Is there really a teacher shortage? This question is a complex one and it is not easily answered. A recent analysis of the data of the teaching landscape by the Education Policy Center at the American Institutes for Research, shows that the shortages may not be as large as previously thought and that the teaching landscape is definitely changing.
Enrollment in teacher preparation programs has been declining since 2010—by nearly 20 percent in 2012-13 alone. Meanwhile, the teacher workforce is aging. Some 85,000 teachers retired in 2008-09, compared to 35,000 over 25 years ago. And to make matters worse, the U.S. Department of Education projects that K-12 enrollment will grow 5.2 percent between 2011 and 2023, increasing the demand for teachers.
But these alarming, commonly quoted statistics about the nation’s teacher shortage don’t tell the whole story. This data on Teacher Preparation, Teacher Retirement, Student Enrollment, Teacher Pipeline, and Teacher Turnover must be analyzed in a specific locale to paint the true portrait of teacher shortages or overages.
As more states begin to prioritize better predictions of teacher shortages, they will face choices about how much to invest in gathering, preparing, and analyzing indicators of teacher supply and demand. Significant resources may be required to build state capacity. The diverse collection of organizations that maintain this data, (whether institutions of higher education, professional associations, or alternative preparation programs), must work together and take the time to gather information that can be analyzed in combination. And key stakeholders—including teachers, principals, educator preparation programs, and district staff—need a voice in the process from beginning to end.
How can states fund all this? A possible source is federal grants, such as Title II grants. With the recent authorization of ESSA, states will have increasing flexibility in how they invest their federal funding over the next few years. Developing comprehensive, systematic, and ongoing ways to anticipate, track, and reduce teacher shortages would be money and time well spent.
For a more detailed data analysis and commentary, see http://educationpolicy.air.org/blog/its-2016-do-you-know-where-teachers-are.
For data snapshots, see http://educationpolicy.air.org/publications/teacher-workforce-snapshot-infographics.
