Demand is measured. Policy adoption is measured. Preparation quality is measured. Whether the workforce exists to staff what policy enables falls between every organization in the field.
The organizations working in this space each measure their own side of the ledger, and measure it well. EdChoice counts families, programs and fiscal effects. ExcelinEd tracks policy adoption across some forty areas. NCTQ measures the quality of teacher preparation. NACSA tracks authorizers. AACTE represents and advocates for the preparation pipeline.
Put those five together and one question still has no owner: as public money becomes portable, does the educator workforce exist to staff what the policy has enabled?
It is nobody's failure. Each organization is doing its own job, and the question sits outside all of their remits — it requires demand-side data from one, policy data from another, and institution-level observation that none of them collects. It falls in the seam.
WMFC exists to occupy that seam. This is not a criticism of the field; it is the reason there is room for another instrument in it.
Cite as: When Money Follows the Child. Nobody owns the workforce question. Field Note 03, July 2026. https://www.whenmoneyfollowsthechild.org/notes/03/ Accessed [date].