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Teacher Shortage in America

Elaine Cao

By Aaron Chen


How Bad Is The Teacher Shortage? And Is It Real?

Recently, headline after headline has presented a concerning issue: a supposed "teacher shortage" across the US. With education playing a pivotal role in shaping society and teachers serving as the driving force, many challenges have been presented to the accessibility and quality of education across the United States.


Is it "catastrophic"?

The National Center for Education Statistics 2022 School Pulse Panel reported that 42% of all principals said teachers and staff leaving the profession became a "more pressing concern" (Jones). Not only this, but more than three-quarters of US states said they are experiencing a teacher shortage when contacted by ABC News, and the National Education Association president Rebecca Pringle has stated that there are 300,000 vacancies across the country (ABC News).


The teacher shortage has even attracted attention from the White House and the Education and Labor departments, who issued this letter to address the problem. It is without a doubt that there is a shortage of teachers, and it poses a threat to the quality of American students' education.


It doesn't stop there, though. According to an Economics Policy Institute report, the crisis is even worse when credentials are factored in. The US Department of Education believes that taking a traditional route to becoming a teacher, certification, background education, and experience are the four criteria that make for a "highly qualified" teacher. but 8.8% of teachers in public non-charter schools are not fully certified, 17.1% did not take a traditional certification route into teaching, 22.4% do not have over 5 years of experience and 31.5% have no degree related to the subject they are teaching — using data from the 2015-2016 National Teacher and Principal Survey (Garcia).


Many states have also been lowering the requirements to become a teacher to fill positions, including Tennessee's "Grow Your Own" residency program that shortens a four-year program to three years (Will). Teacher quality is regarded as an essential component of quality education for students, and poor teaching can result in less effective learning.


Teachers are burned out.

The lack of "highly qualified" teachers isn't the only potentially harmful problem when it comes to quality education — teachers are also facing issues with stress and burnout.


According to a survey from the RAND Corporation, fewer than half of all teachers agree that the "stress and disappointment" is worth it. Additionally, out of the 62% of all Americans who said they wouldn't want their child to be a teacher in the 2022 Public Attitudes Toward Public Schools poll, 30% cited poor pay and benefits, 26% said stress and demands, and 23% cited lack of respect (Stanford).


Teachers don't just have to deal with the stress from school, but with other jobs as well. An NCES survey revealed that 17% of teachers work a second job on top of their 52-hour work week as a teacher. Teachers have long been underpaid compared with similarly educated workers in other professions, and the school environment is demoralizing, with students often demonstrating absenteeism and disrespect. These factors have made teaching less attractive — it is no wonder that enrollment in teacher prep programs has decreased by a third over the past decade (Will).

With long work hours, apathetic students, and salaries that barely cover the cost of living, the profession responsible for shaping young minds and America's future has become stressful and unappealing.


Is the shortage national?

Some evidence suggests that the shortage is more localized than one might think, with some districts and states more well-off than others. When asked by ABC News, Florida, New Hampshire, New Mexico, and Louisiana did not report shortages.

Florida reported that only 2% of teaching positions were unfulfilled during the 2022-2023 school year, possibly due to its teaching salary raise from 40,000 to 48,000 (Jones). New Mexico, which previously sent in the national guard to assist short-staffed districts during COVID, saw a 34% decrease in the teacher vacancy rate (Jones). Meanwhile, in Fairfax County Public Schools, Virginia's largest school district, superintendent Michelle Reid reported that 97% of positions were filled three weeks before the semester began (Natanson).


Geography isn't the only factor though. The School Pulse Panel found that 4 in 10 schools with more than 75% minority populations had multiple teaching vacancies (Jones), 57% of high-poverty schools reported at least one teaching vacancy, while 41% of low-poverty schools had one or more vacancies (Wong). In a similar vein, a third of high-poverty schools reported multiple vacancies while a quarter of low-poverty schools reported multiple vacancies (Wong). Special education teachers remain especially hard to come by, with 7% of positions unfilled, compared to the 4% average nationwide. English Language Learner programs and computer science are experiencing the severest shortages, with the former having 6% of positions unfulfilled, and the latter, 5% (Wong).


There are serious consequences.

A lack of sufficient, qualified teachers threatens the ability of students to learn and achieve their goals. This makes it difficult to build a solid reputation for teaching and further perpetuates the shortage. High teacher turnover also consumes lots of economic resources, with the Learning Policy Institute estimating that filling a vacancy costs 21k on average (Garcia). Another estimate placed the annual cost of turnover across the US at $7.3 billion per year (Garcia). The unevenness of the shortage across states and wealth classes also challenges the goal of providing an equitable education to every student.


There are some promising solutions…

In the face of pressing concerns regarding a lack of teachers willing or able to step up to foster the growth of America's next generation, many states have adopted strategies to incentivize new and retired teachers to take up the profession. Iowa launched a grant program in 2022 helping high school students earn a paraprofessional certificate and associate degree, and paraprofessionals to earn a bachelor's degree. As mentioned before, Tennessee has been approved to establish a "Grow Your Own" model allowing people to become a teacher for free, with books, fees, tuitions, and exams being covered, while Florida saw the largest teacher salary raise in history (Jones).


Overall, it is evident that the teacher shortage is currently a concerning issue in the US, although it is much more severe in some areas (mainly underprivileged and majority-minority schools). Much work is needed to be done to address teacher pay and working conditions - the future of America's next generation may depend on it.






Works Cited


Garcia, Emma, and Elaine Weiss. Economic Policy Institute, Washington, DC, 2019, pp. 1–19, The Teacher Shortage Is Real, Large and Growing, and Worse than We Thought.


Jones, Arthur. “Amid Teacher Shortage, Black Male Educators Point to Why There Aren’t More of Them.” ABC News, 8 Dec. 2022, abcnews.go.com/US/amid-teacher-shortage-black-male-educators-point/story?id=93089624.


Jones, Arthur. “Most of the US Is Dealing with a Teaching Shortage, but the Data Isn’t so Simple.” ABC News, 11 Feb. 2023, abcnews.go.com/US/map-shows-us-states-dealing-teaching-shortage-data/story?id=96752632.


Natanson, Hannah. “‘Never Seen It This Bad’: America Faces Catastrophic Teacher Shortage.” The Washington Post, 10 Aug. 2022, www.washingtonpost.com/education/2022/08/03/school-teacher-shortage/.


Stanford, Libby. “Most Parents Don’t Want Their Kids to Become Teachers, Poll Finds.” Education Week, 1 Sept. 2022, www.edweek.org/teaching-learning/most-parents-dont-want-their-kids-to-become-teachers-poll-finds/2022/08.


“US Has 300,000 Teacher, School Staff Vacancies, NEA President Rebecca Pringle Says.” ABC News, 11 Aug. 2022, abcnews.go.com/US/us-300000-teacher-school-staff-vacancies-nea-president/story?id=88242614.


Will, Madeline. “Fewer People Are Getting Teacher Degrees. Prep Programs Sound the Alarm.” Education Week, 29 Mar. 2022, www.edweek.org/teaching-learning/fewer-people-are-getting-teacher-degrees-prep-programs-sound-the-alarm/2022/03.


Will, Madeline. “Here’s How the White House Is Tackling Teacher Shortages.” Education Week, 1 Sept. 2022, www.edweek.org/leadership/heres-how-the-white-house-is-tackling-teacher-shortages/2022/08.


Will, Madeline. “How Bad Is the Teacher Shortage? What Two New Studies Say.” Education Week, 7 Sept. 2022, www.edweek.org/leadership/how-bad-is-the-teacher-shortage-what-two-new-studies-say/2022/09.


Wong, Alia. “Overworked, Underpaid? The Toll of Burnout Is Contributing to Teacher Shortages Nationwide.” USA Today, 27 Dec. 2022, www.usatoday.com/story/news/education/2022/12/21/why-there-teacher-shortage-schools-struggled-nationwide-2022/10882103002/.


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