The Teacher of the Year (TOY) program is the longest-standing teacher recognition program in the United States. The purpose of this study is to describe the characteristics of state and national TOY awardees and the schools in which they teach. To accomplish this aim, we develop a new data set including the characteristics of all TOY awardees and their schools from 1988 to 2019. Using descriptive and regression analysis, we find that TOY awardees are most likely to teach at the high school level, while the most common subjects taught were elementary education, English language arts, natural sciences, and, for National TOY awardees, social studies. They also have a greater probability of being selected from schools with a smaller fraction of students eligible for free or reduced-price lunch, and higher student enrollments. We discuss how these differences may impede the TOY program’s efforts to amplify teachers’ voice in education policymaking.

年度教师 (TOY) 计划是美国历史最悠久的教师认可计划。本研究的目的是描述州和国家玩具获奖者的特征以及他们任教的学校。为了实现这一目标，我们开发了一个新的数据集，其中包括 1988 年至 2019 年所有玩具获奖者及其学校的特征。使用描述性和回归分析，我们发现玩具获奖者最有可能在高中阶段任教，而最常见的课程是基础教育、英语语言艺术、自然科学，以及国家玩具奖获得者的社会研究。他们也更有可能从有资格获得免费或减价午餐的学生比例较小以及学生入学率较高的学校中被选中。