Is there a national teacher shortage? A systematic examination of reports of teacher shortages in the United States

August 2022

Teachers are critical to student learning, but adequately staffing classrooms has been challenging in many parts of the country. Even though teacher shortages are being reported across the U.S., teacher shortages are poorly understood. Determining and addressing teacher shortages is difficult due to the lack of data. Neither the federal government nor the majority of states have provided sufficient information on teacher shortages. To address this gap, we systematically examine news reports, department of education data, and publicly-available information on teacher shortages for every state in the U.S. We find there are at least 36,000 vacant positions along with at least 163,000 positions being held by underqualified teachers, both of which are conservative estimates of the extent of teacher shortages nationally. We discuss the implications of our findings for a robust data system, including more specific and consistent reporting of shortage, as well as implications for teacher preparation and education in the United States.

Keywords

teacher shortage, teacher vacancy, teacher qualification

Education level

K-12 Education

Topics

Staffing, Finance, and Operations