The real reasons behind the U.S. teacher shortage
There’s a teacher shortage across the United States — but that’s not exactly news. The U.S. Department of Education maintains an annual list — state by state — showing the subject areas in which there are too few teachers going back to the 1990-91 school year. What’s new is the size of the shortage and the reasons for it.
The official nationwide Teacher Shortage Area list for 2015-16 year (you can see the list here or below) is not a list of job postings but a reference to where states and schools are potentially looking to hire administrators and teachers. And the comparisons within many states tells a disturbing story: growing teacher shortages in key subjects.
For example, in Arizona, in 1990-1991, fewer than 10 schools and no more than 15 districts were listed as having unspecified shortages. For 2015-16, statewide shortages in various disciplines are listed. For example, in middle schools, ESL and BLE teachers are needed, and foreign language, general science, math, reading, special education and art educators are in shortage supply. Then there are countywide geographic shortages, as well.
California, in 1990-91 and 1991-92 school years, had K-12 shortages in bilingual education, life science and physical science. In 1215-16, there are statewide shortages in English/Drama/Humanities, History/Social Science/ Math/Computer Education/ Science/Self-Contained Class/Special Education (including State Special schools).
But the fact that teacher shortages aren’t new doesn’t mean they aren’t important. Exactly how big the shortages are is not known; numbers are inexact, but officials in a number of states say they are concerned the shortages could be bigger than ever.
The reasons why this is happening are important. Teachers always come and go, but in recent years there are some new reasons for the turnover. Polls show that public school teachers today are more disillusioned about their jobs than they have been in many years. One 2013 poll found that teacher satisfaction had declined 23 percentage points since 2008, from 62 percent to 39 percent very satisfied, the lowest level in 25 years. Fifty-one percent of teachers reported feeling under great stress several days a week, an increase of 15 percentage points reporting that level in 1985.
I’ve written several posts about shortages in individual states, detailing how they are resulting amid school reform initiatives that have evaluated teachers by standardized test scores, and/or reduced collective bargaining rights, and/or forced teachers to administer a mountain of standardized tests to students and teach to the test, and/or suffered inadequate funding.
For example, teachers are fleeing Arizona in droves. From the post:
Over the last five years, thousands of teachers have left the state, according to a 2015 report by the Arizona Department ofThe real reasons behind the U.S. teacher shortage - The Washington Post: