What this report finds: The pandemic exacerbated a preexisting and long-standing shortage of teachers. The shortage is particularly acute for certain subject areas and in some geographic locations. It is especially severe in schools with high shares of students of color or students from low-income families. The shortage is not a function of an inadequate number of qualified teachers in the U.S. economy. Simply, there are too few qualified teachers willing to work at current compensation levels given the increasingly stressful environment facing teachers.

In a recent EPI report investigating the national teacher shortage, we documented a large and growing number of teaching vacancies, which we linked to poor compensation and highly stressful working conditions.

Teacher turnover hits new highs across the U.S.

The data is in: More teachers than usual exited the classroom after last school year, confirming longstanding fears that pandemic-era stresses would prompt an outflow of educators. That’s according to a Chalkbeat analysis of data from eight states — the most comprehensive accounting of recent teacher turnover to date.

Many districts across the country are grappling with teacher shortages large and small. Limited federal data show, as of October 2022, 45% of public schools had at least one teacher vacancy; that's after the school year had already begun. And schools that serve high-poverty neighborhoods and/or a "high-minority student body" were more likely to have vacancies.

While supply and demand for fully qualified special education teachers has ebbed and flowed for nearly 30 years, demand has consistently outpaced supply nationally.1 These shortages imperil the opportunity for students with disabilities to receive an appropriate, individualized educational program, as guaranteed by the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA).

The teacher shortage is nothing new, but the urgency of needing to accelerate every student’s literacy skills while short staffed, is. Many teachers are leaving or considering leaving the profession, while fewer and fewer are joining the ranks.

In this article, the authors describe the complexity of special education teacher (SET) shortage, how shortage undermines equal educational opportunity, and strategies that school districts and state and federal governments have used to combat them.

Abstract

Addressing teacher shortage is a current and long-standing critical need in special education. Additionally, the current teacher workforce is not as diverse as the current student population.