The USA TODAY NETWORK determined America’s system for checking teachers’ backgrounds is a loosely-connected patchwork of state laws and procedures, inconsistent practices by school districts and state officials, and wide variations in who’s accountable for what and how accountable they are.We decided it was time to find out where each state stood. The end result: this grading system, which attempts to measure states’ laws and practices and execution of them. We focused primarily on three areas:1. How thoroughly a state checks an applicant’s background before issuing a teaching license (a total of 40 points on our 100-point scale).2. Whether the state shares complete licensing and disciplinary information about sanctioned teachers publicly and whether it reports its own sanctions effectively to a nationwide database (40 points).3. Whether the state has laws mandating that educators, schools and school districts report misconduct to the state (20 points).

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