.3% EL
- Nevada NV · 13.8% EL
- New Hampshire NH · 2.8% EL
- New Jersey NJ · 10.6% EL
- New Mexico NM · 18.8% EL
- New York NY · 10.7% EL
- North Carolina NC · 11.9% EL
- North Dakota ND · 3.3% EL
- Ohio OH · 4.6% EL
- Oklahoma OK · 9.3% EL
- Oregon OR · 12.6% EL
- Pennsylvania PA · 5.3% EL
- Rhode Island RI · 13.5% EL
- South Carolina SC · 5.8% EL
- South Dakota SD · 3.0% EL
- Tennessee TN · 5.8% EL
- Texas TX · 24.3% EL
- Utah UT · 8.7% EL
- Vermont VT · 2.0% EL
- Virginia VA · 9.4% EL
- Washington WA · 15.1% EL
- West Virginia WV · 0.8% EL
- Wisconsin WI · 5.9% EL
- Wyoming WY · 2.7% EL
Cite this page
Site content is published under CC BY 4.0. When citing a fact from this page, please cite both projectcert and the original Leider et al. (2021) paper the dataset extends.
- APA
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projectcert. (2026, May 10). projectcert: a 51-state atlas of EL teacher certification. https://projectcert.org/
Leider, C. M., Colombo, M. W., & Nerlino, E. (2021). Decentralization, teacher quality, and the education of English learners: Do state education agencies effectively prepare teachers of ELs? Education Policy Analysis Archives, 29(100). https://doi.org/10.14507/epaa.29.5279
- BibTeX
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@misc{projectcert_2026, author = {{projectcert}}, title = {{projectcert: a 51-state atlas of EL teacher certification}}, year = {2026}, url = {https://projectcert.org/}, urldate = {2026-05-10}, note = {Last verified 2026-05-10} }@article{leider2021decentralization, author = {Leider, Christine M. and Colombo, Michaela W. and Nerlino, Erika}, title = {{Decentralization, teacher quality, and the education of English learners: Do state education agencies effectively prepare teachers of ELs?}}, journal = {Education Policy Analysis Archives}, volume = {29}, number = {100}, year = {2021}, doi = {10.14507/epaa.29.5279} }