For the past couple years, schools across the country have struggled to keep their classrooms fully staffed. Will that trend continue?
A team of researchers has spent the last few years by counting the number of vacancies and positions that are filled by teachers who aren鈥檛 fully certified or are not certified in the subject area they鈥檙e teaching. To do so, the researchers have collected data from news reports and education department websites and asked state departments for vacancy numbers when they weren鈥檛 published online.
The researchers also used federal Title II to analyze the number of people who both enrolled in and completed teacher-preparation programs over the past decade.
The team initially published this data in fall 2022 and updated it this fall. Tuan Nguyen, the lead researcher and an associate professor at Kansas State University, said he hopes to continue updating the data every school year.
Education Week spoke to Nguyen about what the data say about teacher shortages now and in the future and why it鈥檚 important to have more publicly available vacancy data. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
You started collecting these data in 2021. What have you learned since then about teacher shortages?
Over the last two years, teacher vacancies seem to have been increasing substantially since the onset of the pandemic. Last year, when we first put out the report and the website, compared with now鈥攊t鈥檚 increased to 55,000 vacant positions from 36,000 before. That鈥檚 a substantial increase.
And then we also learned that the number of underqualified positions is around 270,000 nationally, which is a substantial portion of teachers鈥攁bout 9 or 10 percent of teachers in the United States. There seems to be a substantial number of vacant positions and positions that are filled by teachers who don鈥檛 have a standard license or who are under emergency certification or [who teach] out of subject expertise.
Not all states are reporting 2022-23 data. Why is there such a lag?
There are two different problems. One is, some states don鈥檛 collect this information at all. So they don鈥檛 report this information ever as far as we can tell. There are a handful of states for which we know very little or nothing about the number of vacant positions鈥攍ike New York, for instance. And you think, 鈥淲ow, that鈥檚 a populous state. They have millions of students, you should know something about that.鈥� We don鈥檛.
And in some states, they do collect the information, but they don鈥檛 report on it on a regular basis. So then we only get it every few years. One of the things that we have found since we started this project is that there are more states now that [have] this recognition that we need to know this information, because otherwise, it鈥檚 hard to think about policies that can be implemented to address these issues. So they are starting to collect some of this information and make it available鈥攍ike Pennsylvania, for instance, is going to, from here on out, collect data on vacancies.
Why is it important to have clear data, both on the state and national levels?
At the state level, I think that鈥檚 fairly straightforward. It鈥檚 hard to think about the number of respective candidates that you might want to attract into the teaching profession if you don鈥檛 know how many vacant positions you have. That鈥檚 going to vary from district to district. But states are the ones that are accrediting teachers鈥攖hey should know how many vacant positions they have.
If they have just 30 vacant positions for their entire state, then you don鈥檛 think that鈥檚 a very big deal. That鈥檚 a very small [percentage] of the teacher workforce in that state. But if you have 5,000 vacant positions, then you think, OK, there鈥檙e substantial gaps here in where teachers want to teach and whether or not they want to teach at all.
Say in Florida where they鈥檝e had 4,000 vacancies last year, 5,000 vacancies this year鈥攊s it a matter of they don鈥檛 have enough prospective candidates? Or is it because there鈥檚 an increase in turnover ... from those who are certified but don鈥檛 want to go back to teach? Unless we know this information, it鈥檚 really hard to figure out what we need to do at the state level.
At the national level, then we have to think about鈥攂ecause we have 50 states, and they have different requirements, and you can鈥檛 easily move from state to state鈥攊f we see this issue consistently across the United States or in specific pockets. Then, what are some policy solutions that we can implement at the federal level? We have to think about this from the national perspective as well as the local.
What is your forecast for teacher turnover this year?
This is one of the things that we are continuing to work on. Forecasting the teacher turnover, as we鈥檙e learning, is very, very hard. We think that teacher turnover is going to peak either last year or this year, and over the next couple years, we think it鈥檚 going to decrease.
It is a question of whether or not the teacher-vacancy issue will increase or decrease in the next two [school] years. From 鈥�21-22 to 鈥�22-23, we did see a substantial increase in vacant positions, but it鈥檚 unclear to me whether or not that鈥檚 going to continue鈥攊n part because turnover might decrease, but also because some districts are using ESSER funds to hire teachers, and that鈥檚 going to run out [in September].
Some states are losing a substantial portion of their student enrollment, so there may be situations where some districts may actually have to let teachers go. There may be a surplus of teachers in some districts. And then there are some districts that are going to still have a high need for teachers.
You also looked at teacher-prep program enrollment and completion numbers. What is the outlook there?
In terms of enrollment, there have been substantial declines since the early 2010s. It has stabilized around 600,000 prospective teachers every year. And that has increased a little bit over the past couple of years. We think it鈥檚 going to remain fairly flat. It may increase a little bit but not a substantial amount鈥攏ot back up to the 700,000 that we observed last decade.
The thing that鈥檚 more disconcerting to many of us is the number of completers. That has continued to decline, and it鈥檚 flattening out at around 159,000. Over the last five to 10 years, we have already tapped into the reserve pool of teachers to meet demand. We may be running that teacher reserve pool dry, and that鈥檚 in part why we see this increase in teacher vacancies and underqualification.
What is the big takeaway here for the health of the teacher pipeline and the state of shortages?
Part of the problem is there are so many moving parts. If student enrollment continues to decrease, then that鈥檚 going to be a very different set of problems for our education system. It depends on what kind of assumptions you want to make about that鈥擨 think that would have direct consequences for the number of vacancies and underqualification.
Let鈥檚 say that you assume that student enrollment is going to regain the loss over the last couple of years, then I think we are going to need to think about how do we prepare more teachers? How do we get more of them to complete the programs and then join the labor market?
But if student enrollment is going to decline or stay where it is now, then there are some districts, and some states even, where they may have a surplus of a certain type of teachers, while just a few miles over, you may have districts that are still in dire need of having certain types of teachers, like [science, technology, engineering, and math] teachers or special ed. teachers.
I don鈥檛 think that anybody has a clear prediction of what it鈥檚 going to be. It鈥檚 going to depend on a lot of how things are going to be changing over the next couple of years. At the end of the day, though, I think that unless we can have more up-to-date information, it鈥檚 going to be really hard for policymakers and for teacher-prep programs to think about what they need to do in order to meet demands. We should not be making decisions without having clear data to guide our decisions.
