California will need a stable, high-quality teacher workforce to weather the COVID-19 crisis and support student learning in the coming years. However, persistent and worsening teacher shortages threaten the state's ability to meet that need. Teacher shortages, which are often most acute in high-need fields and high-need schools, more severely…

This brief summarizes a 2019 study of educator supply, demand, and quality in North Carolina conducted by the Learning Policy Institute in collaboration with the Education Policy Initiative at Carolina and WestEd. That study supported the state's ongoing efforts to meet the standard set in the North Carolina Supreme Court's decision in…

California is in the midst of a severe special education teacher shortage that threatens the state's ability to improve outcomes for students with disabilities, who often have the greatest needs but receive the least expert teachers. To help policymakers address the shortage, the Learning Policy Institute conducted an analysis of the special…

This is a policy brief for "California's Special Education Teacher Shortage." California is in the midst of a severe special education teacher shortage that threatens the state's ability to improve outcomes for students with disabilities, who often have the greatest needs but receive the least expert teachers. To help policymakers…

Teacher shortages that most severely affect schools serving the least advantaged children have been part of the California education landscape for the last half decade. This brief describes how key teacher supply and demand factors vary across the state, and it provides potential policy solutions to mitigate ongoing shortages. The brief also…

When California students returned to school in fall 2019, hundreds of thousands returned to classrooms staffed by substitutes and teachers who were not fully prepared to teach. In recent years, California has experienced widespread shortages of elementary and secondary teachers as districts and schools seek to restore class sizes and course…

This paper examines the current state of teachers of color in the workforce, the factors that affect the recruitment, hiring, and retention of teachers of color, and opportunities for growing a stable workforce of teachers of color. The first section of this paper, The Current State of Teachers of Color in the United States, includes a description…

This research review analyzes studies on the recruitment and retention of teachers of color in order to examine the current state of teachers of color in the workforce; understand the factors that affect their recruitment, hiring, and retention; and highlight opportunities for policymakers to grow a stable workforce of teachers of color in their…

With the U.S. facing a national teacher shortage that is projected to grow substantially in the coming years, school systems across the country are grappling with the challenge of building and maintaining a high-quality teacher workforce for all students. While school leaders and policymakers might be tempted to solve shortages by focusing solely…

Without changes in current policies, U.S. teacher shortages are projected to grow in the coming years. Teacher turnover is an important source of these shortages. About 8% of teachers leave the profession each year, two-thirds of them for reasons other than retirement. Another 8% shift to different schools each year. In addition to aggravating…

Teacher shortages have been worsening in California since 2015. After years of budget cuts and teacher layoffs, the passage of Proposition 30, officially titled Temporary Taxes to Fund Education, and the Local Control Funding Formula (LCFF) brought more money back into California schools after 2014. Many districts began to hire again, looking to…

Teacher shortages have been worsening in California since 2015. Growth in teacher demand as the economy has improved has collided with steep declines in the supply of new teachers, leading to significant increases in the hiring of underprepared teachers, especially in districts serving high-need students. Shortages are most severe in special…