The Facts—and Fictions—About Teacher Shortages
As school districts across the nation scramble each year to fill vacant positions, policymakers are struggling to understand the nature of the country's
teacher shortages. Is there a need to produce more and more licensed teachers, or is something else needed to shore up the teaching workforce?
Context
Over the past two decades, numerous commissions and reports have raised a cry of alarm about expected teacher shortages. Based on projections of rapidly
increasing elementary and secondary student enrollments, along with the "graying" of the teaching workforce, analysts have predicted a near
crisis in the nation's ability to staff its classrooms. Such dire predictions could not have come at a worse time—just as consensus is building
about the tremendous impact good teaching has on student learning. As a result, there is tremendous pressure to produce both more and better teachers,
despite the fact that there is a lack of agreement about how to define and how to produce quality teaching. Facing an uphill battle to fill all classrooms
with qualified teachers, the nation is hampered by poor data on teacher supply and demand, lack of a national teaching workforce strategy, and insufficient
research on which remedies really work. To truly comprehend and tackle teacher shortages, educators and policymakers must better understand both supply
and demand issues and avoid one-dimensional solutions
Observations
Contrary to conventional wisdom, the United States is not currently facing a crisis in total teacher supply. However, production levels must
be maintained in order to staff all our nation's classrooms.
The dire predictions of the past 20 years have not come to pass, and the nation has been successful at recruiting more teachers. Between 1988 and 2001
the number of teachers in public elementary and secondary schools increased 29 percent, more than matching student enrollment growth of 19 percent.
Additionally, the National Center for Education Statistics estimates that the number of teachers will increase five percent between 2001 and 2013, adequately
meeting expected student enrollment growth.
There are many reasons for the increased supply, including the furor over teacher shortagesitself. In addition to the large number of teachers produced
each year through traditional teacher preparation programs, fears about shortages led to expansion of alternative routes to certification and more and
more new entrants to the teaching workforce. In addition to newly produced teachers, large proportions of new hires each year are recruited from the
nation's "reserve supplies"—those who prepared for teaching in the past but never entered the profession (17 percent) and those who
taught sometime in the past and are re-entering the profession (23 percent).
The nation’s biggest challenges in this area stem from a misalignment between supply and demand. The distribution of teachers—across
geographic and subject areas—continues to be troublesome. Despite the overall teacher supply, there remain shortages in:
• high demand fields of special education, mathematics, science, and bilingual/ESL.
• certain areas of the country, largely western, southwestern, and southeastern states (click below) and areas in which class-size reduction initiatives
have been implemented. 
• urban, low-income, minority schools and remote rural schools.
There is not a perfect correlation between overall supply-and-demand patterns and district hiring experiences, but rather a complex relationship that
reflects many factors, including antiquated hiring procedures. In general, states offering higher salaries have fewer hiring problems, as do wealthier
school districts within states. States with policies that are more supportive of teachers and states that have a greater number of teacher preparation
institutions also have fewer hiring problems. But lack of license reciprocity and pension portability across jurisdictions can make it difficult to
get teachers where they are most needed.
A second major challenge is finding ways to improve teaching quality while simultaneously addressing teacher shortages. This challenge is made
more difficult by the lack of consensus about what makes a teacher "qualified" and pressures to find the "quick fix."
A central debate about teaching quality centers on the relative importance of pedagogical skills versus content knowledge. Experts who believe that
both are essential to good teaching argue for improving traditional teacher preparation programs and strengthening licensure requirements. Others who
question the value of pedagogy favor alternative routes to certification as a faster, better solution to both quality and quantity problems. The search
for quality teaching is complicated by the occurrence of out-of-field teaching that often results from how schools are organized and staffed rather
than from inadequate teacher supply.
The No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) addresses this problem by requiring all teachers to be "highly qualified" by 2005-2006—defined as
having a bachelor's degree, being fully state-certified, and demonstrating competence in each subject area taught. Though many critics find the law
too tough in certain areas (e.g., requiring special education teachers to have competence in all core areas they teach), others feel the law is not
tough enough, as it allows states too much leeway in defining competence. Moreover, there is widespread concern that NCLB distracts attention from real
issues of teacher quality—that even if all teachers are "highly qualified" by NCLB definition, there is still no demonstration of effectiveness
in promoting student learning.
Teacher shortages are less a function of how many teachers are produced than of how many are lost each year through turnover and early attrition.
This "revolving door" problem inflates the "demand" side of the equation and keeps school districts in a perpetual state of intense
hiring pressure. Only 60 percent of those trained to be teachers move directly into teaching jobs, and of those whom do, only 50 to 60 percent
will still be teaching five years after entering the profession. Due to low salaries, poor administrative support, student discipline problems, lack
of faculty influence and autonomy, and poor student motivation, many teachers change jobs each year and many leave the profession altogether.
Historically in this country, the profession of teaching has been viewed as an "easy in/easy out" occupation—a temporary line of work
for women. With a ready supply of entrants into the pipeline, there was little incentive to try to retain them. More recently, educators have learned
that replacing teachers is very costly and has a negative impact on student achievement. Many of the same factors that affect teacher recruitment also
affect teacher retention and these factors can't be ignored. The high need subjects of science, mathematics, and special education, and the high poverty
schools suffer from both greater recruitment and greater retention problems.
These observations lead to the conclusion that increasing teacher supply is a necessary, but not sufficient, condition for solving our teacher workforce
needs. Individual states and the nation as a whole must develop comprehensive teacher workforce strategies that address the interrelated factors
of recruitment, distribution, quality, and retention. These strategies must be built on comprehensive teacher data systems and research on the effectiveness
of various remedies. Many remedies have been tried thus far and progress is being made in fits and starts. What is needed is a comprehensive approach
to teacher workforce needs, one that addresses specific state and local conditions. Such a strategy might include:
• Strengthened teacher preparation, induction and mentoring, and professional development programs, with attention to high-demand areas.
For example, AASCU's Task Force on Mathematics and Physical Science Enrollments is developing recommendations for strengthening the math and science
teaching pipelines.
• Financial incentives, including increased salaries and pay for performance, as well as incentives for high-need areas (e.g., student loan forgiveness
and housing assistance).
• Alternative certification programs aimed at high-need areas.
• Intensified recruitment efforts and partnerships between teacher preparation programs and school districts (e.g., early outreach to students
of color and "grow-your-own" programs).
• Increased professionalism and improved working conditions (e.g., enhanced license reciprocity and pension portability, opportunities for advancement,
reduced teaching loads and extra support in hard-to-staff schools).
Conclusion
The National Commission on Teaching and America's Future was on the mark when it stated that policymakers need to change the question from "how
can we find and prepare more teachers?" to "how do we get the good teachers we have recruited, trained, and hired to stay in their jobs?"
Focusing too heavily on teacher recruitment will not solve the teacher shortage problem, and it may serve to lower teacher standards, keep salaries
low, and erode working conditions. The better approach—one that in the long term will benefit teachers and students—is to develop a comprehensive
strategy to raise the profession of teachers, by preparing, supporting, and rewarding teachers for the important work that they do and by creating better
conditions under which they work.
RESOURCES
American Association of State Colleges and Universities (AASCU). AASCU’s To Create a Profession examines ways college
presidents and chancellors can support teachers as professionals.
aascu.org (PDF 692 kb)
Center for the Study of Teaching and Policy (CTP). The work of Richard M. Ingersoll calls attention to teacher turnover as central
to the problem of teacher shortages.
ctpweb.org
National Center for Education Statistics (NCES). NCES' Schools and Staffing Survey (SASS) provides comprehensive data on the characteristics
of the nation’s teachers, hiring practices, compensation, and conditions in schools. Its supplementary Teacher Follow Survey (TFS) collects data
from the same individuals one year after SASS and provides information on teacher turnover and attrition.
nces.ed.gov/
National Commission on Teaching and America’s Future (NCTAF). NCTAF views improving teacher retention as a major strategy for
addressing teacher shortages and improving teacher quality.
nctaf.org
National Governors’ Association (NGA). NGA’s Center for Best Practices researches teacher shortages, supply and demand, and out-of-field
teaching.
nga.org
Southeast Center for Teaching Quality (SECTQ). SECTQ conducts research related to teacher recruitment and retention, including surveys
of teachers and administrators.
teachingquality.org
State Higher Education Executive Officers (SHEEO). Data Systems to Enhance Teacher Quality (2003) makes the case for comprehensive
teacher pipeline data systems.
sheeo.org (PDF 216 kb)
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