Is there a shortage of special education teachers in America's public schools? If so, why? And how can policymakers fix it? The first question sounds like an easy one. Yes, there is a shortage of special education teachers. In 2023-24, more than half of districts and 80 percent of states reported such a shortage. If you doubt the self-reported…

Kindergarten through Grade 12 (K-12) teachers with less than 10 years of experience are leaving the education profession at an alarming rate nationwide and have created fiscal and educational hardships in the profession. The early departures of new teachers have vast implications on U.S. education systems at national and state levels.…

Purpose: Research shows that school leadership and working conditions strongly predict teacher turnover, but less empirical work has explored how school leaders grapple with this aspect of their work. This paper investigates how school leaders across diverse geographic and institutional contexts understand human capital challenges and construct…

Purpose: Research shows that school leadership and working conditions strongly predict teacher turnover, but less empirical work has explored how school leaders grapple with this aspect of their work. This article investigates how school leaders across diverse geographic and institutional contexts understand human capital challenges and construct…

Educator labor markets vary considerably across the country and can change quickly during recessions. We use data from the Quality Workforce Indicators (QWI) on educators in Elementary and Secondary Schools from 2000-01 to 2022-23. We demonstrate how to transform the quarter-level data in the QWI to construct valid educator labor market measures.…

Situated against teacher demand problems worldwide, rising teacher turnover and declining teacher education enrollment have rendered the state of South Carolina a region commonly described as facing a "teacher shortage crisis." This paper reports results from an evaluation of the Rural Recruitment Initiative (RRI), a state-level teacher…

Problematizing the notion of teacher shortage, the author asserts the complexity of intersecting systems that impact teacher pathways and school staffing. By assuming a collective responsibility for supporting teachers from pre-service into in-service roles, stakeholders can work across these systems to enact local solutions. Data from the City…

This is the fourth in a series of annual reports about teacher shortages in Michigan that the state legislature requested in December 2020 (2020 PA 316). Informed by our previous reports and newly available data from the 2023-24 school year, this report provides an updated view of teacher shortages throughout Michigan. The report shows recent…

We develop a conceptual framework for understanding and predicting teacher shortages at the state, region, district, and school levels. We then empirically examine how teacher shortages vary geographically and by subject using data on unfilled teaching positions in Tennessee traditional public schools during Fall 2019. We find that teacher…

This qualitative descriptive study explored how special education teachers described their retention practices in a specialized school in the northeastern District of Columbia. The most significant issue districts face in staffing schools with qualified teachers is not the lack of certified teachers overall but a chronic and continuous…

The "Quincy Method" is widely considered a successful nineteenth-century school reform. Pioneered by Francis Parker in Quincy, Massachusetts in 1875, it fostered broad pedagogic change in an ordinary school system, transforming Quincy into a renowned hub of child-centered instruction. This article revisits the reform and explores its…

The vision of every elementary, middle, and high school in the United States is to deliver an excellent educational setting to each and every student who enters their school building. Educational research overwhelmingly demonstrates that a primary factor contributing to an "excellent educational setting" is having highly qualified and…

We develop a unifying conceptual framework for understanding and predicting teacher shortages at the state, region, district, and school levels. We then generate and test hypotheses about geographic and subject variation in teacher shortages using data on unfilled teaching positions in Tennessee during the fall of 2019. We find that teacher…

Grow Your Own (GYO) is a teacher recruitment and preparation strategy focused on developing and retaining teachers from the local community. GYO is often used to address teacher shortages and strengthen the teacher workforce; it relies on local community pathways and reciprocal relationships between institutions of higher education, community…

This is the third in a series of annual reports about teacher shortages in Michigan that the state legislature requested in December 2020 (2020 PA 316). Although the state data on this topic is limited, these analyses still help to paint a picture of teacher shortages across Michigan, assist policymakers to target policies and programs in ways…