What Do We Know About the Extent of Teacher Shortages Nationwide - A Systematic Examination of Reports of U.S. Teacher Shortages

Oct 15, 2026

Uploaded by Adam

Teachers are essential to student learning, yet staffing classrooms with adequately qualified educators remains difficult across many regions. Despite frequent reports of teacher shortages, available evidence is often poorly understood, localized, and anecdotal, leaving key questions about scale and variation unresolved. This study systematically examines U.S. state-level news reports and Education Department data to map the teacher shortage landscape and estimate national impacts on vacancies and underqualified assignments.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryResearch & Report

FormatPDF

Pages18

Reading Time45 min

AccessFree to download

Teachers and the problem of shortage evidence

Nationwide scale vs localized shortages

Data sources and systematic examination

Findings on vacancies and underqualified teachers

Implications for data reporting systems

Implications for teacher preparation and education policy

AERA Open January-December 2024, Vol. 10, No. 1, pp. 1–18 DOI: 10. 1177/23328584241276512 Article reuse guidelines: [sagepub.com/journals-permissions](sagepub.com/journals-permissions)[ ](sagepub.com/journals-permissions)© The Author(s) 2024. [https://journals.sagepub.com/home/ero](https://journals.sagepub.com/home/ero) What Do We Know About the Extent of Teacher Shortages Nationwide? A Systematic Examination of Reports of U.S. Teacher Shortages Tuan D. Nguyen University of Missouri Chanh B. Lam Kansas State University Paul Bruno University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Teachers are critical to student learning, but adequately staffing classrooms has been challenging in many parts of the country. Though teacher shortages are widely reported, they are poorly understood, particularly in terms of the magnitude and variation of the shortages, and reported figures are often localized and anecdotal. To address this gap, we systematically examine news reports, Department of Education data, and publicly available information on teacher shortages for every U.S. state. We characterize the data landscape and find there are at least 39,700 vacant positions along with at least 288,000 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 improving data systems, including more specific and consistent reporting of shortage, as well as implications for teacher preparation and education policy. Keywords: Descriptive analysis, policy, retention, teacher context, teacher education/development, teacher qualification, teacher shortage, teacher vacancy As teachers are critical to student learning, adequately staffing classrooms with highly qualified teachers has been atthe forefront of concerns in education for decades (CarverThomas & Darling-Hammond, 2017; Ingersoll, 2003) . However, recent news reports suggest that there are shortages of teachers in many parts of the country (Hall, 2021; Learning Policy Institute, 2019), especially in high-need subject areas and hard-to-staff locations (Carver-Thomas et al., 2021; García & Weiss, 2020) .1 In response to staffing difficulties, states and districts have issued emergency certificates, filled positions with substitute teachers, and left positions open throughout the school year (Aragon, 2016; Castro et al., 2018) . Moreover, with the increasing staffing difficulties due to the COVID-19 pandemic, some states have substantially lowered requirements for certified and substitute teacher qualifications, called on retired teachers to return, used administrators for teaching duties, asked parents to assist, and even put the National Guard in the classroom (Jung, 2020; Poff, 2022; Sandoval, 2022; Wiedmann, 2022) . Teacher positions left vacant or filled with uncertified candidates are likely detrimental for students and schools. Schools with consistent teacher shortages are more likely to have lower levels of student achievement and less positive student outcomes (Castro et al., 2018) . Additionally, since underprepared teachers are more likely to turn over (Nguyen et al., 2020), these schools are more likely to have to spend more resources to replace their short-term hires (Aragon, 2016; Ronfeldt et al., 2013) . Such detrimental impacts of teacher shortages have prompted substantial research on teacher pipelines, preparation programs, recruitment, and retention (García & Weiss, 2020; Ingersoll et al., 2019; Podolsky et al., 2016; Will, 2022) . However, teacher shortages are still poorly understood. We contribute to two main strands of this literature. First, it remains unclear whether there is a shortfall of teachers nationally or if shortages are localized—a key component of current debates about teacher shortages (Loewenberg, 2016; Sutcher et al., 2019) . Some have Creative Commons Non Commercial CC BY-NC: This article is distributed under t

FAQs

Why are teacher shortages important for student outcomes?

Schools with consistent teacher shortages are associated with lower student achievement and less positive outcomes. Underprepared teachers are also more likely to turn over, increasing replacement costs.

What does the study do to understand teacher shortages?

It systematically examines news reports, Department of Education data, and publicly available information for every U.S. state, characterizing the overall data landscape.

What scale of shortages does the study estimate?

The findings indicate at least 39,700 vacant positions and at least 288,000 positions held by underqualified teachers as conservative national estimates.

Oct 15, 2026

Uploaded by Adam