For several years now, there has been a surplus of headlines about a teacher shortage in the United States, but a shortage of data about the shape of the issue. Now a new report adds to that body of information.
Part of the problem is framing. “Teacher shortage” suggests that there is some loss of individuals who can do the job, as if an orchard filled with teacher trees has suddenly dried up. The trouble filling teaching positions—and keeping them filled— is arguably better understood as a problem making the positions attractive enough to recruit and retain qualified people in the teaching profession.
You can’t solve a problem starting with the wrong diagnosis. If I can’t buy a Porsche for $1.98, that doesn’t mean there’s an automobile shortage. If I can’t get a fine dining meal for a buck, that doesn’t mean there’s a food shortage. And if appropriately skilled humans don’t want to work for me under the conditions I’ve set, that doesn’t mean there’s a human shortage.
A good diagnosis means breaking down the data for useful detail. “Nuance in the Noise,” a report issued in January by Bellwether Education Partners, offers some details that underline one truism— not all schools in all states are having the same amount of trouble filling all positions.
There are also signs that basement-level morale among teachers is feeding departures from the classroom. Stagnant pay, lack of respect, and classroom disruptions are all cited as issues. The federal government tracks which particular subject areas are in demand.
But what does the national picture really look like?
Tuan Nguyen, an assistant professor at Kansas State University, Chanh Lam, a data analyst and Ph.D. graduate student at Kansas State, and Paul Bruno, an assistant professor of education policy at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign set out to find out, and in the process discovered that they would have to build their own data base, state by state.
Which states are having trouble filing positions, and which are solving the problem by hiring under-qualified personnel?
“What Do We Know About the Extent of Teacher Shortages Nationwide? A Systematic Examination of Reports of U.S. Teacher Shortages”, first published in August as a working paper from the Annenberg Institute at Brown University, provides a state-specific picture, with data crunched two main ways and made available through interactive graphics on a website dedicated to making the findings available.
Looking strictly at vacancies, some patterns immediately emerge. The southeast quarter of the country has by far the greatest number of vacancies. While the national total is over 55,000, the South Atlantic region accounts for almost 20,000 of those, while the Mid-Atlantic states come in at just 539. Top states for vacancies are Florida, North Carolina and Georgia.
For some states the researchers have computed a leaving rate (Pennsylvania’s is 6%, while North Carolina’s is 15%). All of the figures come with some caveats; not all states have data and some state data are less recent than other
Another map shows the number of jobs filled by underqualified persons, which includes both teachers working outside of their certification and persons who have no actual teacher certification. Those numbers are large— a grand total of over 270,000 in the nation, across the entire country from California to Texas to Florida to New York.
These numbers don’t tell a complete picture. 100 unfilled teacher jobs mean a lot more in a district with 1,000 students than in one with 100,000. The report looks at the number of vacancies and underqualified employees compared to the number of students.
There’s no geographic pattern to this. Mississippi and West Virginia lead, both over 50 vacant positions per 10,000 students. Nevada, North Dakota, Kansas, Wisconsin, Louisiana, Kentucky, Delaware, Rhode Island, and Maine all have ratios in the thirties per 10,000 students.
When it comes to underqualified persons filing positions, Louisiana is far ahead of all other states with over 250 underqualified persons per 10,000 students. They are followed by Delaware (160), Alaska (115), South Carolina (97) and Texas (90).
While the collected data has a few gaps, it’s one of the best collections of nationwide information showing which states are having the most trouble recruiting and retaining teachers, making it a very useful resource. The website is www.teachershortages.com.