Staffing Needs

The first brief in this series, Teacher Shortages: What We Know, explores research on teacher shortages and highlights recent state task force findings. This report is one of five policy briefs examining strategies states are using to address shortages.

Districts across the country are facing severe shortages of teachers—especially in certain
subjects (math, science, special education, career and technical education and bilingual
education) and in specific schools (urban, rural, high-poverty, high-minority and low-
achieving).

The purposes of this research were to quantify trends in three components of teacher turnover and to investigate claims of excessive teacher turnover as the predominant source of teacher shortages.

Policy Brief 2018-1: Addressing the Importance and Scale of the U.S. Teacher Shortage

By analyzing data from the Schools and Staffing Survey, the authors empirically test four of the core assumptions embedded in current arguments for expanding alternative teacher certification (AC):

Though policymakers are increasingly concerned about teacher shortages in U.S. public schools, the national discussion does not reflect historical patterns of the supply of and demand for newly minted teachers.

The authors study the mal-distribution of teachers and examine its causes then describe examples of both states and local school districts that have fashioned successful strategies for strengthening their teaching forces. 

While anecdotal accounts of substantial teacher shortages are increasingly common, we present evidence that such shortages are not a general phenomenon but rather are highly concentrated by subject and in schools where hiring and retaining teachers are chronic problems. We discuss several promising, complementary approaches for addressing teacher shortages.

Policy makers are concerned about reports of teacher shortages and the high rate of attrition among new teachers. Prior studies indicate that mentor-based induction can reduce the numbers of new teachers leaving schools or the profession

The teacher shortage in the nation's public schools—particularly in our high-poverty schools—
is a crisis for the teaching profession and a serious problem for the entire education system.
It harms students and teachers and contributes to the opportunity and achievement gaps
between students in high-poverty schools and their more affluent peers.

This article documents the mismatch between the supply and demand of STEM and special education teachers in Washington State, where almost 4,000 more STEM and special education teachers have left the profession than have been produced by in-state teacher training institutions over the past 25 years. 

This article critically reviews the recent empirical literature on teacher recruitment and retention published in the United States.

This volume is the third report in a series on the potential, promise, experience, and needs of career changers who are teaching in America’s classrooms today. It is based on a survey of a cross-section of such individuals conducted by Hart Research Associates in 2009.

This report summarizes a series of analyses that have investigated the possibility that there are other factors—tied to the organizational characteristics and conditions of schools—that are behind school staffing problems.

This article reports on a longitudinal study designed to explore these questions. In 1999, researchers from The Project on the Next Generation of Teachers selected and interviewed a diverse group of 50 new teachers in the Massachusetts public schools.

This research summary focuses on aspects of the study’s results that are likely to be most useful for policymakers and school leaders as they strive to maintain and manage an effective teacher workforce.

The authors investigate how the labor market decisions of recent college graduates, new teachers, and employers affect the academic quality of the teaching workforce in public schools.

The Teacher Shortages and Surpluses Databurst is an analysis of states' work to track teacher shortages and surpluses, and to implement the policy solutions to address these challenges. This resource includes an overview of promising practices currently being implemented, a snapshot of all 50 states' and the District of Columbia's efforts in addressing teacher supply and demand challenges, and noteworthy state policies by region across the country.

The faux teacher shortage is of tremendous consequences. It routinely results in both states and school disricts lowering their standards for who is license and hired. But more important, it serve to distract us from fixing the chronic and persistent and alignment of teacher supply and demand. 

This research addresses the problem of teacher shortages in urban, high-needs schools.