Is There a Teacher Shortage? That Depends How You Frame It
Across the country, states and districts have ramped up efforts this summer to recruit new teachers, as they work to avoid vacancies at the start of the new school year.
Data around the size of the teaching profession is only current up through 2011, according to the National Center for Education Statistics, but estimates suggest that by 2018, there will be more teachers than ever before.
In a new story for Education Week, I wrote about teacher shortages in spots across the nationand how districts and states are responding in some cases. The gist is that, while there are many instances of teacher shortages nationwide, the number of teachers per student has remained relatively constant.
Current estimates show that there are about 100,000 fewer public school teachers than there were in 2008, at the onset of the Great Recession. Since there are 14,000 public school districts, per the U.S. Census Bureau, that number works out to just about seven teachers per district. (Not that districts across the board lost seven teachers each, obviously. New York City, for instance,shed about 8,100 general education teachers between 2007 and 2012, although it gained about 2,500 special education teachers.) Teacher-prep enrollment numbers are also down over the past several years.
At the same time, though, a soon-to-be-record-high teaching population and teacher shortages are not mutually exclusive. So let's break down what the term "teacher shortage" actually refers to.
Subject-Area Shortages
The U.S. Department of Education has information running back over two decades on teacher shortage areas in each state by subject. That list does not reflect whether states are actually hiring such teachers, so much as denote that they would like to.
From that federal data, four trends are most visible:
- Special education teachers do the Lord's work: Almost every state has long needed and continues to need special education teachers of all stripes. For a position that is coveted, though, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that the average salary for special education teachers is almost indistinguishable from non-special education teachers'. I don't think that's how supply and demand is meant to work.
- Science and math teachers are widely needed: While many states have long sought to have more math and science teachers, there's an uptick in the middle of the last decade. Part of that is likely the increased accountability for math proficiency under the No Child Left Behind Act, and some might have been inspired by the boom in STEM careers. (The shortage list doesn't always differentiate by scientific fields.) Government officials, from President Obama on down, have been pushing for more STEM teachers.
- What subjects have too many teachers? If there are so many members of the teaching profession, but shortage areas remain, then it's reasonable to believe some subjects have too many teachers. The likely culprits: English and early childhood. Relatively few states listed English or humanities as shortage areas in 2014-15. And a January 2013 Education Week analysis found that many states oversupply elementary teachers.
- Don't get certified in New York: New York reported no shortages in core subject areas last year, though like many states, it does need bilingual educators. The Empire Statemay be the most competitive job market, with somewhere under 30 percent of new teachers being able to find jobs.
(Teacher opinion blogger Peter Greene has done yeoman's work highlighting news stories about teacher shortages from every state and the District of Columbia, while adding some color commentary, if you're interested.)
Demographic Shortages
The teaching profession is very white. It is, specifically, 82 percent white. High school teachers are a little less likely to be white, at 70 percent. There are a lot of reasons why the teaching profession may be so white. Some may be due to discrimination in teacher licensing tests. Some may also be due to the systemic discrimination within the U.S. education system, including quality of instruction and discipline. In the words of Christina Berchini, writing in Education Week Teacher in April:
"Why would historically marginalized populations elect to eventually become teachers for the very system that (likely) underserved them in some way?"
This is the kind of discussion that generally invokes protest from a segment of white teachers, who would point out that they are just as qualified and capable of teaching students of color. SomeIs There a Teacher Shortage? That Depends How You Frame It - Teaching Now - Education Week Teacher: