Providing teachers with compensation commensurate with that of similarly educated and experienced professionals is necessary to retain and attract qualified workers into the teaching profession. Worsening trends in teacher pay influence students’ career choice. While there are many important factors impacting teacher retention and the recruitment of highly qualified students into the profession, one that consistently lands near the top of any list is pay.3 And closing the growing pay gap between teachers and other college graduate professionals is critical to public education, as teacher quality is the most important school-related factor influencing student achievement.4

Data and relevant information

In analyzing differences in pay between public school teachers and other college graduates, I use two sources of data, both from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS).5 First, I use Current Population Survey Outgoing Rotation Groups (CPS-ORG) data for the weekly wage analyses (BLS 2024a). I focus on weekly wages, as opposed to weekly hours worked or the length of the work year, to account for the “summers off” issue that affects teachers but not other college graduates.6 The sample is restricted to full-time workers (working at least 35 hours per week) aged between 18 and 64, with at least a bachelor’s degree, because teachers today need at least a bachelor’s degree to teach.

The sample is further limited to those who reported their wage information directly (those who didn’t respond and whose wages were estimated by BLS are excluded).7 To preserve data confidentiality, the BLS records weekly wages only up to a defined threshold, so the wage amounts above this threshold aren’t specifically identifiable in the data. This is called top-coding. Historically, the threshold was rarely updated. As a result, a growing share of workers are assigned top-coded wages that are below their actual wages, which has generated a growing understatement of college graduate wages relative to those of teachers. I replace original top-coded values with Pareto-distribution implied means above the original CPS top-code separately for men and women.8 My regression analyses also use CPS demographic variables (e.g., gender, race/ethnicity, state of residence, marital status, and age).

The BLS’s National Compensation Survey’s Employer Costs for Employee Compensation program (BLS 2024b) is the second data source. Specifically, I pull data on employer costs per hour worked for detailed categories of compensation for “primary, secondary, and special education school teachers” in the public sector, and the same data for “civilian professionals,” which is the broadest category available that largely corresponds to college graduates. “Benefits,” in this analysis, refer to employer costs for health and life insurance, retirement plans, and payroll taxes (covering Social Security, unemployment insurance, and workers’ compensation).

The remaining components of compensation are “W-2 wages,” a measure that corresponds to the wages captured in the CPS data used above. W-2 wages are the wages reported to employees and to the Internal Revenue Service. They include “direct wages,” defined by the BLS as “regular payments from the employer to the employee as compensation for straight-time hourly work, or for any salaried work performed” and other wage items, including “supplemental pay.” Supplemental pay includes premium pay for overtime, bonus pay, profit-sharing, and paid leave.

Findings

I present results of this research in four sections. I begin with trends in the simple (not regression-adjusted) average weekly wages for public school teachers and other college graduates from 1979 through 2024 (adjusted for inflation). Second, I report annual estimates of the national teacher weekly wage gap using standard regression techniques to control for systematic differences in age, education, state of residence, and other factors known to affect wage rates. Third, I present the regression-adjusted estimates of the teacher wage gap for each state and the District of Columbia in a figure and a map. Lastly, I factor in nonwage benefits are to estimate a total compensation penalty that accounts for the estimated teacher wage penalty, along with the teacher “benefits advantage,” to estimate a total compensation differential at the national level (which is not possible to calculate for each state).

Simple level differences: Weekly wage trends

The trends in the average weekly wages of public school teachers and other college graduates are shown in Figure A. These data are national annual averages adjusted only for inflation (i.e., not regression-adjusted). It is important to keep in mind that real improvements in living standards require wages to outpace inflation, which has been the case for other college graduates but not for teachers. 

Figure A

As shown in Figure A, the inflation-adjusted weekly wages for teachers were relatively flat from 1996 through 2021, indicating that teacher wages, on average, were just keeping up with the rate of inflation. By 2024, teacher wages were 5.3% less than they were on average in 1996. The average weekly wages of other college graduates also experienced a stretch of stagnation, but for a shorter time span (2002–2014), after which real increases ensued. Since 1996, the wages of other college graduates increased by just over 30%.

Addressing the long-term stagnation of teacher wages requires that future increases in pay exceed future rates of inflation to recover the loss in wages since 2021 and to drive an increasing trend in teacher wages.

Relative differences: Regression-adjusted trends

The average weekly wages discussed in Figure A are simple averages (i.e., they are not regression-adjusted) for teachers and other college graduates; they represent the underlying data used in the regression analyses. Regression estimation helps to account for ways the two groups may differ fundamentally which typically affect pay on margins such as age, educational attainment, race/ethnicity, and state of residence. For instance, all else being equal, one would expect experienced workers to earn more than younger workers who are just starting out in their careers. Controlling for age within a regression model therefore accounts for such differences across the two samples. Thus, standard regression techniques are used to estimate weekly wages of public school teachers relative to other similarly situated college graduates working in other professions, which can provide a more apples-to-apples comparison of earnings.9

Regression-based results are reported in Figure B. They show how much less (or more) teachers earn in weekly wages relative to other college graduates, estimated via regression analysis. A weekly wage “penalty” for teachers is reported when the regression estimates suggest that teachers, all else equal, are paid less than other college graduates. A penalty appears as a negative number in Figure B. When teachers are paid relatively more, the number is positive and is referred to as a “premium.” Estimates are reported for all teachers (which includes a gender control), as well as separately for women and men.

Figure B

The main takeaway from Figure B is the nearly 30-year trend of relative teacher weekly wages increasingly falling behind those of other similarly qualified professionals. Pre-1994, the teacher wage gap averaged 8.7%, but the shortfall worsened considerably starting in the mid-1990s. The teaching penalty hit a record of 26.9% in 2024, which was slightly worse than the penalty recorded in 2023 (26.6%). Otherwise, on average, teachers earned 73.1 cents on the dollar in 2024, compared with what similar college graduates earned working in other professions—much less than the relative 93.9 cents on the dollar that teachers earned in 1996.

Separating the analysis by gender shows that in the pre-1994 period, the relative female teacher weekly wage (i.e., comparing female teachers with other female college graduates) was at a premium that averaged 3.3%. But starting in 1996, the female gap quickly went from parity to a penalty, landing at a 21.5% penalty in 2024.

My previous research (using decennial Census data) confirmed that, over a longer timeframe, the relative wage estimates for female teachers moved from significant premiums to large penalties. For example, I documented that relative female teacher earnings were at a 14.7% premium in 1960, which lessened to 10.4% in 1970 and to near parity in 1980 (pre-1979 years not shown in Figure B). Using the estimates from 2024, the cumulative change has been a 36.2 percentage-point deterioration in the relative wage of female teachers since 1960.10

There is an important story behind the declining relative wages experienced by female teachers. Historically, the teaching profession relied on a somewhat captive labor pool of educated women who had few employment opportunities. This is thankfully no longer the case, but increased opportunity costs are a part of the story and reflected in these results. Expanding opportunities for women enabled them to earn more as they entered occupations and professions from which they were once barred.

In fact, the simple average weekly wages (inflation-adjusted) of female teachers compared with their nonteaching counterparts grew in lock step from 1979 until they started to diverge in the late-1990s. They were close to parity in 1996, when other female college graduates earned just 0.7% more than female teachers. But this divide grew nearly every year—reaching 40.9% in 2024.

Conversely, the trends in the weekly wages of male teachers compared with other male college graduates were never at parity. But like their female counterparts, men also experienced a considerable increase in the pay gap—from 24.1% in 1996 to 81.7% in 2024.11 Therefore, the regression-adjusted relative wages of male teachers have seen sizable penalties throughout the timeframe of this paper (1979–2024) and in my earlier analyses using 1960, 1970, and 1980 decennial Census data. Over the long run, the male relative penalty worsened from 20.5% in 1960 to 36.3% in 2024.12

The growing male teacher penalty partly explains why approximately three in four teachers today are women—a ratio that has not changed much since 1960. The pay penalty experienced by male teachers is unfortunate given the recent statistics and reporting of boys struggling in school. Performing poorly in school is associated with problems encountered later in life—including addiction, mental and physical health issues, and involvement with the criminal justice system.13 Further, Thomas Dee (2010) found that a teacher’s gender has large effects on student test performance, teacher perceptions of students, and students’ engagement with academic material.

So, it is not surprising that today a much smaller share of educated women choose the teaching profession over expanding opportunities with better pay—even as three of four teachers are women. Moreover, the very large male teaching penalty that persists today goes a long way in explaining why men who may want to teach are compelled to choose other career paths, which are on average much more lucrative.

Relative teacher weekly wage penalties by state

Thus far I have reported that the relative teacher weekly wage penalty in the United States was 26.9% in 2024. But there is much variation across the country. To produce regression estimates by state, I pool six years (2019–2024) of CPS data to assure ample sample sizes for each state. Again, I compare public school teachers with nonteacher college graduates within each state and estimate regression-adjusted weekly wage gaps for each state and the District of Columbia.

Figure C

As in previous reports, Figure C shows that in no state does the relative (i.e., regression-adjusted) weekly wage for teachers equal or surpass that of their nonteaching college graduate counterparts. The results are sorted from the largest (38.5%) to the smallest (10.0%) penalties across the United States.

The teaching penalty was at least 25% in 20 states and at least 30% in nine states. In those nine states, teachers on average earn less than 70 cents on the dollar compared with similar college graduates in their respective states—ranging from 69.2 cents on the dollar in Kentucky to 61.5 cents in Colorado.

Figure D depicts a map of the state penalties reported in Figure C.

Figure D

Adding benefits to the analysis

In this section, I examine the teachers’ “benefits advantage” and how it impacts total compensation. The benefits advantage refers to the view that, on average in the U.S., teachers generally receive a larger share of their total compensation as benefits—such as health or other insurance and retirement plans—compared with other professionals. Keep in mind that a larger share of total compensation via benefits means a smaller wage share, given that total compensation is made up of these two components. Here, I calculate how the relatively more generous benefits package for teachers may partially offset the large teacher wage penalty.

The BLS Employer Costs for Employee Compensation (ECEC) series measures the average employer cost per employee hour worked for total compensation, wages and salaries, benefits, and costs as a share of total compensation. I compare benefits packages of primary, secondary, and special education public school teachers with those of comparable workers (specifically, workers in professional occupations).14 Table 1 shows a summary of my calculations.

Table 1

The first two columns in Table 1 under “W-2 wage share of compensation” report the share of W-2 wages that make up total compensation for professionals in all occupations and for state and local K–12 public school teachers. The shares of compensation for W-2 wages and benefits add up to 100. The W-2 shares allow for an examination of how important wages are relative to benefits in the total compensation package.

In 2024, W-2 wages made up 69.6% of teachers’ total compensation, while the share was 78.9% for nonteaching professionals. That means that for every dollar of teachers’ total compensation, 69.6 cents went to wages and 30.4 cents went to benefits. For nonteaching professionals, 78.9 cents went to wages and 21.0 cents went to benefits. Therefore, for every dollar of total compensation, public school teachers receive more in benefits than other professionals, but less in wages. I refer to this as the “benefits advantage.”15

The columns under “public school teachers” in Table 1 provide the information needed to assess total compensation on average for the United States. The “wage penalty” column reports the teacher wage penalty estimates from Figure B, followed by the benefits advantage calculation for teachers. Combining the two gives us a measure of how teachers compare with other professionals on total compensation, which is reported in the last column. Per usual, the benefits advantage for teachers partially offset their estimated relative wage disadvantage, but still left teachers with a significant total compensation gap of -17.1% in 2024—up slightly from -16.7% in 2023. This slight change was due to a 0.2 percentage point decrease in the teacher benefits advantage, and a 0.3 percentage point increase in the teacher wage penalty.

Over the last five years (2020–2024), the benefits advantage that favors teachers varied from 8.8% to 9.9%, but over the same timeframe the teacher wage penalty grew substantially. Thus, in 2024, the teacher total compensation gap widened to -17.1%—the largest on record. Of course, even if the teacher benefits advantage could exceed the large teacher wage penalty, the standard of living for teachers would likely fall, as they would have little in the way of earnings to make ends meet.

Final thoughts

The success of teachers and public education is critically important to students, their families, and communities. It is hard to think of a profession that is more consequential than teaching. After all, one of our highest ideals as a country is to educate each and every child regardless of means, and the future of the U.S. economy depends on this. The highest standard is still worth fighting for, even as we have repeatedly fallen short of the ideal.16

To that end, are teachers sufficiently supported and compensated in the U.S to retain current staff and recruit a pool of highly skilled college students into the profession? The trends documented in this series over the last three decades have no doubt already had profound consequences on teacher retention and recruitment as evidenced in research on teacher staffing challenges (Fortin and Fawcett 2023; NCES 2023), college students forgoing teaching careers citing pay as a main barrier (Croft, Guffy, and Vitale 2018), parents actively steering their children into professions that pay better than teaching (PDK 2019), fast-tracking credentials in response to shortages of permanent teachers (Povich 2023), the heavy use of unqualified teachers (Tamez-Robledo 2023; Lopez and Van Overschelde 2024), and the reliance of unqualified substitute teachers (Franco and Kemper Patrick 2023).

The quality of a public education greatly hinges on our efforts to sufficiently invest in our schools and teachers. This includes the public school workforce and its infrastructure along with all the essential wrap-around services. I have long asserted that providing teachers a standard of living commensurate with similar nonteacher professionals is not simply a matter of fairness. Teacher pay is a central issue in public education; it affects our ability to retain currently credentialed teachers, address teacher shortages, and ensure teaching remains an attractive career option for a large pool of highly qualified students.

Targeted and sustained investments in public education are needed to mitigate (let alone reverse) the growing teacher pay penalty. Funding efforts at the local and state levels, along with support from the federal government, are needed to improve teacher pay and compensation. Additionally, public-sector collective bargaining should be upheld and expanded, given the role of unions in advocating for improved job quality and better pay.

Regrettably, sustained and effective policy interventions capable of mitigating, much less substantially improving, the trends outlined in this long-running series have been lacking. This is a troublesome reality, especially in the United States—a country that has more than enough resources and wealth to be the envy of public education around the world.

Notes

Notes

1. See Allegretto, Corcoran, and Mishel 2004, 2008; Allegretto and Tojerow 2014; Allegretto and Mishel 2016, 2018, 2019; and Allegretto 2023 and 2024.

2. The teacher sample does not include kindergarten or pre-kindergarten; if included, the teacher pay penalties would even larger. 

3. See Blad 2024; Merod 2023; and Steiner, Woo, and Doan 2023.

4. For example, high quality teachers can increase test scores (see Rockoff 2004); students taught by highly effective teachers are more likely to attend college, earn higher salaries, and are less likely to have children as teenagers (see Chetty, Friedman, and Rockoff 2014); international evidence points to a positive association of teacher cognitive skills and student performance (see Hanushek, Piopiunik, and Wiederhold 2019).

5. Allegretto and Mishel 2019, Appendix A provides a comprehensive discussion of the data and methodologies that were used to produce our teacher weekly wage and total compensation estimates. 

6. In Allegretto and Mishel 2019, we provide evidence that teachers work weekly hours similar to those of other professionals.

7. Our earlier work documents that BLS’s imputation method overstates teacher earnings, which is not the case for the other college graduate sample (Allegretto, Corcoran, and Mishel 2008, 9).

8. For more about top-code adjustments, see Economic Policy Institute 2024b.

9. The wage model includes controls for both public and private school teachers. The weekly wage penalty estimates are based on the coefficient on the public school teacher indicator. Regression for all teachers includes a gender control. The percentage gap is calculated as (eb -1) x 100. See Allegretto and Mishel 2019, Appendix A, for specification details.

10. See Allegretto, Corcoran, and Mishel 2008 for 1960, 1970, and 1980 estimates using decennial censuses.

11. Not shown but available upon request from the author.

12. The 1960 results are not shown in Figure B. They can be found in Allegretto, Corcoran and Mishel 2008, 7.

13. See Abrams 2023.

14. The ECEC provides compensation data for a narrower category of “primary, secondary, and special education school teachers” and for a broader category of “teachers.” I analyze the narrower category, which closely matches the definition of teachers in the CPS-ORG data, using data limited to state and local public-sector workers. The inclusion of kindergarten and special education teachers in the benefits analysis does not produce any more substantial differences than if they were excluded (as they are in the CPS sample used to estimate the wage penalty). Greater methodological detail is provided in Appendix A of Allegretto and Mishel 2019.

15. My analysis accounts for differences in annual weeks worked, as it is based on the usual weekly wages of teachers and other college graduates, not hourly wages or annual earnings. One reason health and pension costs are higher for teachers is that teacher health benefits are provided for a full year, while teacher salaries are for less than a full year.

16. See Allegretto, Garcia, and Weiss 2022. This paper describes inequities in public education funding. We also argue that the federal government should play a larger role in funding public education.

References

Abrams, Zara. 2023. Boys Are Facing Key Challenges in School. Inside the Effort to Support Their Success. American Psychological Association, April 2023.

Allegretto, Sylvia A. 2023. The Teacher Pay Penalty Still Looms Large. Economic Policy Institute and the Center for Economic and Policy Research, September 2023.

Allegretto, Sylvia A. 2024. Teacher Pay Rises In 2023—But Not Enough to Shrink Pay Gap with Other College Graduates. Economic Policy Institute and the Center for Economic and Policy Research, September 2024.

Allegretto, Sylvia A., Sean P. Corcoran, and Lawrence Mishel. 2004. How Does Teacher Pay Compare? Methodological Challenges and Answers. Washington, D.C.: Economic Policy Institute.

Allegretto, Sylvia A., Sean P. Corcoran, and Lawrence Mishel. 2008. The Teaching Penalty: Teacher Pay Losing Ground. Washington, D.C.: Economic Policy Institute.

Allegretto, Sylvia A., Emma García, and Elaine Weiss. 2022. Public Education Funding in the U.S. Needs an Overhaul: How a Larger Federal Role Would Boost Equity and Shield Children from Disinvestment During Downturns. Economic Policy Institute, July 2022.

Allegretto, Sylvia A., and Lawrence Mishel. 2016. The Teacher Pay Gap Is Wider Than Ever: Teachers’ Pay Continues to Fall Further Behind Pay of Comparable Workers. Economic Policy Institute, August 2016.

Allegretto, Sylvia A., and Lawrence Mishel. 2018. The Teacher Pay Penalty Has Hit a New High: Trends in the Teacher Wage and Compensation Gaps Through 2017. Economic Policy Institute, September 2018.

Allegretto, Sylvia A., and Lawrence Mishel. 2019. The Teacher Weekly Wage Penalty Hit 21.4 Percent in 2018, a Record High. Economic Policy Institute, April 2019.

Allegretto, Sylvia A., and Ilan Tojerow. 2014. Teacher Staffing and Pay Differences: Public and Private Schools. Monthly Labor Review. U.S. Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics, September 2014.

Blad, Evie. 2024. Teachers Report Lower Pay, More Stress Than Workers in Other Fields. Education Week, June 19, 2024, sec. Teaching & Learning, Teaching Profession.

Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). 2024a. Current Population Survey.

Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). 2024b. Employer Costs for Employee Compensation Historical Listing: National Compensation Survey, data tables accessed July 11, 2024.

Chetty, Raj, John N. Friedman, and Jonah E. Rockoff. 2014. Measuring the Impacts of Teachers II: Teacher Value-Added and Student Outcomes in Adulthood. American Economic Review 104, no. 9 (September 2014): 2633–2679.

Croft, Michelle, Gretchen Guffy, and Dan Vitale. 2018. Encouraging More High School Students to Consider Teaching. ACT Research & Policy, June 2018.

Dee, Thomas S. 2010 The Why Chromosome. Education Next, January 26, 2010.

Economic Policy Institute (EPI). 2024a. Current Population Survey Extracts, Version 2025.7.10, https://microdata.epi.org. Accessed August 9, 2024.

Economic Policy Institute (EPI). 2024b. “Methodology: Wage Variables.” EPI Microdata Extracts documentation.

Fortin, Jacey, and Eliza Fawcett. 2023. How Bad Is the Teacher Shortage? Depends Where You Live. New York Times, August 29, 2023.

Franco, Marguerite, and Susan Kemper Patrick. 2023. State Teacher Shortages: Teaching Positions Left Vacant or Filled by Teachers Without Full Certification. Learning Policy Institute, July 2023.

Hanushek, Eric A., Marc Piopiunik, and Simon Wiederhold. 2019. Do Smarter Teachers Make Smarter Students? Education Next, February 20, 2019.

Lopez, Minda, and James P. Van Overschelde. 2024. Unlicensed Teachers Now Dominate New Teacher Hires in Rural Texas Schools. The Dallas Observer, June 20, 2024.

Merod, Anna. 2023. Low Pay, Long Hours Top Reasons Teachers Consider Leaving. K-12 Dive, September 12, 2023.

National Center for Education Statistics (NCES). 2023. Most Public Schools Face Challenges in Hiring Teachers and Other Personnel Entering the 2023-24 Academic Year. October 2023.

Phi Delta Kappan (PDK). 2019. Teaching: Respect but Dwindling Appeal. The 50th Annual PDK Poll of the Public’s Attitudes Toward the Public Schools. Supplement to Kappan magazine.

Povich, Elaine S. 2023. Plagued By Teacher Shortages, Some States Turn to Fast-Track Credentialing. Stateline, July 24, 2023.

Rockoff, Jonah E. 2004. The Impact of Individual Teachers on Student Achievement: Evidence from Panel Data. American Economic Review 94, no. 2; 247–52. May 2004.

Steiner, Elizabeth D., Ashley Woo, and Sy Doan. 2023. All Work and No Pay — Teachers’ Perceptions of Their Pay and Hours Worked: Findings from the 2023 State of the American Teacher Survey. RAND Corporation, September 12, 2023.

Tamez-Robledo, Nadia. 2023. These States Have the Most ‘Underqualified’ Teachers Stepping in to Fill Open Positions. EdSurge, April 4, 2023.

Key findings:

• New School Pulse Panel data show that educators’ feelings of being understaffed fell by eight percentage points in the past year, suggesting an improvement from pandemic heights of understaffing stress amid a widespread teacher shortage.
• Some improvement in feelings of being understaffed may be linked to American Rescue Plan (ARP) funds. SPP data show that 37% of public schools created positions with ARP funds.
  • Of these schools, 15% created positions for academic interventionists, 14% for mental health professionals, and 6% for academic tutors.
• But disparities filling teaching vacancies remain: While difficulty filling vacancies declined in majority white schools and in schools in higher-income neighborhoods, it increased in schools in lower-income neighborhoods and in schools with greater than 75% minority students.

The COVID-19 pandemic greatly exacerbated a long-standing and widespread teacher shortage in schools. By mid-2022, several indicators of teaching shortages and staffing stress were at record highs. Recent data from the School Pulse Panel (SPP) show that understaffing stress in schools has relented somewhat in the past year, though progress remains modest and uneven. The SPP also indicates that funding from the American Rescue Plan (ARP) has helped close some of these staffing gaps and address pressing needs in the nation’s schools.

While schools have been struggling to fill vacancies long before the pandemic due to chronic low pay and compensation, the stress of teaching during the pandemic made the teacher shortage even worse. A RAND 2022 report showed that 73% of teachers reported having “frequent job-related stress” compared with 35% of working adults, which can contribute to otherwise qualified potential teachers taking positions in other fields. This degradation of non-wage-related working conditions means that schools need to pay teachers more to retain them and adequately staff schools, yet this salary increase has not happened. In 2022, the teacher pay penalty—the gap in pay between teachers and similarly educated workers in other professions—hit a new high of 26.4%.

New School Pulse Panel data allow us to assess how school staffing has fared in the aftermath of the pandemic. Administered by the National Center for Education Statistics, the SPP has sampled school and district staff on a monthly basis since 2021. In August 2023, they surveyed 3,998 public elementary, middle, and high schools about staffing needs. Given the long-standing teacher shortage, the latest SPP data can be seen as an indicator of how effective the nation has been in alleviating long-run school staffing stress over the past year.

Figure A shows the percentage of schools that feel their school is understaffed entering the school years in August 2022 and 2023, including by the share of students that are in a minority group and by neighborhood poverty. (Note: we use the term “minority students” to be consistent with the terms used in the SPP survey.) The figure shows that feelings of being understaffed improved between 2022 to 2023, falling by eight percentage points. The improvement was relatively widespread, holding regardless of the share of minority students in the school. Feelings of being understaffed also declined in schools with lower neighborhood poverty, but there was no change in schools with higher neighborhood poverty.

Figure A

The overall improvement may, in part, be linked to the Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief funds provided through the 2021 American Rescue Plan (ARP). These funds—$122 billion in total—were intended to help PreK–12 schools safely reopen and to tackle learning loss and mental health challenges brought on by the pandemic. Figure B shows that 37% of schools surveyed in August 2022 reported that they created positions for the 2022–2023 school year using ARP funds. Of these schools, 15% created positions for academic interventionists, 14% created positions for mental health professionals, 7% created positions for special education, 7% created positions for instructional coaches, and 6% created positions for academic tutors. The creation of jobs using ARP funds was fairly similar across schools regardless of the school’s share of minority students or neighborhood poverty.

Figure B

Unfortunately, the ARP did not solve shortages in certified teachers, and disparities in the extent of these shortages persist across schools. Figure C shows the percentage of public schools that experienced difficulty filling at least one teaching position entering the school years in August 2022 and 2023. Difficulty in filling vacancies declined slightly from 80% to 79% between 2022 and 2023. Underlying this modest decline, however, are larger declines in schools with less than 75% minority students and in schools in lower poverty neighborhoods. By contrast, schools with greater than 75% minority students experienced a six-percentage-point increase in difficulty filling teaching positions, and schools in higher poverty neighborhoods also experienced a four-percentage-point increase in difficulty. These findings suggest that long-standing disparities in teacher quality may have exacerbated over the last year, in which high-poverty schools suffer the most from a lack of credentialed teachers.

Figure C

Taken together, the results suggest that while schools are rebounding from the pandemic in terms of staffing overall, improvements in the teacher shortage have been felt unevenly, with schools that are majority white and in high-income neighborhoods seeing larger improvements. A shortage of qualified teachers threatens students’ ability to learn and reduces teachers’ effectiveness. When the shortage is distributed so unevenly among students of different socioeconomic backgrounds, it hinders the U.S. education system’s goal of providing a sound education equitably to all children.

In their report, Kraft and Lyon examine four broad sets of indicators of the overall well-being of the teaching profession: professional prestige, interest in teaching, enrollment in preparation programs, and job satisfaction. They compile nationally representative time-series data and find compelling evidence of four distinct periods in the status of teaching over the last half century: a rapid decline in the 1970s, a quick rise in the early- to mid-1980s, no significant change over the next 20 years, and the start of a steep decline around 2010. Kraft and Lyon’s findings since 2010 are very similar to what we found: While the pandemic exacerbated challenges facing teachers, “most of these declines occurred steadily throughout the last decade suggesting they are a function of larger, long-standing structural issues with the profession.”

Across every one of the four dimensions they examine, the data reveal a sharp decline since the 2010s. With respect to prestige, an annual survey by Phi Delta Kappan International found that the share of parents wanting their child to become a teacher, which had remained above 65% between 1993 and 2011, fell to just 37% by 2022. Interest in teaching as a profession also fell. The National Center for Education Statistics reports that the share of high school seniors who expected to be teaching at age 30 was “almost 7% in 1992 only to fall to around 3%…in the mid-2000s where it has remained.”

Given these declines in prestige and interest, it is unsurprising that Kraft and Lyon present government data showing a decline in the number of college graduates preparing to enter teaching. At its high point in 2006, the number of teaching licenses issued was equal to 22% of the total number of college graduates, but the rate fell to just 11% by 2020.

Trends in job satisfaction follow the same pattern. Kraft and Lyon cite the MetLife Survey of the American Teacher, which found that the percent of teachers who were “very satisfied” fell from 62% in 2008 to 12% in 2022.

The strong decline in the well-being of the teaching profession since 2010 coincides with the rising number of teaching vacancies documented in our report. However, like Kraft and Lyon, we maintain optimism that we can reverse the declining well-being of the teaching profession and resulting growing teacher shortage by addressing the root causes. With intentional action, we can restore the education system’s core goal: to provide a sound education equitably to all children.

Documenting the magnitude of the problem and its unequal distribution across low- and high-poverty schools

The first report in the series, The Teacher Shortage Is Real, Large and Growing, and Worse Than We Thought (García and Weiss 2019a), establishes that current national estimates of the teacher shortage likely understate the magnitude of the problem: When issues such as teacher qualifications and the unequal distribution of highly credentialed teachers across high- and low-poverty schools are taken into consideration, the teacher shortage problem is much more severe than previously identified. Our analysis of the 2011–2012 Schools and Staffing Survey (SASS) and 2015–2016 National Teacher and Principal Survey (NTPS) microdata from the U.S. Department of Education’s National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) shows that the share of public school teachers who do not hold teaching credentials associated with being more effective is either growing or staying the same. From the 2011–2012 to the 2015–2016 school year, there were increases in the shares of teachers who were not fully certified (from 8.4% to 8.8%), who had not taken the traditional route into teaching (14.3% to 17.1%), who had five years or less of experience (20.3% to 22.4%), and who did not have an educational background in the subject they were teaching (31.1% to 31.5%). In high-poverty schools, the shares of teachers without these credentials were even higher: 9.9% were not fully certified, 18.9% took an alternative route into teaching, 24.6% had five years or less of experience, and 33.8% didn’t have an educational background in the subject they were teaching (NCES 2011–2012, 2015–2016).3

Taking a closer look at schools’ struggles to hire and retain teachers

The second report in the series, U.S. Schools Struggle to Hire and Retain Teachers (García and Weiss 2019b), builds on the research in the first report, employing the same quality and equity angles to show that schools are having difficulties filling teacher vacancies and are, in some cases, having to leave vacancies open despite actively trying to hire teachers to fill them. The share of schools that were trying to fill a vacancy but couldn’t tripled from the 2011–2012 to the 2015–2016 school year (increasing from 3.1% to 9.4%), and the share of schools that found it very difficult to fill a vacancy nearly doubled in the same period (from 19.7% to 36.2%). High-poverty schools were hit hardest: They found it more difficult to fill vacancies than did low-poverty schools and schools overall, and they experienced higher turnover and attrition rates than did low-poverty schools (NCES 2011–2012, 2012–2013, 2015–2016).

One factor behind staffing difficulties in both low- and high-poverty schools is the high share of public school teachers leaving their posts: 13.8% were either leaving their school or leaving teaching altogether in a given year, according to the most recent data (NCES 2011–2012, 2012–2013). Another factor is the dwindling pool of applicants to fill vacancies: From the 2008–2009 to the 2015–2016 school year, the annual number of education degrees awarded fell by 15.4%, according to EPI analysis of Digest of Education Statistics 2018 data (NCES 2018). And the annual number of people who completed a teacher preparation program fell by 27.4% (U.S. Department of Education 2017a, 2017b). Schools are also having a harder time retaining credentialed teachers, as is evident in the small but growing share of all teachers who are both newly hired and in their first year of teaching (4.7% in 2015–2016, up from 4.0% in 2011–2012) and in the substantial shares of teachers who quit who are certified and experienced (90.3% and 77.2%, respectively) (NCES 2011–2012, 2012–2013). It is even more difficult for high-poverty schools to retain credentialed teachers.

Highlighting the role of low relative teacher pay

The third report in the series focuses on one likely reason teachers are leaving the profession and fewer people are becoming teachers: low teacher pay. In the report Low Relative Pay and High Incidence of Moonlighting Play a Role in the Teacher Shortage, Particularly in High-Poverty Schools (García and Weiss 2019c), we describe how teacher compensation compares with compensation in nonteaching occupations and call attention to the high share of teachers who supplement their earnings by moonlighting during the school year. First, we highlight earlier EPI/Center on Wage and Employment Dynamics research showing that, after accounting for education, experience, and other factors known to affect earnings, teachers’ weekly wages in 2018 were 21.4% lower than their nonteaching peers (Allegretto and Mishel 2019). In 1996, that weekly wage penalty was 6.3%. Our report then adds to the evidence of low teacher pay with new data on moonlighting: In the 2015–2016 school year, 59.0% of teachers took on additional paid work either in the school system or outside of it—up from 55.6% in the 2011–2012 school year. For these teachers, moonlighting made up a substantial 7.0% share of their combined base salary and extra income (NCES 2011–2012, 2015–2016).

The report goes on to show a correlation between measures of teacher compensation and teachers leaving the profession. For example, teachers who ended up quitting teaching reported receiving, on average, lower salaries than those who stayed at their schools ($50,800 vs. $53,300). And relative to teachers who stayed, teachers who quit reported, in the year before they quit, participating less in the kinds of paid extracurricular activities that might complement their professional development—activities like coaching students or mentoring other teachers (33.3% vs. 42.7%)—and more in moonlighting activities outside the school system (18.4% vs. 16.3%) (NCES 2011–2012, 2012–2013).

In high-poverty schools, teachers face compounded challenges. Relative to their peers in low-poverty schools, teachers in high-poverty schools are paid less ($53,300 vs. $58,900), receive a smaller amount of income from moonlighting ($4,000 vs. $4,300), and the moonlighting that they do is less likely to involve paid extracurricular or additional activities for the school system that not only generate extra pay but also help them grow professionally as teachers (NCES 2015–2016).

Identifying the working environment (school climate) as another key factor

The fourth report, Challenging Working Environments (‘School Climates’), Especially in High-Poverty Schools, Play a Role in the Teacher Shortage (García and Weiss 2019d), explores another likely factor behind the exodus of teachers from the profession and the shrinking supply of future teachers: teachers’ working environments, or school climates. It shows that school climate is challenging because of the presence of widespread barriers to teaching and learning, threats to teachers’ emotional well-being and physical safety, and a troubling lack of teacher influence over school policy and over what and how they teach in their classrooms. Students are coming to school unprepared to learn (as reported by 27.3% of teachers) and parents are struggling to be involved (as reported by 21.5% of teachers), conditions that are largely byproducts of larger societal forces such as rising poverty, segregation, and insufficient public investments. And more than one in five teachers (21.8%) report that they have been threatened and one in eight (12.4%) say they have been physically attacked by a student at their current school. Compounding the stress, more than two-thirds of teachers report that they have less than a great deal of influence over what they teach in the classroom (71.3%) and what instructional materials they use (74.5%), which suggests low recognition of their knowledge and judgment (NCES 2015–2016).

The poor school climate affects teacher satisfaction, morale, and expectations about staying in the profession. One in 20 teachers (4.9%) say that the stress and disappointments involved in teaching are not worth it, more than one-fourth of teachers say they think about leaving teaching at some point (27.4%), nearly half express some level of dissatisfaction with being a teacher in their school (48.7%), and more than half say they are not certain that they would still become teachers if they could go back to college and make a decision again (57.5%) (all data are from NCES 2015–2016 except for the share of teachers who are not sure they would become teachers if they could start over again, which is from NCES 2011–2012).

The data suggest a relationship between tough climates and quitting. When we compare teachers who ended up quitting with those who stayed, we find that larger shares of quitting teachers had reported, prior to leaving, that they were teaching unprepared students (39.0% vs. 29.4%), experiencing demoralizing stress (12.5% vs. 3.6%), lacking strong influence over what they teach in class (74.6% vs. 71.4%), and not being fully satisfied with teaching at their school (60.5% vs. 43.3%) (NCES 2011–2012, 2012–2013).4

Finally, consistent with findings in the companion reports in the series, teachers in high-poverty schools have it worse: Relative to their peers in low-poverty schools, larger shares of teachers in high-poverty schools report barriers to teaching, threats to physical safety and attacks, a lack of supportive relationships, and little autonomy in the classroom.

Examining early career supports and professional development and other career advancement opportunities for teachers

The fifth and second-to-last report published in the series, The Role of Early Career Supports, Continuous Professional Development, and Learning Communities in the Teacher Shortage (García and Weiss 2019e), examines the early career supports available to novice teachers in the first year of their careers as well as the continued learning opportunities available to teachers throughout their careers. The report describes a mixed picture around the available systems of supports, with the set of supports already broadly offered in the schools constituting a strong foundation to build upon, but with multiple weaknesses to address if we want to help teachers do their jobs better and advance in their careers. On the positive side, large shares of first-year teachers work with a mentor (79.9%) and participate in teacher induction programs (72.7%), and large shares of teachers of all experience levels access certain types of professional development such as workshops or training sessions (91.9%) or activities focused on the subjects that teachers teach (85.1%). However, novice and veteran teachers largely don’t get the time and resources they need to study, reflect, and prepare their practice. Small shares of first-year teachers are released from classroom instruction to participate in support activities for new or beginning teachers (37.1%) or receive teachers’ aides to enhance classroom management and one-on-one attention for students (26.9%). For all teachers, only half have released time from teaching to participate in professional development (50.9%), less than a third are reimbursed for conferences or workshop fees (28.2%) or receive a stipend for professional development accessed outside of regular work hours (27.3%), and only one in 10 teachers (9.4%) receives full or partial reimbursement of college tuition. In addition, teachers have limited access to some of the types of professional development that are highly valued and more effective: Only about one-fourth or fewer of teachers attend university courses related to teaching, present at workshops, or make observational visits to other schools (NCES 2011–2012, 2015–2016).5

Further, teachers are not by and large immersed in the kinds of learning communities that can support their teaching and career growth. In a learning community, teachers have opportunities to cooperate and coordinate and have a say in school policy and classroom instruction and management. Our fourth report, on school climate (described above), highlights important statistics that reflect not only the poor working conditions for teachers but also the lack of learning communities in schools. As noted earlier, we found that more than two-thirds of teachers report that they have less than a great deal of influence over what they teach in the classroom (71.3%) or what instructional materials they use (74.5%), which suggests low consideration for their knowledge and judgment. Less than half of teachers strongly agree that the administration’s behavior is supportive and encouraging (49.6%) or that there is a great deal of cooperative effort among the staff members (38.4%). Just 11.1% of teachers report having a great deal of influence in determining the content of professional development programs (NCES 2015–2016).

The systems of supports are particularly weak, the resources available are particularly lacking, and the scores on most indicators of a strong learning community are low in high-poverty schools, where, if anything, stronger supports for teachers are needed.

Although the link between these supports and the teacher staffing crisis is less direct than in the previous reports, these supports are nonetheless critical aspects of the teaching profession. Our data suggest a relationship between these systems of professional supports and teacher retention. When we compare teachers who stayed in teaching with those who quit teaching, we observe that larger shares of staying teachers had received early support in the form of an assigned mentor (77.0% vs. 69.2%), had found their subject-specific professional development activities very useful (27.4% vs. 19.5%), and had worked in highly cooperative environments (38.7% vs. 33.9%) (NCES 2011–2012, 2012–2013). Strengthened systems of supports have the potential to help teachers do their jobs better, progress in their profession, and gain satisfaction with and a sense of ownership of their careers. These supports are essential to guaranteeing the quality of the teaching workforce and to professionalizing teaching.

A call to action

The shortage of teachers documented and analyzed in this report harms students, teachers, and the public education system as a whole. Lack of sufficient, qualified teachers and staff instability threaten students’ ability to learn and reduce teachers’ effectiveness, and high teacher turnover consumes economic resources that could be better deployed elsewhere. The teacher shortage makes it more difficult to build a solid reputation for teaching and to professionalize it, which further contributes to perpetuating the shortage. In addition, the fact that the shortage is distributed so unevenly among students of different socioeconomic backgrounds challenges the U.S. education system’s goal of providing a sound education equitably to all children.

The sixth and final report of the series, A Policy Agenda to Address the Teacher Shortage in U.S. Public  Schools (García and Weiss 2020), presented a comprehensive policy agenda to confront the teacher shortage in the nation’s public schools. To summarize, the agenda has two main components: a set of foundational system-level recommendations that tackle the broad education context and thereby approach the problem in a way that will actually solve it, followed by specific policies targeting the factors that contribute to the teacher shortage and that, if implemented together, could go a long way toward solving the teacher shortage problem.

The agenda recommends that, at the outset, we increase public investments in education and treat teachers as professionals and teaching as a profession. These two system-level recommendations are critical to improving the context in which the teacher shortage operates and thus automatically lessening the teacher shortage and making the targeted recommendations easier to implement or even unnecessary in some cases. The third of the system-level recommendations is to understand that the teacher shortage is caused by multiple factors and thus can be tackled only with a comprehensive set of long-term solutions—an understanding that moves us away from single “magic remedy” solutions frameworks that have the appeal of an easy quick fix but are not at the scale of the problem. Finally, the fourth foundational recommendation calls for understanding that the complexity of the challenge calls for coordinated efforts of multiple stakeholders, including schools and school districts, parent-teacher associations, school boards, teachers unions, and states.

The targeted policies in EPI’s teacher shortage policy agenda plot a course to return teaching to a profession in which teachers are compensated on par with their college-educated peers, operate in environments where they can teach effectively, get the training they need early in their careers and the professional development they need throughout their work lives, and see their professional judgment and expertise respected and incorporated into school policies and programs, i.e., having a role in shaping what goes on in their classrooms and their schools. Specifically, the targeted policies call on school districts, state and federal policymakers, and other institutions and stakeholders involved to:

• Raise teacher pay to attract new teachers and keep teachers in their schools and the profession. This would be achieved through increasing teacher base pay across the board, enacting higher increases to teacher base pay in high-poverty schools, adequately funding pension benefits and removing obstacles to accessing them, considering programs that reduce the major financial burdens that are barriers to entering and staying in the teaching profession, and acknowledging and taking steps to address other financial burdens that arise when teachers in under-resourced schools must take on social services roles.
• Elevate teacher voice, and nurture stronger learning communities to increase teachers’ influence and sense of belonging. This includes increasing teacher autonomy and influence, and nurturing stronger learning communities through acknowledging and fostering teacher collaboration.
• Lower the barriers to teaching—such as students coming to school unprepared to learn, hungry, and sick, or threats to teachers’ physical safety and mental health—that affect teachers’ ability to do their jobs and their morale. It is imperative that school districts hire support personnel with the right qualifications to help mitigate barriers to learning, and that disciplinary policies are revisited.
• Design professional supports that strengthen teachers’ sense of purpose, career development, and effectiveness. Strategies to achieve this would include ensuring that teachers have access to coherent, high-quality, lifelong systems of supports and that teachers are engaged in designing these systems; and providing teachers with the option of meaningful second jobs that offer career advancement, not just survival.

The “Perfect Storm in the Teacher Labor Market” series of reports acknowledges the need for more research on the factors that are prompting teachers to quit and dissuading people from entering the profession and on the solutions to the teacher shortage problem. There are likely drivers to the shortage that our series did not address because we lack the data to assess them. Likewise there can be policy solutions that our series did not advance because their effectiveness has not yet been tested with adequate methods, at a national scale, or using a broadened look at the multiple factors at play. We call for continued research on the problem and urge that researchers and policymakers scrutinizing teacher labor markets and the drivers of the teacher shortage use the quality and equity framework used in our series. Using this framework will help protect and improve the equity and excellence in our education system.

About the authors

Emma García is an economist at the Economic Policy Institute, where she specializes in the economics of education and education policy. García’s research focuses on the production of education (cognitive and noncognitive skills), evaluation of educational interventions (early childhood, K–12, and higher education), equity, returns to education, teacher labor markets, and cost-effectiveness and cost–benefit analysis in education. She has held research positions at the Center for Benefit-Cost Studies of Education, the Campaign for Educational Equity, the National Center for the Study of Privatization in Education, and the Community College Research Center; she has consulted for MDRC, the World Bank, the Inter-American Development Bank, and the National Institute for Early Education Research; and she has served as an adjunct faculty member at the McCourt School of Public Policy, Georgetown University. García received her Ph.D. in economics and education from Columbia University Teachers College.

Elaine Weiss is the lead policy analyst for income security at the National Academy of Social Insurance, where she spearheads projects on Social Security, unemployment insurance, and workers’ compensation. Prior to her work at the academy, Weiss was the national coordinator for the Broader, Bolder Approach to Education (BBA), a campaign launched by the Economic Policy Institute, from 2011 to 2017. BBA promoted a comprehensive, evidence-based set of policies to allow all children to thrive in school and life. Weiss has authored and co-authored EPI and BBA reports on early achievement gaps and the flaws in market-oriented education reforms. She is co-author, with former Massachusetts Secretary of Education Paul Reville, of Broader, Bolder, Better, published by Harvard Education Press in 2019. Weiss came to BBA from the Pew Charitable Trusts, where she served as project manager for Pew’s Partnership for America’s Economic Success campaign. She has a Ph.D. in public policy from the George Washington University Trachtenberg School and a J.D. from Harvard Law School.

Acknowledgments

The authors are grateful to Lora Engdahl for her extraordinary contributions to structuring the contents of the “Perfect Storm in the Teacher Labor Market” series and for her edits to this piece. We also appreciate John Schmitt’s supervision of this project and Lawrence Mishel’s guidance in earlier stages of this research. We acknowledge John Carlo Mandapat for the infographics that accompany this series, Krista Faries for her work proofreading the text and wordsmithing sentences in several reports in the series including this one, and the rest of the communications staff at EPI for their contributions to the different components, including dissemination and assistance with the media (Kayla Blado) and coordination (Pedro da Costa). We also appreciate Julia Wolfe’s assistance with the tables and figures in all the reports mentioned in this document.

Data sources used in the series

The data used in the series of reports and summarized here rely mainly on the 2011–2012 Schools and Staffing Survey (SASS), the 2012–2013 Teacher Follow-Up Survey (TFS), and the 2015–2016 National Teacher and Principal Survey (NTPS). The surveys collect data on and from teachers, principals, and schools in the 50 states and the District of Columbia.6 All three surveys were conducted by the U.S. Census Bureau for the U.S. Department of Education. The survey results are housed at the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), which is part of the Department of Education’s Institute of Education Sciences (IES).

The NTPS is the redesigned SASS, with a focus on “flexibility, timeliness, and integration with other Department of Education data” (NCES 2019). Both the NTPS and SASS include very detailed questionnaires at the teacher level, school level, and principal level, and the SASS also includes very detailed questionnaires at the school district level (NCES 2017). The TFS survey, which is the source of data on teachers who stay or quit, was conducted a year after the 2011–2012 SASS survey to collect information on the employment and teaching status, plans, and opinions of teachers in the SASS. Following the first administration of the NTPS, no follow-up study was done, preventing us from conducting an updated analysis of teachers by teaching status the year after the NTPS. NCES plans to conduct a TFS again in the 2020–2021 school year, following the 2019–2020 NTPS.

The 2015–2016 NTPS includes public and charter schools only, while the SASS and TFS include all schools (public, private, and charter schools).7 We restrict our analyses to public noncharter schools and to teachers in public noncharter schools.

Endnotes

1. This summary is released at a time when we are experiencing the unprecedented challenges caused by the COVID-19 pandemic for all sectors—education included. For teachers and for teacher labor markets, it is anticipated that the pandemic will exacerbate some of the problems we discussed in these reports just as the need to focus on pandemic relief and recovery measures delay attention to the problems identified here.

2. According to Sutcher, Darling-Hammond, and Carver-Thomas (2016), the gap between the number of qualified teachers needed in the nation’s K–12 schools and the number available for hire in the 2017–2018 school year was about 110,000 teachers. Carver-Thomas and Darling-Hammond (2017) and the Learning Policy Institute (2017) estimate that filling a vacancy costs $21,000 on average, and Carroll (2007) estimates the total annual cost of turnover at $7.3 billion per year. According to Strauss (2017), that estimated annual cost of turnover would exceed $8 billion at present. A lack of sufficient, qualified teachers threatens students’ ability to learn (Darling-Hammond 1999; Ladd and Sorensen 2016). Instability in a school’s teacher workforce (i.e., high turnover and/or high attrition) negatively affects student achievement and diminishes teacher effectiveness and quality (Ronfeldt, Loeb, and Wyckoff 2013; Jackson and Bruegmann 2009; Kraft and Papay 2014; Sorensen and Ladd 2018). And high teacher turnover consumes economic resources (i.e., through costs of recruiting and training new teachers) that could be better deployed elsewhere.

3. A teacher is considered to be in a high-poverty school if 50% or more of the students in his/her classroom are eligible for free or reduced-price lunch programs. A teacher is considered to be in a low-poverty school if less than 25% of the students in his/her classroom are eligible for those programs.

4. The response to the question revealing what we refer to as demoralizing stress is particularly telling: The share of teachers who said that the stress and disappointments involved in teaching weren’t really worth it was 3.5 times as large among those who ended up quitting than among those who stayed.

5. For the statistics in this paragraph, the data for first-year teachers come from NCES 2015–2016; the data for all teachers come from NCES 2011–2012.

6. The 2015–2016 NTPS microdata do not produce state-representative estimates. The forthcoming 2017–2018 NTPS microdata will support state-level estimates.

7. The forthcoming 2017–2018 NTPS microdata will include private schools.

References

Allegretto, Sylvia, and Lawrence Mishel. 2019. The Teacher Weekly Wage Penalty Hit 21.4 Percent in 2018, a Record High: Trends in the Teacher Wage and Compensation Penalties Through 2018. Economic Policy Institute and the Center on Wage and Employment Dynamics at the University of California, Berkeley, April 2019.

Carroll, T.G. 2007. Policy Brief: The High Cost of Teacher Turnover. National Commission on Teaching and America’s Future.

Carver-Thomas, Desiree, and Linda Darling-Hammond. 2017. Teacher Turnover: Why It Matters and What We Can Do About It. Learning Policy Institute, August 2017.

Darling-Hammond, Linda. 1999. Teacher Quality and Student Achievement: A Review of State Policy Evidence. Center for the Study of Teaching and Policy, University of Washington, December 1999.

García, Emma, and Elaine Weiss. 2019a. The Teacher Shortage Is Real, Large and Growing, and Worse Than We Thought: The First Report in the ‘Perfect Storm in the Teacher Labor Market’ Series. Economic Policy Institute, March 2019.

García, Emma, and Elaine Weiss. 2019b. U.S. Schools Struggle to Hire and Retain Teachers: The Second Report in the ‘Perfect Storm in the Teacher Labor Market’ Series. Economic Policy Institute, April 2019.

García, Emma, and Elaine Weiss. 2019c. Low Relative Pay and High Incidence of Moonlighting Play a Role in the Teacher Shortage, Particularly in High-Poverty Schools: The Third Report in the ‘Perfect Storm in the Teacher Labor Market’ Series. Economic Policy Institute, May 2019.

García, Emma, and Elaine Weiss. 2019d. Challenging Working Environments (‘School Climates’), Especially in High-Poverty Schools, Play a Role in the Teacher Shortage: The Fourth Report in the ‘Perfect Storm in the Teacher Labor Market’ Series. Economic Policy Institute, May 2019.

García, Emma, and Elaine Weiss. 2019e. The Role of Early Career Supports, Continuous Professional Development, and Learning Communities in the Teacher Shortage: The Fifth Report in the ‘Perfect Storm in the Teacher Labor Market’ Series. Economic Policy Institute, July 2019.

García, Emma, and Elaine Weiss. 2020. A Policy Agenda to Address the Teacher Shortage in U.S. Public Schools: The Sixth and Final Report in the ‘Perfect Storm in the Teacher Labor Market’ Series. Economic Policy Institute, September 2020.

Jackson, Kirabo, and Elias Bruegmann. 2009. “Teaching Students and Teaching Each Other: The Importance of Peer Learning for Teachers.” American Economic Journal Applied Economics 1, no. 4: 85–108.

Kraft, Matthew A., and John P. Papay. 2014. “Can Professional Environments in Schools Promote Teacher Development? Explaining Heterogeneity in Returns to Teaching Experience.” Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis 36, no. 4: 476–500.

Ladd, Helen F., and Lucy C. Sorensen. 2016. “Returns to Teacher Experience: Student Achievement and Motivation in Middle School.” Education Finance and Policy 12, no. 2: 241–279.

Learning Policy Institute. 2017. What’s the Cost of Teacher Turnover? (calculator). September 2017.

National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) (U.S. Department of Education). 2011–2012. Licensed microdata from the 2011–2012 Schools and Staffing Survey (SASS).

National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) (U.S. Department of Education). 2012–2013. Licensed microdata from the 2012–2013 Teacher Follow-up Survey (TFS).

National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) (U.S. Department of Education). 2015–2016. Licensed microdata from the 2015–2016 National Teacher and Principal Survey (NTPS).

National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) (U.S. Department of Education). 2018. Digest of Education Statistics: 2018.

National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) (U.S. Department of Education). 2019. “NTPS Overview” (web page), accessed March 2019.

Ronfeldt, Matthew, Susanna Loeb, and James Wyckoff. 2013. “How Teacher Turnover Harms Student Achievement.” American Educational Research Journal 50, no. 1: 4–36.

Sorensen, Lucy C., and Helen Ladd. 2018. “The Hidden Costs of Teacher Turnover.” National Center for Analysis of Longitudinal Data in Education Research (CALDER) Working Paper no. 203-0918-1.

Strauss, Valerie. 2017. “Why It’s a Big Problem That So Many Teachers Quit—and What to Do About It.” Washington Post, November 27, 2017.

Sutcher, Leib, Linda Darling-Hammond, and Desiree Carver-Thomas. 2016. A Coming Crisis in Teaching? Teacher Supply, Demand, and Shortages in the U.S. Learning Policy Institute, September 2016.

U.S. Department of Education. 2017a. “Completers, by State, by Program Type” [data table]. Data from the Higher Education Act Title II State Report Card (SRC) Reporting System. Spreadsheet downloadable at https://title2.ed.gov/Public/DataTools/NewExcels/CompletersProgramType.aspx.

U.S. Department of Education. 2017b. “Enrollment, by State, by Program Type” [data table]. Data from the Higher Education Act Title II State Report Card (SRC) Reporting System. Spreadsheet downloadable at https://title2.ed.gov/Public/DataTools/NewExcels/EnrollmentProgramType.aspx.

This report is the fifth in a series examining the magnitude of the teacher shortage and the working conditions and other factors that contribute to the shortage.

What this series finds: The teacher shortage is real, large and growing, and worse than we thought. When indicators of teacher quality (certification, relevant training, experience, etc.) are taken into account, the shortage is even more acute than currently estimated, with high-poverty schools suffering the most from the shortage of credentialed teachers.

What this report finds: Our review of the early career supports, ongoing professional development, and opportunities for cooperation and influence offered to public school teachers reveals a mixed picture, with clear room to improve the system of professional supports that play a role in teacher retention and expand the knowledge base of the teaching workforce.

On the positive side, the set of supports already broadly offered in the schools is a strong foundation to build upon. Large shares of first-year teachers work with a mentor (79.9 percent) or participate in teacher induction programs (72.7 percent). And large shares of teachers generally are accessing certain types of professional development, including workshops or training sessions (91.9 percent), activities focused on the subjects that teachers teach (85.1 percent), regularly scheduled collaboration with other teachers on issues of instruction (80.8 percent), and opportunities to observe or be observed by other teachers in their classrooms (67.0 percent).

On the negative side, there are multiple weaknesses to address if we want to help teachers do their jobs better and advance in their careers:

• First, there is limited access to some of the types of professional development that are highly valued and more effective. Small shares of teachers attend university courses related to teaching (26.6 percent), present at workshops (23.1 percent), or make observational visits to other schools (21.6 percent).
• Second, novice and veteran teachers largely don’t get the time and resources they need to study, reflect, and prepare their practice. Small shares of first-year teachers are released from classroom instruction to participate in support activities for new or beginning teachers (37.1 percent); small shares receive teachers’ aides to enhance classroom management and one-on-one attention for students (26.9 percent); and small shares get a reduced teaching schedule (10.7 percent). For all teachers, only half have released time from teaching to participate in professional development (50.9 percent), less than a third are reimbursed for conferences or workshop fees (28.2 percent) or receive a stipend for professional development accessed outside of regular work hours (27.3 percent), and only one in 10 teachers (9.4 percent) receives full or partial reimbursement of college tuition.
• Third, teachers are not highly satisfied with their professional development experiences. Less than a third of teachers found any of the activities they accessed “very useful,” and over a third of novice teachers felt that working with a mentor was only a little or not at all helpful.
• Fourth, teachers are not by and large immersed in the kind of learning community that can support their teaching and career growth. In a learning community, teachers have opportunities to cooperate and coordinate and have a say in school policy and classroom instruction and management. We find that more than two-thirds of teachers report that they have less than a great deal of influence over what they teach in the classroom (71.3 percent) or what instructional materials they use (74.5 percent), which suggests low consideration for their knowledge and judgment. Just 11.1 percent of teachers report having a great deal of influence in determining the content of professional development programs.
• Fifth, some key resources and professional development opportunities are particularly lacking in high-poverty schools, where, if anything, stronger supports for teachers are needed. In high-poverty schools, compared with low-poverty schools, smaller shares of first-year teachers work with a mentor (78.3 percent vs. 83.7 percent) and say that working with a mentor helps a lot (32.1 percent vs. 34.5 percent). Compared with teachers in low-poverty schools, larger shares of teachers in high-poverty schools participate in professional development activities that they consider less useful (such as workshops, 92.7 percent vs. 90.8 percent) and smaller shares participate in activities that they find more useful (such as observational visits to other schools, 20.9 percent vs. 22.5 percent, and teacher-led research, 42.7 percent vs. 49.5 percent). High-poverty schools also score lower on most indicators that a school has a strong learning community.

Our data suggest a relationship between these systems of professional supports and teacher retention. When we compare teachers who stayed in teaching with those who quit teaching, we observe that larger shares of staying teachers had received early support in the form of an assigned mentor (77.0 percent vs. 69.2 percent) or induction programs (85.9 percent vs. 80.0 percent), had found their subject-specific professional development activities to be very useful (27.4 percent vs. 19.5 percent), had worked in highly cooperative environments (38.7 percent vs. 33.9 percent), and had felt they had more influence over the content taught in their classrooms (28.6 percent vs. 25.4 percent).

Why professional supports matter: The demands of teaching are constantly changing and teachers need to continually adapt their knowledge and practice. By failing to provide teachers with broad access to effective training and professional development, as well as to learning communities where their professional judgment is considered, we hurt teachers’ effectiveness, sense of purpose, and career advancement opportunities. This likely plays a role in the teacher shortage. And the teacher shortage—which is more acute in high-poverty schools—harms students and teachers and challenges the U.S. education system’s goal of providing a sound education equitably to all children.

What we can do to support teachers: We must improve both the types and the usefulness of the professional supports offered and ensure that teachers have the resources needed to access those opportunities. Strengthening the system of supports includes increasing teachers’ influence over their day-to-day work and developing cultures of learning. High-poverty schools and their teachers, in particular, require additional funding to close gaps in these resources and supports.

Introduction

The teacher shortage—the gap between the number of qualified teachers needed in the nation’s K–12 schools and the number available for hire in a given year—is an increasingly recognized but still poorly understood crisis. The shortage is discussed by the media and policymakers, and researchers have estimated its size (about 110,000 teachers short in the 2017–2018 school year, according to Sutcher, Darling-Hammond, and Carver-Thomas [2016]) and even quantified part of its cost.1 The shortage constitutes a crisis because of its negative effects on students, teachers, and the education system at large.2 But the shortage is poorly understood because it has multiple complex and interdependent causes. The first report in this series, The Teacher Shortage Is Real, Large and Growing, and Worse Than We Thought (García and Weiss 2019a), establishes that current national estimates of the teacher shortage likely understate the magnitude of the problem: When issues such as teacher qualifications and the unequal distribution of highly credentialed teachers across high- and low-poverty schools are taken into consideration, the teacher shortage problem is much more severe than previously identified.

The second report in this series, U.S. Schools Struggle to Hire and Retain Teachers (García and Weiss 2019b), builds on the research in the first report, employing the same quality and equity angles to show that schools are having difficulties filling teacher vacancies and are, in some cases, leaving vacancies unfilled despite actively trying to hire teachers to fill them. High-poverty schools are hit hardest: They find it more difficult to fill vacancies than do low-poverty schools and schools overall, and they experience higher turnover and attrition rates than do low-poverty schools. One factor behind staffing difficulties is the high share of public school teachers leaving their posts: 13.8 percent were either leaving their school or leaving teaching altogether in a given year, according to the most recent data. Another factor is the dwindling pool of applicants to fill vacancies: From the 2008–2009 to the 2015–2016 school year, the annual number of education degrees awarded fell by 15.4 percent, and the annual number of people who completed a teacher preparation program fell by 27.4 percent. Schools are also having a harder time retaining credentialed teachers, as is evident in the small but growing share of all teachers who are both newly hired and in their first year of teaching (4.7 percent) and in the substantial shares of teachers who are quitting who are certified and experienced. It is even more difficult for high-poverty schools to retain credentialed teachers.

The third report in the series focuses on one likely reason teachers are leaving the profession and fewer people are becoming teachers: low teacher pay. Specifically, Low Relative Pay and High Incidence of Moonlighting Play a Role in the Teacher Shortage, Particularly in High-Poverty Schools (García and Weiss 2019c) describes how teacher compensation compares with compensation in nonteaching occupations, and calls attention to the high share of teachers who supplement their earnings by moonlighting during the school year. The report shows a correlation between measures of teacher compensation and teachers leaving the profession. Specifically, it finds that teachers who ended up quitting teaching reported receiving, on average, lower salaries than those who stayed at their schools. They also reported participating less in the kinds of paid extracurricular activities that might complement their professional development (activities like coaching students or mentoring other teachers) than did teachers who stayed, and they reported participating more in working options outside the school system than did teachers who stayed. In high-poverty schools, teachers face compounded challenges. Relative to their peers in low-poverty schools, teachers in high-poverty schools are paid less and receive smaller amounts of income from moonlighting, and the moonlighting that they do is less likely to involve paid extracurricular or additional activities for the school system that also help them grow professionally.

The fourth report, Challenging Working Environments (‘School Climates’), Especially in High-Poverty Schools, Play a Role in the Teacher Shortage (García and Weiss 2019d), explores another likely factor behind the exodus of teachers from the profession and the shrinking supply of future teachers: the working environments, or school climates, in which teachers do their work. We show that school climate is challenging because of the presence of widespread barriers to teaching and learning, threats to teachers’ emotional well-being and physical safety, and a troubling lack of teacher influence over school policy and over what and how they teach in their classrooms. We observe that poor school climate affects teacher satisfaction, morale, and expectations about staying in the profession, and that there is a correlation between these indicators of difficult working environments and teachers leaving the profession a year later. Consistent with other gaps being more acute in high-poverty schools, we also document that school climates are more challenging in high-poverty schools than in low-poverty schools.

This report, the fifth in the series, examines the early career supports available to novice teachers in the first year of their careers, as well as the continued learning opportunities available to teachers throughout their careers. We also explore the extent to which certain aspects of the working environment—the presence or absence of supportive and collaborative relationships; cooperation among teachers, colleagues, and principals; and teachers’ influence over policy and day-to-day classroom decisions—establish a culture of learning in which teachers’ knowledge and professionalism are recognized and cultivated.

Unlike with some of the stressors identified in our earlier reports, it is not easy to trace a direct link between suboptimal professional supports and the teacher staffing crisis that is the focus of our series. (We discuss the less clear-cut nature of the role of professional supports in the next section of this report.) However, all the professional development and continuous training components we examine have the potential to help teachers do their jobs better, progress in their profession, and gain satisfaction with and a sense of ownership of their careers. These supports are essential to guaranteeing the quality of the teaching workforce and to professionalizing teaching. And, as we show, there is evidence, albeit less direct, that these supports play a role in the teacher shortage. Professional development and continuous training opportunities and the learning climate—or the lack thereof—can directly influence teacher retention and recruitment. In some cases, these factors can also indirectly influence retention and recruitment when they mitigate—or compound—problems already identified in previous reports in “The Perfect Storm in the Teacher Labor Market” series. The findings here suggest that efforts to address teacher shortages must include providing teachers with strengthened continuous training opportunities that professionalize teaching and support teachers, especially in high-poverty schools where the teacher shortage and the lack of meaningful professional development opportunities are most concerning.

Why professional development and continuous training are needed in teaching and how they are implicated in the teacher shortage

It is important to begin this installment of the “Perfect Storm” series with some clarifications about the limitations we face in this study. In the prior reports, we are able to identify shares of teachers experiencing factors that are objectively negative stressors. For example, we show that teachers are paid less than comparable workers and that their safety is not guaranteed. In those cases, their experiences are objectively bad, and the correlations between those experiences and the teachers’ choices to quit or stay in the profession could be seen as decisive.

With regard to professional development and continuous training opportunities, there is no universally accepted set of supports that constitutes a good, supportive early training and ongoing professional development system as opposed to a bad, unsupportive system. We lack research, policy, or practice recommendations that say, “This specific set of supports offered in this mode and style for this duration and on these contents is unequivocally essential to helping teachers succeed and keeping them in the classrooms.” Little is known regarding how teachers get assigned to training and professional development opportunities; whether teachers have any say in the opportunities presented to them; who offers the opportunities; the optimal duration, location, and timing of professional development opportunities; and who oversees the quality—let alone what funding is available. We also lack knowledge of how professional development needs may change depending on the teacher’s profile (including teacher credentials, his or her experience, the field of teaching, etc.) and circumstances (including whether he or she teaches in a high- or in a low-poverty school, etc.). And we lack confirmation of how these components of the system affect teachers’ effectiveness and transitions in and out of the teacher labor markets.

Nevertheless, this report analyzes the currently offered set of supports based on common sense—what should be broadly accepted assumptions about the importance of professional development and a helpful, supportive environment—and on evidence from research on professional development and school climate. With regard to our assumptions, we take as given that good professional development is critical in education just as it is in medicine, law, engineering, and other professions where continuous learning and professionalization are expected or mandated. Continuous learning via professional development helps teachers do their jobs more effectively and efficiently and advance in their careers, increasing their sense of dedication, purpose, satisfaction, and professionalism and, significantly, helping their students’ learning and performance as well. A strong learning community and a positive working environment also help teachers in these ways. It should thus be evident that professional supports can play an important role in increasing the availability of teachers and that they are critical to improving the quality of the teaching workforce—both key aspects of the teacher shortage problem.

With regard to the evidence, existing research presents many reasons why, in general, good professional development and continuous training opportunities (those that result in improvements to teacher practices and student outcomes) matter greatly (see Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation 2014; Darling-Hammond, Burns, et al. 2017; Darling-Hammond, Hyler, et al. 2017; ESSA 2015; Hill 2009; Ingersoll and Collins 2018; Jensen et al. 2016; Kraft, Blazar, and Hogan 2018; Learning Forward 2019; Mizell 2010; Robinson 2019).

First, teachers pursue professional development opportunities to earn a master’s degree, credit toward recertification, or other credential, or to gain additional qualifications to prepare for a leadership position.3

Second, continuous training and professional development help teachers develop new knowledge and skills to better serve their students. This includes helping teachers update their instructional techniques in response to new research on learning and teaching processes and to adjust to the needs of a more diverse student body.

Third, evidence-driven public policies have identified professional development as a key component in building systems of professional learning. For example, the Every Student Succeeds Act of 2015 (ESSA) made professional development an important cornerstone of schools’ improvement plans.4 ESSA’s recommendations and guidance are in part based on a body of research showing that solid early career supports and continuous training can strengthen teachers’ practices and effectiveness—i.e., that when teachers use what they learned in professional development, their practice improves in ways that benefit children.

Fourth, early career supports help new teachers transition successfully from teacher training programs to actually being in a classroom, and continuous training helps veteran teachers adapt to changes in what they need to teach and test—and in how they need to teach and test—to accommodate changes in state and federal laws and standards.

Fifth, when teachers have these training and professional development opportunities, it nurtures a culture of learning schoolwide: Teachers and staff routinely develop their own knowledge and skills; they model, for students, the belief that learning is important and useful; they feel more respected; and they see ways to progress in their careers.

And sixth, intense early supports, continuous training, and professional development are actually recommended, and the norm, in the most highly regarded systems—systems in which teaching is also a more prestigious and sought-after profession.

In this report we draw upon national public school teacher data to describe early career supports and ongoing professional development opportunities in detail: the kinds of opportunities available to teachers, how many teachers access them, whether teachers get fee reimbursements or other help accessing them, and how useful they are to teachers. We also examine teachers’ assessments of their relationships with school administrators and peer teachers and their involvement in setting schoolwide and classroom policies. All three of these components—early career supports, ongoing professional development, and relationships that capitalize on teachers’ professional judgment—are necessary to establish a culture of learning in the school and to provide teachers with meaningful career advancement pathways.5

Overview of findings

We find reasons for both optimism and concern. On the positive side, a great majority of teachers participate in some form of training, which could be seen as an asset of the system to be further cultivated.6 However, some of the most common types of professional development and training activities are also those that receive lower teacher satisfaction ratings. Teachers also report that they don’t get to choose or help design the professional development options offered to them. Together, these findings suggest critical weaknesses in the menu of options available, in how opportunities are assigned to teachers, or in the quality of the offerings (or all of the above). This disconnect between what teachers are receiving and what they find useful suggests that there is significant room for improvement in the supports and career advancement opportunities that schools and the profession offer. Teachers may be participating in the types of activities that are less useful to them because they are required to, either by law or to maintain certification, suggesting that these mandates are not informed by the type of support or the quality needed—but we can’t test any of these hypotheses with the available data.

With regard to the culture of learning, we present evidence that teachers have low levels of autonomy and influence in general, and that teachers’ relationships with one another, with administrators, and with parents have clear room for improvement. And, as past research shows, despite substantial shares of teachers moonlighting, they are not always taking on second jobs that foster collaboration and allow them to learn from or support one another (García and Weiss 2019c; García and Weiss 2019d; Mizell 2010; Ingersoll and Collins 2018).7 In short, there are many features of schools today that are not conducive to building a culture of learning, a culture in which obtaining useful and needed training is the norm and in which training benefits teachers and their students.

Finally, we demonstrate that there is a relationship between systems of professional supports—professional development, career-building supports, and teachers’ autonomy and influence—and whether or not teachers stay in the profession. This finding contributes to our efforts in this series of reports to identify factors that can help explain the most troubling trends in the teacher labor market: decreased interest in becoming a teacher and in staying in teaching (Ingersoll 2004, 2014; Sutcher, Darling-Hammond, and Carver-Thomas 2016; Darling-Hammond, Burns, et al. 2017; García and Weiss 2019b). Strengthening professional development and career-building supports would help professionalize teaching and provide teachers with opportunities for career advancement, which would make teaching a more appealing profession8 (and may mitigate some of the other factors driving the teacher shortage, such as tough working environments).

It is important to note that suboptimal professional supports not only likely play a role in the teacher shortage, but also directly affect the knowledge base of the teacher workforce. Thus while we are discussing professional development in the context of the teacher shortage, these broader repercussions add to the urgency of identifying whether ineffective and insufficient professional development is a problem in U.S. schools, i.e., affecting not only teacher recruitment and retention but also teacher effectiveness, student learning, school performance, and the health of the educational system overall.9

Novice teachers are not getting the support they need to translate their training into effective teaching

The first few years that a teacher spends in the classroom tend to be among the most difficult of his or her career. As is true of every job, getting to know and adjusting to the workplace—in this case, the school, district, colleagues, students, students’ parents, and surrounding communities—poses challenges. In the education context, these natural difficulties are compounded by the steep learning curve to balancing engaging instruction with effective classroom control. Regardless of how solid teachers’ preparation and innate ability may be, and despite new-job energy and motivation, all young teachers need to acclimate to the job and practice to strengthen their teaching. New teachers must translate what they learned in their teacher preparation programs into real classroom practices, and research shows that this process can be sped up if they receive specific supports to help them with the transition and make their teaching practice more effective. It is especially in teachers’ early years, then, that appropriate supports (including induction programs, mentors, and other classroom-based resources) are critical, both to helping teachers succeed and to retaining them—but these supports are not universally available to teachers (Darling-Hammond, Burns, et al. 2017; Liston, Whitcomb, and Borko 2006; NCEE 2016; Smith and Ingersoll 2004; Ingersoll and Collins 2018).10

Our analysis confirms that more supports for teachers are needed early in their careers. Table 1 shows that it is actually very common for novice teachers to feel less than very well prepared to handle all the tasks required in their classrooms in their first year on the job. The table shows the results of our analysis of questions posed to early-career teachers (teachers in their first five years of teaching) about how prepared they were, in their first year of teaching, to handle a range of classroom tasks. There is only one task out of the 10 listed here that even one in every three teachers felt “very well prepared” to perform: teaching their subject matter. For the other nine tasks listed in Table 1—including using a variety of instructional methods, assessing students, and differentiating instruction—the shares of teachers who reported that they felt very well prepared are much smaller. To look at this data another way, the shares of novice teachers who felt less than very well prepared (“not at all prepared,” “somewhat prepared,” or “well prepared”) to handle all the tasks in their classrooms and, thus, who could significantly benefit from early career supports, are large: For example, fully two-thirds (66.8 percent) of teachers reported feeling less than “very well prepared” to teach their subject matter and nine in 10 teachers (91.6 percent) reported not feeling “very well prepared” to teach English language learners (ELLs).11

Table 1

As noted earlier in this report, research to date on the topic of early career supports has produced no set menu of the exact supports schools need to offer to ensure that teachers are ready to teach from the start of their careers.12 However, it is obvious that a lack of these supports leaves novice teachers struggling to adjust by themselves, hurting their ability to use their time wisely and effectively, and precluding opportunities for novice teachers to learn from one another. Unfortunately, as other researchers have noted, novice teachers suffer from inadequate support for teacher learning, including inadequate peer support, challenging emotional experiences, and lack of development programs for teachers when they are on the job (i.e., “in-service education”) (Liston, Whitcomb, and Borko 2006; Dias-Lacy and Guirguis 2017). In our data, we also find that while most teachers do receive some forms of support and do participate in preparation programs in the early years, these supports and programs are not universally available, i.e., not all teachers get them. Some of the most important supports are available to only a minority of new teachers. We present the evidence for general supports in Table 2 and for specific early preparation programs in Table 3.

Table 2

As Table 2 shows, three resources that would increase the time that young teachers have to study, reflect, and prepare their practice are unavailable to large shares of new teachers: a reduced teaching schedule, teachers’ aides, and time away from the classroom to receive new-teacher supports. Only a little more than one-third (37.1 percent) of all teachers are released from classroom instruction to have time to participate in support activities for new or beginner teachers. Only about one-fourth (26.9 percent) receive aides to enhance classroom management and one-on-one attention for students, and only about one in ten (10.7 percent) get a reduced teaching schedule.

Four other classroom-based supports were more widely available, though still unevenly so, with less than two-thirds of first-year teachers enjoying common planning time with their fellow subject-matter teachers (61.2 percent), two-thirds participating in new-teacher classes (66.4 percent), and just over two-thirds receiving constructive feedback based on classroom observations (69.0 percent). About three in four (74.5 percent), however, did report “regular supportive communication” with the principal and others.

Differences between teachers based on the concentration of low-income students in their classrooms were small and mixed, with a split pattern of advantage and disadvantage for those in high-poverty schools. For example, teachers in low-poverty schools are slightly less likely than their peers in high-poverty schools to benefit from a reduced teaching schedule and from having teachers’ aides. Teachers in high-poverty schools are less likely than their peers in low-poverty schools to report having regular supportive communication with the principal and others, being observed and receiving feedback, and participating in seminars or classes for beginning teachers.

Other interventions that effectively facilitate young teachers’ adaptation to the profession, and that foster cooperation and collegiality, include teacher induction and mentoring programs. These programs are designed to support inexperienced teachers in their early years through role modeling, feedback, and support, and to keep those who have strong potential from leaving the school or the profession before they have a chance to master the art of teaching (Sorensen and Ladd 2018; Ingersoll and Strong 2011; Goldhaber, Krieg, and Theobald 2018b). They can thus somewhat reduce the inadequacies described above and improve new teachers’ skills and confidence.

However, our analysis shows that though some of these programs are fairly widely offered, they are not always rated as useful, which suggests room for improvement in their quality and how they are offered. As Table 3 shows, most—though not all—first-year teachers had access to induction programs and to mentors. Overall, 72.7 percent of teachers participated in a teacher induction program, and 79.9 percent were assigned a master or mentor teacher.

Table 3

Figure A provides a more in-depth look at first-year teachers’ experience with mentors. More than half (53.5 percent) of teachers reported having met with the mentor frequently when they were in their first year (top panel). Somewhat surprisingly, this relatively high access to mentors was not accompanied by an equally high share of teachers reporting benefiting from working with mentors (bottom panel). Only a third of teachers (33.2 percent) said that working with a mentor teacher improved their teaching a lot, whereas a slightly larger share (35.7 percent) said that working with a mentor improved their teaching only a little or not at all. In essence, the data in Table 3 and Figure A indicate that while mentoring programs are extensively available, almost half of teachers in such programs only rarely or occasionally work with their mentors, and over a third felt that working with their mentors helped them only a little or not at all.

Figure A

Going back to Table 3, we see that teachers in low-poverty schools are about 5 percentage points more likely to have had access to induction programs and mentor programs than were teachers in high-poverty schools. The disparity across types of school is consistent with data showing that high-poverty schools have higher shares of novice teachers (and lower shares of experienced teachers; see García and Weiss 2019a), so there are simply relatively fewer veteran teachers available to serve as effective mentors.13 This disparity in access across low- and high-poverty schools is amplified when we explore the characteristics of interactions between mentors and the teachers they are mentoring, as shown in Figure A. Although teachers in high-poverty schools are just as likely to work with mentors at least once a week, they are more likely to work with them only rarely (top panel). Also, they are less likely than their peers in low-poverty schools to find these mentoring relationships very effective (bottom panel): Only 32.1 percent of teachers receiving mentoring in high-poverty schools felt that working with mentors improved their teaching a lot, compared with 34.5 percent in low-poverty schools. And 37.3 percent of teachers receiving mentoring in high-poverty schools thought that working with their mentors improved their teaching only a little or not at all, compared with 32.3 percent of teachers receiving mentoring in low-poverty schools. The implication that mentoring programs are less helpful in high-poverty schools could be attributable to a number of factors, including fewer highly credentialed teachers being available for mentoring, as well as to the presence of many other stressors that affect teachers’ early readiness.14

Teachers do not receive resources for accessing meaningful professional development activities and do not find those experiences particularly useful

Teaching is a profession in which continuous training is needed to complement the know-how acquired with experience. It is therefore important to examine patterns of professional development supports and activities that teachers receive throughout their careers. The highest-performing systems in the world provide professional development as part of the regular daily and weekly experience of teaching and continuous training, which are “inextricably linked together,” as the authors of Empowered Educators note (Darling-Hammond, Burns, et al. 2017). In the book, they explain that continuous learning is provided through “incentives and infrastructure for [teacher] learning; time and opportunity for collaboration; curriculum development and lesson study; teacher research; teacher-led PD; appraisal and feedback” (Darling-Hammond, Burns, et al. 2017).15

Our analyses of teacher survey data allow us to assess the prevalence or absence of some of these ingredients of a high-performing professional development regime for our public school teachers, as well as whether teachers have the resources to access professional development activities.16

As the tables and figures in this section show, access to some form of professional development is widespread overall, but some supports and resources needed for participation (time and economic support, among others) are not. It is also troubling that, despite generalized participation in professional development, it is not perceived as being very useful to the majority of teachers who accessed it.17

Table 4 shows that large shares of teachers lack important resources needed to access professional development—mainly time and reimbursements. Although four in five teachers have scheduled time in their contracts for professional development, only half (50.9 percent) of teachers have released time from teaching to participate in professional development, less than a third are reimbursed for conferences or workshop fees (28.2 percent) or receive a stipend for activities that take place outside regular work hours (27.3 percent), and only one in 10 teachers (9.4 percent) receives full or partial reimbursement of college tuition.

Table 4

Teachers in high-poverty schools are at a disadvantage when it comes to accessing several of these resources, but have an advantage in some others. We cannot determine why access is not uniform across high- and low-poverty schools and how consequential the gaps may be.18 A smaller share of teachers in high-poverty schools have scheduled time in their contracts for professional development compared with teachers in low-poverty schools (77.7 percent vs. 80.1 percent), though the very small advantage teachers in high-poverty schools have in released time from teaching (51.2 percent versus 50.1 percent in low-poverty schools) could counter that a bit. Larger shares of teachers in high-poverty schools also get a stipend for activities outside of regular hours, have their travel expenses reimbursed, and receive credits toward recertification or advanced certification, but the shares of these teachers who get reimbursement for college tuition, workshops, or conferences are smaller than the shares for their peers in low-poverty schools.

Just as important as resources being available to facilitate professional development are the types of activities that teachers can access to advance their skills. Curriculum development and lesson study, teacher research, teacher-led professional development (i.e., professional development that is more self-directed by teachers and more actively informed and overseen by them), and appraisal and feedback are key components of solid systems of professional supports (Darling-Hammond, Burns, et al. 2017). Researchers note that professional development programs that are effective are content-focused; they support collaboration and job-embedded practice;19 they are of intense and sustained duration; they focus on discrete skill sets; they offer opportunities for feedback and reflection; and they are characterized by active learning and collaboration (Darling-Hammond, Hyler, et al. 2017; Kraft, Blazar, and Hogan 2018; OECD 2019).20

The survey data presented in Table 5 show that while large shares of teachers are participating in some form of professional development, the most prevalent activities—the ones serving the largest shares of teachers—are not always the most effective types of professional development. They tend to be much more passive than the types of professional development described above.

Table 5

The top panel of Table 5 shows the shares of teachers who participated in four standard types of professional development activities. More than nine in 10 teachers attended workshops, conferences, or training sessions, by far the most common category of activity as well as the least effective and least highly regarded (see Kraft, Blazar, and Hogan 2018; ESSA 2015; Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation 2014; Hirsh et al. 2016; Quint 2011).21 In contrast, only between one-fifth and one-fourth of the teachers participated in what these studies argue are the more effective and highly regarded of these four activities: attending university courses related to teaching; presenting at workshops, conferences, or training sessions; and making observational visits to other schools.

The middle panel of Table 5 shows the shares of teachers engaged in any type of professional development that is focused on a specific area. As we note above, professional development that is content-specific is considered more effective than general professional development, and thus the high shares of teachers participating in some sort of content-specific professional development is encouraging. More than four-fifths of teachers have accessed professional development that is specific to the subject or subjects they teach, about two-thirds have participated in activities focused on the use of computers for instruction, and well over half have participated in professional development for reading instruction.

But some critical subject areas or classroom management practices appear to be neglected. Only about four in 10 teachers received instruction in student discipline and classroom management, about a third got training in teaching students with disabilities, and just over a quarter got training in teaching English language learners (ELLs).

Nevertheless, the hours that teachers report spending in content-focused professional development activities (the activities in the middle panel) add up to about 44 hours—more than a full week of work hours—over the course of the school year. And those 44 average hours spent on professional development do not even include the activities presented in the top and bottom panels. (Note that the hours estimate is not provided directly in the survey, but is reported through a categorical variable; we use standard interpolation to calculate the midpoint between the hours-intervals, use that as an estimate of the hours for each activity, and add these individual estimates to get the total hours.)

The activities presented in the table’s bottom panel reflect teachers’ access to teacher-led research and to opportunities for feedback and appraisal, which are important components of teacher training and professional development systems in some of the world’s highest-performing school systems, such as those in Finland, Singapore, Canada (specifically Alberta, Canada), and Shanghai (Darling-Hammond, Burns, et al. 2017). The shares of teachers who have participated in these activities are in general notable. More than four-fifths of teachers have participated in regularly scheduled collaboration with other teachers on issues of instruction (80.8 percent), and two-thirds have been observed or have observed other teachers in their classrooms (67.0 percent). The exception is the more modest, though still substantial, share of teachers who have engaged in research on a topic of interest for them, with less than half of the teachers (45.2 percent) having done so.

A key lesson from Table 5 is that, while professional development is widespread and teachers are devoting time to it, some of the more effective types of professional development, and some of the critical professional development subject areas, are not being accessed by the majority of teachers. In Figure B, we explore this issue in more depth by analyzing data that indicate how useful (or not useful) specific professional development activities are to teachers.

Figure B

Figure B shows that teachers generally are not highly satisfied with their professional development experiences. Across the range of professional development opportunities listed, only 19.5 to 26.8 percent of teachers found any of the activities very useful, with larger shares (29.6 to 38.1 percent) finding the activities either not useful or just somewhat useful. (Note that this information is only available for the professional development activities by subject—the middle panel of Table 5—not for other activities listed in the table.)

Moreover, not all teachers have access to those activities that are reported to be most useful. A larger share of teachers (26.8 percent) say they are very satisfied with professional development received on the subject they teach—but while this activity is available to most teachers (85.1 percent have access to it), about one in seven (14.9 percent) still lack access to such training. Smaller shares (less than 20 percent) of teachers found training very useful when they were trained on how to teach ELL students (26.7 percent of teachers received training in this area) or on student discipline and management in the classroom (42.3 percent of teachers received training in this area).

Now we turn to disparities between teachers in high- and low-poverty schools with respect to accessing different types of professional development offerings (shown in the last three columns in Table 5) and disparities in professional development usefulness ratings (shown in Appendix Table 1). The data here raise further questions about the responsiveness of professional development systems to teachers’—and students’—needs. Relative to their peers in low-poverty schools, teachers in high-poverty schools were more likely to attend workshops, conferences, or training sessions—the professional development category deemed least meaningful, as mentioned above. The findings (in the bottom panel of Table 5) also point to gaps in teachers’ access to other activities that are highly regarded in education, although teachers in high-poverty schools are not always at a disadvantage. For example, while the share of teachers engaging in teacher-led research is close to 7 percentage points lower in high-poverty schools than in low-poverty schools, the share of teachers engaged in peer observation is about 3 percentage points higher in high-poverty schools than in low-poverty schools.

There are also some gaps between teachers in high- and low-poverty schools with regard to how useful they find specific professional development activities. Indeed, we find an inverse relationship between level of participation in a type of activity shown in Table 5 and its utility for teachers (shown in Appendix Table 1), by school type. We identify two areas of concern with regard to high-poverty schools: Teachers in high-poverty schools are participating more often in professional development activities that they find less useful, and less often in activities that they find more useful, relative to teachers in low-poverty schools. Specifically, while larger shares of teachers in high-poverty schools participate in subject-specific professional development or in classroom management and discipline programs than teachers in low-poverty schools do, smaller shares find those activities very useful. Conversely, while smaller shares of teachers in high-poverty schools participate in computer-for-instruction programs, larger shares find such programs useful.22

While these differences in the shares of teachers finding these activities very useful are small, it is important to note that even small differences tend to become cumulatively large problems in high-poverty schools, as the challenges compound one another (García and Weiss 2019a, 2019b, 2019c, 2019d). The lower levels of preparation and first-year support for new teachers in high-poverty schools described in this report, as well as the gaps in meaningful professional development opportunities, can not only widen the gaps in the qualifications and credentials of the teaching workforce in high- versus low-poverty schools, but may also further demoralize teachers in high-poverty schools and erode their sense of purpose.

Teachers’ lack of support and limited say in school and classroom policies impedes the development of learning communities

As we discuss in our previous report on school climate (García and Weiss 2019d), teacher satisfaction and retention are affected by teachers’ working environments, including their relationships with other teachers and with administrators in their schools. Having nurturing and supportive relationships with colleagues and with administrators, being listened to as professionals, and having a say over the policies of their schools and practices in their classrooms are important components of teachers’ overall satisfaction and sense of purpose. These attributes of a supportive school climate also correlate with their retention in the profession (García and Weiss 2019d; Ladd 2011).

In this report on professional development, we return to these indicators because they also shed important light on how positive learning communities for teachers can support their teaching and career growth. Different sources point out that collegial relationships, opportunities to cooperate and coordinate, and consideration for teachers’ say in school policy and classroom practices are just as important to creating learning communities in schools as formal training and other, more standard forms of professional development (Quint 2011; Warner-Griffin, Cunningham, and Noel 2018; Schwartz 2019; Ingersoll and Collins 2018; OECD 2016, 2019).23 As shown in Tables 6 and 7 (reproduced from Tables 3 and 4 in García and Weiss 2019d), relationship-related indicators of a learning community are far from universal. The text below borrows heavily from our language in García and Weiss 2019d, but discusses what the findings mean for teacher professionalism and for building learning communities in our nation’s schools.

Table 6 shows that, across the board, there is a troubling lack of support for teachers from administrators and colleagues. This means that schools are not providing teachers with strong learning communities characterized by solid administrative supports and leadership, time for peer collaboration, and a shared sense of purpose among school staff.

Table 6

In six of the seven categories reviewed in the table, less than half of the teachers report feeling fully supported by the school administration, their colleagues, or the community in general. The one exception is a proxy for leadership: whether “the principal knows what kind of school he or she wants and has communicated it to the staff.” Just over half (51.6 percent) of teachers surveyed said that their principals exhibit that attribute. And about half (49.6 percent) of teachers report that they see “supportive and encouraging behavior” by school administrators (a proxy for a positive working environment set by the administration). Slightly less than half (47.9 percent), however, strongly agree with the statement, “I make a conscious effort to coordinate the content of my courses with that of other teachers” (a proxy for the community environment created by teachers to facilitate coordination). Only slightly more than a third strongly agree that “there is a great deal of cooperative effort among the staff members” (38.4 percent) or that their colleagues share their views of what the school’s mission should be (36.0 percent). Fewer than one in three teachers affirm that they are recognized for a job well done (32.4 percent), and only 13.3 percent of teachers, or about one in 10, affirm that they receive a great deal of support from the parents of their students for the work they do. Put another way, the survey responses indicate that high shares of teachers experience some level of conflict or disagreement in their schools.24

Table 7 shows that there is also a troubling lack of consideration for teachers’ say in school policy and in their classrooms, which impedes efforts to build strong learning communities (not to mention that it demonstrates disrespect for teachers’ professional knowledge and judgment). Schools are missing out when it comes to learning and benefiting from the contributions of teachers, including when determining the content of in-service professional development programs. As the table shows, meager shares of teachers report having a great deal of influence or control over school policy, suggesting a lack of control over key aspects of their working environments. (And, as noted in our May 2019 report, this generalized disrespect for teachers’ knowledge of their jobs and professional judgment also hurts morale and satisfaction and even affects teachers’ plans as to whether they will or will not stay in teaching indefinitely.) Just 11.1 percent of teachers have a great deal of influence determining the content of in-service professional development programs; this is quite troubling, given national and international surveys and testimonies showing that teachers want to play a more direct role in selecting the types and content of professional development opportunities offered to them (see Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation 2014; Loewus 2019; OECD 2019; Kirk 2019; Schwartz 2019). Only a tiny share (3.2 percent) of teachers report having a great deal of influence over how they are evaluated. The other school policy categories with shares under 10 percent are “setting discipline policy” and “hiring new teachers.” The category with the highest share of teachers reporting a great deal of influence is “establishing curriculum,” but even that is true for just one in five teachers (20.4 percent).

Table 7

Although teachers report much more influence in their classrooms than on school policies, they still indicate a surprisingly small level of control over their daily activities. This indicates that they see little room for contributing to and self-guiding their professional growth and exercising their own judgment and expertise. The shares of teachers who report a great deal of influence or control range from 60 to 70 percent for the most basic actions, such as evaluating and grading students or assigning the amount of homework, but fall to much lower sub-30-percent shares when the actions involve selecting textbooks and other instructional materials and controlling topics and skills to be taught. To put it another way, a large majority of teachers lack authority with respect to how they teach and how their classrooms operate.25

Strengthening professional development and the culture of learning could help attract and retain teachers

Proper professional development should not be seen as an extraneous luxury good in education. As mentioned previously, it is the norm in other countries, where it is embedded as part of the regular daily and weekly experience of teaching and learning (Darling-Hammond, Burns, et al. 2017). And in the United States it has gained growing visibility since the passage of ESSA in 2015. Proper professional development not only validates teachers’ professional standing and strengthens the teaching workforce, but it also correlates with teacher retention and thus could contribute to ameliorating the national teacher shortage. In our two most recent reports (García and Weiss 2019c, 2019d), we argue that low salaries and difficult school climates make teaching less attractive for both potential teachers and highly credentialed teachers already in the profession; here, we likewise argue that lack of early career supports and lack of meaningful professional development opportunities diminish the attractiveness of the teaching profession. Conversely, early career supports, meaningful professional development opportunities, and a supportive climate and culture of learning can help mitigate some of the factors that make it harder for many schools to attract and retain teachers and to strengthen the quality of the teaching workforce overall.

Figure C lists a subset of the early career, continuous training, and influence indicators we have examined so far and shows the shares of “staying” and “quitting” teachers who reported, in their responses to the 2011–2012 Schools and Staffing Survey, that they received the support or experienced the indicator. “Staying” teachers are those who, in the 2012–2013 Teacher Follow-Up Survey, were still at the same school, while “quitting” teachers are those who had left the school and were not in the teaching profession at the time of the follow-up survey. (Those teachers who left to teach at another school are not included in the figure.) Across the board, larger shares of teachers who stayed in teaching had reported the year before that they felt well prepared, received early supports, had more useful professional development opportunities, worked in more cooperative environments, and felt they had more influence over the school and in their classrooms. More than three-quarters of teachers who stayed at their school had participated in teacher mentoring programs, versus just over two-thirds among teachers who quit. Larger shares of staying teachers reported that the professional development that was specific to their subject of main assignment was useful. And relative to quitting teachers, larger shares of teachers who stayed felt that they had had real influence over policy or classroom decisions or worked in cooperative environments.

Figure C

Conclusion

In a knowledge-based profession such as teaching, continuous learning—through professional development, career ladder systems that enable teachers to progress in their profession, and collaborative relationships—is critical for novice and experienced teachers alike. Continuous learning helps teachers keep up with advances in research on effective teaching and learning and with the changing demands of the profession. In addition, early supports and continuous training can make teaching a more attractive occupation, and thus help maintain a stable workforce of highly credentialed teachers. Finally, continuous learning helps professionalize teaching, enhancing respect for the profession.

This report portrays a mosaic of indicators that describe teachers’ continuous training and the degree to which their schools function as learning communities. Our analyses uncover a few areas where opportunities and supports are strong and can be expanded on; but we also uncover other, more numerous areas where there is substantial room to improve the professional supports offered. With regard to the latter, schools should work to ensure that more teachers can access the types of training and development that they find most helpful and most effective, and allow teachers to exercise their judgement and autonomy. As we note at the beginning of the report, there is no established benchmark for what a universal, optimal set of professional development activities looks like. We are thus understandably in gray areas in terms of how continuous learning indicators act as stressors or facilitators that affect the teacher labor market. Yet, even with the limitations of our analyses, it is clear that these supports play a potentially important role in teacher recruitment and retention.

For one, the fairly broad access to certain types of professional development—workshops and conferences or training sessions, activities focused on the subjects that teachers teach, and, for novice teachers, the opportunity to work with a mentor in the first year of teaching—suggests that there already is, in most schools or for most teachers, a foundation for providing professional development that could be expanded to incorporate other types of opportunities. However, neither access to resources for professional development (such as reimbursement or released time for teaching) nor participation in other reportedly more useful forms of early and continuous training (such as teachers leading training sessions or participating in observational visits to other schools) are nearly as widespread. Teachers’ reported satisfaction with the training and professional development they are offered is also limited, suggesting that there may be issues with both the quality and quantity, broadly speaking, of the options offered. The low shares of teachers participating in the types of professional development shown by research to be most effective, and the low shares of teachers reporting that the activities they do access are “very useful,” suggest that a significant portion of what is being offered is suboptimal. The high shares of teachers reporting that they have less than a great deal of influence over what they teach in the classroom (71.3 percent), and over what instructional materials they use (74.5 percent), show a clear need to amplify teachers’ say in their schools.

Put another way, there is an opportunity to greatly improve our understanding of the use of early supports and continuous training opportunities and to make sure these are helping our teachers do their jobs well, feel more valued, and perceive possibilities to advance in their careers. There is also room to further professionalize teaching by giving teachers a greater say in their day-to-day actions and over the policies and rules in place in their schools. In short, there is an opportunity to effect a total shift toward establishing a real culture of learning in our schools that seems ripe for exploration.

Given the associations between optimal professional development (early career supports, ongoing professional development, and relationships that capitalize on teachers’ professional judgment) and teacher retention and recruitment, efforts to establish a system of supports and a real learning community would also help address the teacher shortage. To ensure that both early supports and ongoing professional development fulfill their intended missions, they need to be adequate, sustained, and meaningful to teachers. In order to improve the system’s quality as a whole and elevate the teaching profession, it is also essential that we improve these conditions across the board, so that the needs of teachers in high-poverty schools are not overlooked. As suggested in our companion pieces in this series, only if policymakers think holistically about how to address the teacher shortage will they find the necessary resources to adequately fund our schools, to eliminate the barriers to teaching and learning, and to elevate the level of respect for teachers’ knowledge, experience, and judgment.

About the authors

Emma García is an education economist at the Economic Policy Institute, where she specializes in the economics of education and education policy. García’s research focuses on the production of education (cognitive and noncognitive skills); evaluation of educational interventions (early childhood, K–12, and higher education); equity; returns to education; teacher labor markets; and cost-effectiveness and cost–benefit analysis in education. She has held research positions at the Center for Benefit-Cost Studies of Education, the Campaign for Educational Equity, the National Center for the Study of Privatization in Education, and the Community College Research Center; she has consulted for MDRC, the World Bank, the Inter-American Development Bank, and the National Institute for Early Education Research; and she has served as an adjunct faculty member at the McCourt School of Public Policy, Georgetown University. García received her Ph.D. in economics and education from Columbia University Teachers College.

Elaine Weiss is the lead policy analyst for income security at the National Academy of Social Insurance, where she spearheads projects on Social Security, unemployment insurance, and workers’ compensation. Prior to her work at the academy, Weiss was the national coordinator for the Broader, Bolder Approach to Education (BBA), a campaign launched by the Economic Policy Institute, from 2011–2017. BBA promoted a comprehensive, evidence-based set of policies to allow all children to thrive in school and life. Weiss has authored and co-authored EPI and BBA reports on early achievement gaps and the flaws in market-oriented education reforms. She is co-author, with former Massachusetts Secretary of Education Paul Reville, of Broader, Bolder, Better, published by Harvard Education Press in 2019. Weiss came to BBA from the Pew Charitable Trusts, where she served as project manager for Pew’s Partnership for America’s Economic Success campaign. She has a Ph.D. in Public Policy from the George Washington University Trachtenberg School and a J.D. from Harvard Law School.

Acknowledgments

The authors are grateful to Lora Engdahl for her edits and suggested additions to this piece and for her extraordinary contributions to structuring the contents of this series of papers. We also appreciate John Schmitt’s supervision of this project and Lawrence Mishel’s guidance in earlier stages of this research. We acknowledge Julia Wolfe for her assistance with the tables and figures in this report, Kayla Blado for her work disseminating the report and her assistance with the media, Krista Faries for her work proofreading the text and wordsmithing sentences in several sections, John Carlo Mandapat for the infographics that accompany this report, and the rest of the communications staff at EPI for their contributions to the different components of this report and the teacher shortage series. We appreciate EPI Communications Director Pedro da Costa’s coordination of all the steps required for the publication of this report and of the series.

Data sources used in this report

The analyses presented in this report rely mainly on the 2011–2012 Schools and Staffing Survey (SASS), the 2012–2013 Teacher Follow-Up Survey (TFS), and the 2015–2016 National Teacher and Principal Survey (NTPS). The surveys collect data on and from teachers, principals, and schools in the 50 states and the District of Columbia.26 All three surveys were conducted by the U.S. Census Bureau for the U.S. Department of Education. The survey results are housed at the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), which is part of the Department of Education’s Institute of Education Sciences (IES).

The NTPS is the redesigned SASS, with a focus on “flexibility, timeliness, and integration with other Department of Education data” (NCES 2019). Both the NTPS and SASS include very detailed questionnaires at the teacher level, school level, and principal level, and the SASS also includes very detailed questionnaires at the school district level (NCES 2017). The TFS survey, which is the source of data on teachers who stay or quit, was conducted a year after the 2011–2012 SASS survey to collect information on the employment and teaching status, plans, and opinions of teachers in the SASS. Following the first administration of the NTPS, no follow-up study was done, preventing us from conducting an updated analysis of teachers by teaching status the year after the NTPS. NCES plans to conduct a TFS again in the 2020–2021 school year, following the 2019–2020 NTPS.

The 2015–2016 NTPS includes public and charter schools only, while the SASS and TFS include all schools (public, private, and charter schools).27 We restrict our analyses to public noncharter schools and to teachers in public noncharter schools.

Appendix Table 1

Appendix Table 2

Endnotes

1. For a more detailed review of media coverage on the shortage, see García and Weiss 2019a. Research on costs comes from Carver-Thomas and Darling-Hammond (2017) and the Learning Policy Institute (2017), who estimate that filling a vacancy costs $21,000 on average, and from Carroll (2007), who estimates the total annual cost of turnover at $7.3 billion per year. According to Strauss (2017), that estimated annual cost of turnover would exceed $8 billion at present.

2. A lack of sufficient, qualified teachers threatens students’ ability to learn (Darling-Hammond 1999; Ladd and Sorensen 2016). Instability in a school’s teacher workforce (i.e., high turnover and/or high attrition) negatively affects student achievement and diminishes teacher effectiveness and quality (Ronfeldt et al. 2013; Jackson and Bruegmann 2009; Kraft and Papay 2014; Sorensen and Ladd 2018). And high teacher turnover consumes economic resources (i.e., through costs of recruiting and training new teachers) that could be better deployed elsewhere.

3. The two main surveys we reviewed for this report did not ask teachers directly why they need professional development, and we are unaware of other surveys that include such a question.

4. ESSA 2015 provides opportunities for professional development under all titles in the Act and focuses on how to allow teachers to grow (Education Week 2018). Under the term “professional development,” ESSA includes the following: activities that “are an integral part of school and local educational agency strategies for providing educators with the knowledge and skills necessary to enable students to succeed in a well-rounded education and to meet the challenging state academic standards”; activities that are “sustained (i.e., not stand-alone, 1-day, or short term workshops), intensive, collaborative, job-embedded, data-driven, and classroom-focused”; and activities that “improve…teachers’ knowledge of the subjects they teach, their understanding of how students learn…; or are aligned with…academic goals of the school or local education agency” (ESSA 2015; Learning Forward 2019; Education Week 2018). ESSA expands the reach of professional development activities to encompass activities offered to other educators who work with students—including principals and paraprofessionals—and suggests building systems of professional learning (educator development, retention, and advancement) (Hirsh et al. 2016).

5. Our analyses of professional development activities and resources rely on the 2011–2012 Schools and Staffing Survey (SASS). Our analyses of early career supports, the influence and autonomy teachers have, and the culture of learning rely on the 2015–2016 National Teacher and Principal Survey (NTPS). Note that some figures in this report also appear in our May 2019 report on working environments in schools (García and Weiss 2019d). The professional development module that delivered data for the 2011–2012 SASS is rotating and was not included in the most recent data set available when we were conducting our study (2015–2016), but will be in the next cycle, 2017–2018, as noted in the questionnaire here: https://nces.ed.gov/surveys/ntps/question1718.asp. Most questions in this module have been modified, which will prevent comparative analyses over time in any event. We also remind readers that NTPS 2017–2018 will not include the Teacher Follow-Up Survey (TFS), which means it will not be possible to examine the correlation between professional development opportunities and retention with the next release of this study.

6. Other sources confirm widespread access to some sort of professional development for teachers in the U.S. (Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation 2014) and internationally (OECD 2019).

7. See Appendix Table 2 for shares of teachers receiving additional compensation from working for the school district.

8. Croft, Guffy, and Vitale (2018) show that when a sample of students taking the ACT were asked to say why they were not interested in teaching, the lack of opportunities for career development was the second most cited reason, behind low salary. It is reasonable to assume that the presence of such opportunities would play some role in attracting more students into teaching.

9. See Darling-Hammond 1999; Ladd and Sorensen 2016; Ronfeldt et al. 2013; Jackson and Bruegmann 2009; Kraft and Papay 2014; Moore-Johnson, Kraft, and Papay 2012; Ladd 2011; Loeb, Darling-Hammond, and Luczak 2005; and Warner-Griffin, Cunningham, and Noel 2018.

10. In addition to preparation, induction programs are critical to making sure that teachers are ready to teach from the start of their careers (Darling-Hammond, Burns, et al. 2017; NCEE 2016; Ingersoll and Collins 2018). (An induction program is defined in the 2011–2012 Schools and Staffing Survey (SASS) questionnaire as “a program for beginning teachers that may include teacher orientation, mentoring, coaching, demonstrations, and/or assessments aimed at enhancing teacher effectiveness.” An induction program is defined in the 2015–2016 NTPS as “a program for beginning teachers aimed to enhance teachers’ effectiveness by providing systematic support.”) Kraft, Blazar, and Hogan (2018) conducted a meta-analysis to show the significant effect of teacher coaching on both instruction and student performance (pooled effect sizes were 0.60 of a standard deviation (SD) and 0.18 SD, respectively). (Coaching programs include “all in-service PD programs where coaches or peers observe teachers’ instruction and provide feedback to help them improve,” according to the authors.) Other evaluations have demonstrated a positive influence of mentoring programs on both the teachers receiving mentoring and the mentors, as measured by the performance of their students, especially later in teachers’ careers and especially in math (Goldhaber, Krieg, and Theobald 2018a, 2018b; Papay et al. 2016).

11. In keeping with the patterns identified in the previous reports in this series, teachers’ perceived lack of preparedness is greater in high-poverty schools than in low-poverty schools. While our main focus in this report is to document patterns of career-building supports and gaps in them, it is important to acknowledge that, if anything, we need stronger, not weaker, supports for early-career teachers in high-poverty schools. That is because high-poverty schools already suffer from lower shares of highly credentialed teachers (García and Weiss 2019a), and thus teachers in high-poverty schools are especially in need of these early supports. Similarly, high-poverty schools also have higher shares of teachers who came into the profession through alternative certification programs (19 percent of teachers in high-poverty schools entered teaching this way, versus just over 13 percent in low-poverty schools). While research says that the route into teaching is not consistently associated with any significant differences in teacher effectiveness, our data show that, in practice, teachers who entered teaching from alternative programs feel less than “very well” prepared to do well in class. But we cannot disentangle how much of that difference is due to effective versus ineffective preparation, how much is due to concentration of these teachers in low-poverty schools, and how much is due to nongeneralized access to supports or to the quality of those supports: As mentioned in the text explaining Table 2, six of the nine types of supports that could be offered to teachers are being provided to at least 60 percent of teachers in high-poverty schools, so access is relatively broad—although not universal—in those schools. Therefore, we offer this information as complementary evidence that there is a need for strong preparation and early supports to ensure strong preparation of novice teachers, and that professional preparation and early career supports are worthy topics for future research.

12. Preparation received in teacher preparation programs and standards for becoming a teacher obviously play an important role in whether teachers are ready to teach in their first year, but teacher preparation programs and certification standards are beyond the scope of this report. With regard to teacher preparation programs, see note 11. With regard to certification standards, earlier reports in this series identify certain trends in our exploration of Title II data from the U.S. Department of Education (2017a, 2017b) that could negatively affect teacher qualifications at the beginning of their careers. For example, we find that the number of states requiring content-specific bachelor’s degrees for initial teaching credentials decreased between 2008–2009 and 2015–2016. Examining the requirements across all initial certificates available nationwide, we also note a large decrease in the share of initial teaching certificates requiring a content-specific bachelor’s degree for middle school, which fell from 38.6 percent of all initial certificates in 2008–2009 to 22.8 percent of all initial certificates in 2015–2016, a 15.8 percentage-point decrease. Over the same period there were also drops in the share of initial certificates requiring performance assessments (down 16.2 percentage points), supervised clinical experience (down 10.8 percentage points), or a police record examination (down 17.2 percentage points). However, there was an increase in the share of initial certificates requiring “prescribed coursework” (up 10.8 percentage points) (see García and Weiss 2019b).

13. Indeed, the ratio of mentors to teachers was 1.01 in low-poverty schools—i.e., there were just enough mentors to have one per teacher—versus just 0.86 in high-poverty schools—i.e., there were more teachers who needed a mentor than there were mentors available.

14. As mentioned earlier, the share of novice teachers who felt they were very well prepared to teach in their classrooms was lower in high-poverty schools than in low-poverty schools (Table 1). Earlier reports in this series discuss the other stressors heightened in high-poverty schools, which we summarize here. On average, the credentials of teachers in high-poverty schools—overall and for staying teachers (versus those who quit)—are worse than in low-poverty schools. “Lower credentials” here means higher shares of inexperienced teachers, teachers who entered into teaching via alternative routes and who are not fully certified or do not have a background in the subject of main assignment (García and Weiss 2019a). There is a larger churn rate and therefore more staff instability in high-poverty schools (García and Weiss 2019b). Teacher pay is lower in high-poverty schools, on average, and teachers in high-poverty schools not only receive a smaller amount of income from moonlighting (if they moonlight), but also the moonlighting that do is less likely to involve paid extracurricular or additional activities for the school system that would not only generate extra pay but also help them grow professionally (García and Weiss 2019c; see Appendix Figure B). Finally, school climates are more challenging in high-poverty schools, where, relative to low-poverty schools, larger shares of teachers report facing barriers to teaching, experiencing threats to physical and mental safety, being dissatisfied, and not planning to stay in teaching indefinitely (García and Weiss 2019d).

15. See also Learning Forward 2019; ESSA 2015; Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation 2014; Kraft, Blazar, and Hogan 2018; and Darling-Hammond, Hyler, et al. 2017.

16. Unfortunately, we cannot assess when professional development is offered and whether all teachers can access it, nor what assignment mechanisms to professional development are in place. Information on time and effectiveness is also limited.

17. Although U.S. teachers share this broad access to professional development with their rich-country peers, U.S. teachers may be less satisfied than their peers with the usefulness of these activities. New data from the Teaching and Learning International Survey (TALIS) administered by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development in 48 countries and economies show that more than 90 percent of teachers and principals in OECD countries attended “at least one professional development activity” in the year prior to the survey and 82 percent of teachers reported that the training had a positive impact on their teaching practice (OECD 2019).

18. For instance, in some cases, resources to access professional development may be limited due to insufficient funding or for other reasons. There is also not sufficient information in our data to discern how consequential the gaps across schools may be, but the important point is to emphasize that there is a lack of these important resources for accessing professional development, and more so in high-poverty schools (with the exception of scheduled time in the contract, which is provided for a majority of teachers).

19. According to Croft et al. 2010, job-embedded professional development “refers to teacher learning that is grounded in day-to-day teaching practice and is designed to enhance teachers’ content-specific instructional practices with the intent of improving student learning” (Croft et al. 2010, citing work by Darling-Hammond and McLaughlin 1995 and Hirsh 2009).

20. The research by Kraft, Blazar, and Hogan (2018) to identify these features of effective professional development builds on Darling-Hammond et al. 2009; Desimone 2009; Desimone and Garet 2015; Garet at al. 2001; and Hill 2007 (see p. 548).

21. With regard to workshops, Kraft, Blazar, and Hogan (2018) explain that they “are often viewed as insufficient to address the inherently multifaceted nature of teachers’ practice” (see p. 551, citing Kennedy 2016; Opfer and Pedder 2011; Schachter 2015). Quint (2011) acknowledges that professional development is criticized for being offered in the form of a “one-shot” (low-cost) lecture or workshop, rather than in the forms that teachers prefer, including “intensive summer institutes, follow-up group sessions, and coaching of individual teachers.”

22. The exception to this trend is that larger shares of teachers in high-poverty schools participated in ELL teacher training than in low-poverty schools (33.5 percent vs. 19.3 percent), and larger shares of teachers in high-poverty schools also found such training “very useful” compared with teachers in low-poverty schools (20.9 percent vs. 19.1 percent). This differential may be partly attributable to the fact that teachers in high-poverty schools serve larger shares of students in ELL programs.

23. As some of these sources argue, teachers’ relationships and influence are important components of teacher professionalism. For example, Ingersoll and Collins (2018) assess whether teaching meets the model attributes of a professional career—including workplace authority and high prestige, among other attributes. The OECD reports on the Teaching and Learning International Survey (TALIS) (OECD 2016, 2019) argue that there are several pillars in teaching professionalism, including perceived prestige, career opportunities, collaborative culture, and level of professional autonomy and responsibility. Other sources discuss teachers’ relationships and influence on a practical level, including as components of a learning community for teachers. For example, Quint (2011) emphasizes the idea of “a broader conception of teaching learning that involves all teachers in a school in a professional learning community that is engaged in a continuous and collegial cycle of learning, practice, reflection, and improvement.”

24. As discussed in García and Weiss 2019d, indicators of a poor learning community are more pronounced in high-poverty schools. A larger share of teachers in high-poverty schools indicate some level of conflict or disagreement in attitudes or beliefs with the administration or colleagues than do teachers in low-poverty schools. By far the biggest gap between high- and low-poverty schools is in support teachers receive from their students’ parents: Nine out of 10 teachers in high-poverty schools do not feel fully supported by parents for the work they do compared with a still-very-high eight in 10 teachers in low-poverty schools. See research on comprehensive supports that include engaging parents in Weiss and Reville 2019.

25. The usual gaps between shares of teachers reporting positive working conditions in high- and low-poverty schools also appear here. In the areas of school policy, the gaps between teachers’ autonomy or influence in high- and low-poverty schools are small, in general (under 2 percentage points for all categories except “establishing curriculum”), and in fact a slightly greater share of teachers in high-poverty schools report having a great deal of control over setting discipline policy and evaluating teachers. In terms of autonomy in their classrooms: The bottom half of the table shows that in all tasks listed except assigning homework, teachers in high-poverty schools have less of a say than their counterparts in low-poverty schools and that the gaps range from 2.2 to 4.3 percentage points.

26. The 2015–2016 NTPS does not produce state-representative estimates. The forthcoming 2017–2018 NTPS will support state-level estimates.

27. The forthcoming 2017–2018 NTPS will include private schools.

References

Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. 2014. Teachers Know Best: Teachers’ Views on Professional Development. December 2014.

Carroll, Thomas G. 2007. Policy Brief: The High Cost of Teacher Turnover. National Commission on Teaching and America’s Future.

Carver-Thomas, Desiree, and Linda Darling-Hammond. 2017. Teacher Turnover: Why It Matters and What We Can Do About It. Learning Policy Institute, August 2017.

Croft, Michelle, Gretchen Guffy, and Dan Vitale. 2018. Encouraging More High School Students to Consider Teaching. ACT Policy Research, June 2018.

Croft, Andrew, Jane G. Coggshall, Megan Dolan, and Elizabeth Powers (with Joellen Killion). 2010. Job-Embedded Professional Development: What It Is, Who Is Responsible, and How to Get It Done Well. National Comprehensive Center for Teacher Quality, Mid-Atlantic Comprehensive Center, and National Staff Development Council.

Darling-Hammond, Linda. 1999. Teacher Quality and Student Achievement: A Review of State Policy Evidence. Center for the Study of Teaching and Policy, University of Washington, Seattle.

Darling-Hammond, Linda, Dion Burns, Carol Campbell, A. Lin Goodwin, Karen Hammerness, Ee Ling Low, Ann McIntyre, Mistilina Sato, and Kenneth Zeichner. 2017. Empowered Educators: How High-Performing Systems Shape Teaching Quality Around the World. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Darling-Hammond, Linda, Maria E. Hyler, and Madelyn Gardner, with assistance from Danny Espinoza. 2017. Effective Teacher Professional Development. Learning Policy Institute, May 2017.

Darling-Hammond, Linda, and Milbrey W. McLaughlin. 1995. “Policies That Support Professional Development in an Era of Reform.” Phi Delta Kappan 76, no. 8: 597–604.

Darling-Hammond, Linda, Ruth Chung Wei, Alethea Andree, Nikole Richardson, and Stelios Orphanos. 2009. Professional Learning in the Learning Profession: A Status Report on Teacher Development in the United States and Abroad. National Staff Development Council and School Redesign Network at Stanford University, February 2009.

Desimone, Laura M. 2009. “Improving Impact Studies of Teachers’ Professional Development: Toward Better Conceptualizations and Measures.” Educational Researcher 38, no. 3: 181–199. https://doi.org/10.3102/0013189X08331140.

Desimone, Laura M., and Michael S. Garet. 2015. “Best Practices in Teachers’ Professional Development in the United States.” Psychology, Society and Education 7, no. 3: 252–263.

Dias-Lacy, Samantha L., and Ruth V. Guirguis. 2017. “Challenges for New Teachers and Ways of Coping with Them.” Journal of Education and Learning 6, no. 3. https://doi.org/10.5539/jel.v6n3p265.

Education Week. 2018. “How ESSA Affects You: Shifting Focus to Support Today’s Educators” (Expert Presenters: Francie Alexander and Sue Gendron)” (webinar).

ESSA. 2015. Every Student Succeeds Act of 2015, Pub. L. No. 114-95 § 114 Stat. 1177 (2015–2016).

García, Emma, and Elaine Weiss. 2019a. The Teacher Shortage Is Real, Large and Growing, and Worse Than We Thought: The First Report in ‘The Perfect Storm in the Teacher Labor Market’ Series. Economic Policy Institute, March 2019.

García, Emma, and Elaine Weiss. 2019b. U.S. Schools Struggle to Hire and Retain Teachers: The Second Report in ‘The Perfect Storm in the Teacher Labor Market’ Series. Economic Policy Institute, April 2019.

García, Emma, and Elaine Weiss. 2019c. Low Relative Pay and High Incidence of Moonlighting Play a Role in the Teacher Shortage, Particularly in High-Poverty Schools: The Third Report in ‘The Perfect Storm in the Teacher Labor Market’ Series. Economic Policy Institute, May 2019.

García, Emma, and Elaine Weiss. 2019d. Challenging Working Environments (‘School Climates’), Especially in High-Poverty Schools, Play a Role in the Teacher Shortage: The Fourth Report in ‘The Perfect Storm in the Teacher Labor Market’ Series. Economic Policy Institute, May 2019.

Garet, Michael S., Andrew C. Porter, Laura Desimone, Beatrice F. Birman, and Kwang Suk Yoon. 2001. “What Makes Professional Development Effective? Results from a National Sample of Teachers.” American Educational Research Journal 38, no. 4: 915–945. https://doi.org/10.3102/00028312038004915.

Goldhaber, Dan, John Krieg, and Roddy Theobald. 2018a. “Exploring the Impact of Student Teaching Apprenticeships on Student Achievement and Mentor Teachers.” National Center for Analysis of Longitudinal Data in Education Research (CALDER) Working Paper no. 207-1118-1, November 2018.

Goldhaber, Dan, John Krieg, and Roddy Theobald. 2018b. “Effective Like Me? Does Having a More Productive Mentor Improve the Productivity of Mentees?” National Center for Analysis of Longitudinal Data in Education Research (CALDER) Working Paper no. 208-1118-1, November 2018.

Hill, Heather C. 2007. “Learning in the Teacher Workforce.” Future of Children 17, no. 1: 111–127. https://doi.org/10.1353/foc.2007.0004.

Hill, Heather C. 2009. “Fixing Teacher Professional Development.” Phi Delta Kappan 90, no. 7: 470–477.

Hirsh, Stephanie. 2009. “A New Definition.” Journal of Staff Development 30, no. 4: 10–16.

Hirsh, Stephanie, et al. 2016. “Re: Proposed Regulations for Consolidated Plans Under the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA).” Comments submitted on behalf of Learning Forward to U.S. Department of Education Secretary John King, July 29, 2016.

Ingersoll, Richard M. 2004. “Revolving Doors and Leaky Buckets.” In Letters to the Next President: What We Can Do About the Real Crisis in Public Education, edited by Carl D. Glickman, 141–150. New York: Teachers College Press.

Ingersoll, Richard M. 2014. “Why Do High-Poverty Schools Have Difficulty Staffing Their Classrooms with Qualified Teachers?” Presentation for panel discussion How Do We Get Experienced, Accomplished Teachers into High-Need Schools?, Albert Shanker Institute, October 8, 2014.

Ingersoll, Richard M., and Gregory J. Collins. 2018. “The Status of Teaching as a Profession.” In Schools and Society: A Sociological Approach to Education, 6th ed., edited by Jeanne H. Ballantine, Joan Z. Spade, and Jenny M. Stuber, 199–213. Los Angeles: SAGE.

Ingersoll, Richard M., and Michael Strong. 2011. “The Impact of Induction and Mentoring for Beginning Teachers: A Critical Review of the Research.” Review of Educational Research 81, no. 2: 201–233. https://doi.org/10.3102/0034654311403323.

Jackson, Kirabo, and Elias Bruegmann. 2009. “Teaching Students and Teaching Each Other: The Importance of Peer Learning for Teachers.” American Economic Journal: Applied Economics 1, no. 4: 85–108.

Jensen, Ben, Julie Sonnemann, Katie Roberts-Hull, and Amélie Hunter. 2016. Beyond PD: Teacher Professional Learning in High-Performing Systems. National Center on Education and the Economy.

Kennedy, M. Mary. 2016. “How Does Professional Development Improve Teaching?” Review of Educational Research 86, no. 4: 945–980. https://doi.org/10.3102/0034654315626800.

Kirk, Joy. 2019. “Teachers Are Always There to Help, But Now We’re the Ones Who Need a Boost.” Working Economics Blog (Economic Policy Institute), June 14, 2019.

Kraft, Matthew A., and John P. Papay. 2014. “Can Professional Environments in Schools Promote Teacher Development? Explaining Heterogeneity in Returns to Teaching Experience.” Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis 36, no. 4: 476–500.

Kraft, Matthew A., David Blazar, and Dylan Hogan. 2018. “The Effect of Teacher Coaching on Instruction and Achievement: A Meta-Analysis of the Causal Evidence.” Review of Educational Research 88, no. 4: 547–558. https://doi.org/10.3102/0034654318759268.

Ladd, Helen. 2011. “Teachers’ Perceptions of Their Working Conditions: How Predictive of Planned and Actual Teacher Movement?” Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis 33, no. 2: 235–261.

Ladd, Helen F., and Lucy C. Sorensen. 2016. “Returns to Teacher Experience: Student Achievement and Motivation in Middle School.” Education Finance and Policy 12, no. 2: 241–279.

Learning Forward. 2019. “Definition of Professional Development” (web page). Accessed June 18, 2019.

Learning Policy Institute. 2017. What’s the Cost of Teacher Turnover? (calculator). September 2017.

Liston, Dan, Jennie Whitcomb, and Hilda Borko. 2006. “Too Little or Too Much: Teacher Preparation and the First Years of Teaching.” Journal of Teacher Education 57, no. 4: 351–358.

Loeb, Susanna, Linda Darling-Hammond, and John Luczak. 2005. “How Teaching Conditions Predict Teacher Turnover in California Schools.” Peabody Journal of Education 80, no. 3: 44–70.

Loewus, Liana. 2019. “A Clearer Vision for Teacher Professional Learning.” Education Week, May 14, 2019.

Mizell, Hayes. 2010. Why Professional Development Matters. Learning Forward.

Moore-Johnson, Susan, Matthew A. Kraft, and John P. Papay. 2012. “How Context Matters in High-Need Schools: The Effects of Teachers’ Working Conditions on Their Professional Satisfaction and Their Students’ Achievement.” Teachers College Record 114, no. 10: 1–39.

National Center on Education and the Economy (NCEE). 2016. Preparing Profession-Ready Teachers. Policy brief from the Empowered Educators Project.

National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) (U.S. Department of Education). 2011–2012. Licensed microdata from the 2011–2012 Schools and Staffing Survey (SASS).

National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) (U.S. Department of Education). 2012–2013. Licensed microdata from the 2012–2013 Teacher Follow-Up Survey (TFS).

National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) (U.S. Department of Education). 2015–2016. Licensed microdata from the 2015–2016 National Teacher and Principal Survey (NTPS).

National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) (U.S. Department of Education). 2017. Documentation for the 2011–12 Schools and Staffing Survey. March 2017.

National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) (U.S. Department of Education). 2019. “NTPS Overview” (web page). Accessed March 2019.

OECD. 2016. Supporting Teacher Professionalism: Insights from TALIS 2013. Paris: TALIS, OECD Publishing. https://dx.doi.org/10.1787/9789264248601-en.

OECD. 2019. TALIS 2018 Results (Volume I): Teachers and School Leaders as Lifelong Learners. Paris: TALIS, OECD Publishing. https://doi.org/10.1787/1d0bc92a-en.

Opfer, V. Darleen, and David Pedder. 2011. “Conceptualizing Teacher Professional Learning.” Review of Educational Research 81, no. 3: 376–407. https://doi.org/10.3102/0034654311413609.

Papay, John P., Eric S. Taylor, John H. Tyler, and Mary Laski. 2016. “Learning Job Skills from Colleagues at Work: Evidence from a Field Experiment Using Teacher Performance Data.” National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper no. 21986. https://doi.org/10.3386/w21986.

Quint, Janet. 2011. Professional Development for Teachers: What Two Rigorous Studies Tell Us. MDRC.

Robinson, Java. 2019. “Why Professional Development Matters.” NEA Today, February 11, 2019.

Ronfeldt, Matthew, Hamilton Lankford, Susanna Loeb, and James Wyckoff. 2013. “How Teacher Turnover Harms Student Achievement.” American Educational Research Journal 50, no. 1: 4–36.

Schachter, Rachel E. 2015. “An Analytic Study of the Professional Development Research in Early Childhood Education.” Early Education and Development 26, no. 8: 1057–1085. https://doi.org/10.1080/10409289.2015.1009335.

Schwartz, Sarah 2019. “What Do Teachers Really Want from Professional Development? Respect.” Education Week, May 15, 2019.

Smith, Thomas M., and Richard Ingersoll. 2004. “What Are the Effects of Induction and Mentoring on Beginning Teacher Turnover?” American Educational Research Journal 41, no. 3: 681–714. https://doi.org/10.3102/00028312041003681.

Sorensen, Lucy C., and Helen Ladd. 2018. “The Hidden Costs of Teacher Turnover.” National Center for Analysis of Longitudinal Data in Education Research (CALDER) Working Paper no. 203-0918-1, September 2018.

Strauss, Valerie. 2017. “Why It’s a Big Problem That So Many Teachers Quit—and What to Do About It.” Washington Post, November 27, 2017.

Sutcher, Leib, Linda Darling-Hammond, and Desiree Carver-Thomas. 2016. A Coming Crisis in Teaching? Teacher Supply, Demand, and Shortages in the U.S. Learning Policy Institute, September 2016.

U.S. Department of Education. 2017a. “Requirements for an Initial Teaching Credential, by State” [data table]. Data from the Higher Education Act Title II State Report Card (SRC) Reporting System. Spreadsheet downloadable at https://title2.ed.gov/Public/DataTools/NewExcels/Requirements.aspx.

U.S. Department of Education. 2017b. “States Requiring Content Specific Bachelor’s Degrees for All Initial Teaching Credentials” [data table]. Data from the Higher Education Act Title II State Report Card (SRC) Reporting System. Spreadsheet downloadable at https://title2.ed.gov/Public/DataTools/NewExcels/ContentDegrees.aspx.

Warner-Griffin, Catharine, Brittany C. Cunningham, and Amber Noel. 2018. Public School Teacher Autonomy, Satisfaction, Job Security, and Commitment: 1999–2000 and 2011–12. Institute of Education Statistics, National Center for Education Statistics, U.S. Department of Education, Stats in Brief no. 2018-103, March 2018.

Weiss, Elaine, and Paul Reville. 2019. Broader, Bolder, Better: How Schools and Communities Help Students Overcome the Disadvantages of Poverty. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard Education Press.

This report is the fourth in a series examining the magnitude of the teacher shortage and the working conditions and other factors that contribute to the shortage.

What this series finds: The teacher shortage is real, large and growing, and worse than we thought. When indicators of teacher quality (certification, relevant training, experience, etc.) are taken into account, the shortage is even more acute than currently estimated, with high-poverty schools suffering the most from the shortage of credentialed teachers.

What this report finds: The working environment for teachers—broadly referred to here as “school climate”—is tough. Students are coming to school unprepared to learn (as reported by 27.3 percent of teachers), parents are struggling to be involved (as reported by 21.5 percent of teachers), and other conditions impede teaching. These conditions are largely byproducts of larger societal forces such as rising poverty, segregation, and insufficient public investments. In addition to barriers to teaching, teachers face threats to their safety. More than one in five teachers (21.8 percent) report that they have been threatened and one in eight (12.4 percent) say they have been physically attacked by a student at their current school. Compounding the stress, teachers report a level of conflict with—and lack of support from—administrators and fellow teachers, and little say in their work. More than two-thirds of teachers report that they have less than a great deal of influence over what they teach in the classroom (71.3 percent) and what instructional materials they use (74.5 percent), which suggests low respect for their knowledge and judgment.

Not surprisingly, one in 20 teachers (4.9 percent) say that the stress and disappointments involved in teaching are not worth it. Considerably larger shares of teachers express some level of dissatisfaction with being a teacher in their school (48.7 percent), say they think about leaving teaching at some point (27.4 percent), or are not certain that they would still become teachers if they could go back to college and make a decision again (57.5 percent). (All these data on school climate indicators are for the 2015–2016 school year except for the share of teachers who in 2011–2012 said they are not sure they would become teachers if they could start over again.)

And, paralleling the finding in the series’ previous reports, teachers in high-poverty schools have it worse: relative to their peers in low-poverty schools, larger shares of teachers in high-poverty schools report barriers to teaching, threats to physical safety and attacks, a lack of supportive relationships, and little autonomy in the classroom.

Our data suggest a relationship between tough climates and quitting. When we compare teachers who end up quitting with those who stay, we find that larger shares of quitting teachers had reported, prior to leaving, that they were teaching unprepared students (39.0 percent vs. 29.4 percent), experiencing demoralizing stress (12.5 percent vs. 3.6 percent), lacking strong influence over what they teach in class (74.6 percent vs. 71.4 percent), and not being fully satisfied with teaching at their school (60.5 percent vs. 43.3 percent). Indeed, the share of teachers who felt that the stress and disappointments involved in teaching weren’t really worth it was 3.5 times as large among those who ended up quitting than among those who stayed.

Why it matters: Working environments clearly play a role in the teacher shortage, along with low pay (as shown in our last report) and weak professional development opportunities (as will be shown in our next report). The teacher shortage harms students, teachers, and public education as a whole. In addition, the fact that the shortage is more acute in high-poverty schools challenges the U.S. education system’s goal of providing a sound education equitably to all children.

What we can do about it: Tackle the poor school climate, low relative pay, and other factors that are prompting teachers to quit and dissuading people from entering the teaching profession. With regard to working environments, we need policy interventions and institutional decisions that channel assistance and resources to teachers who press on despite barriers to teaching, stress and physical threats, a lack of support by administrators, little influence over their day-to-day work, and low satisfaction. High-poverty schools and their teachers require extra resources and funding to support students directly and to reduce the teacher shortage.

Introduction

The teacher shortage—the gap between the number of qualified teachers needed and available for hire in a given year—in the nation’s K–12 schools is an increasingly recognized but still poorly understood crisis. The shortage is discussed by the media and policymakers, and researchers have estimated its size (about 110,000 teachers in the 2017–2018 school year, up from no shortage before 2013, according to Sutcher, Darling-Hammond, and Carver-Thomas 2016) and even quantified part of its cost.1 The shortage constitutes a crisis because of its negative effects on students, teachers, and the education system at large. But it is poorly understood because the reasons for it are complex and interdependent. The first report in this series, The Teacher Shortage Is Real, Large and Growing, and Worse Than We Thought (García and Weiss 2019a), established that current national estimates of the teacher shortage likely understate the magnitude of the problem: When issues such as teacher qualifications and the unequal distribution of highly credentialed teachers across high- and low-poverty schools are taken into consideration, the teacher shortage problem is much more severe than previously identified.

The second report in this series, U.S. Schools Struggle to Hire and Retain Teachers (García and Weiss 2019b), built on the research in the first report and used the same quality and equity angles. It showed that schools are having difficulties filling teacher vacancies and are leaving vacancies unfilled despite actively trying to hire teachers to fill them. High-poverty schools are hit hardest: They find it more difficult to fill vacancies than do low-poverty schools and schools overall, and they experience higher turnover and attrition than low-poverty schools. One factor behind staffing difficulties is the high share of public school teachers leaving their posts: 13.8 percent are either leaving their school or leaving teaching altogether, according to most recent data. Another factor is the dwindling pool of applicants to fill vacancies: from the 2008–2009 to 2015–2016 school years, the number of education degrees awarded fell by 15.4 percent and the number of people who completed a teacher preparation program fell by 27.4 percent. Schools are also having a harder time retaining credentialed teachers, as evident in the small but growing share of all teachers who are newly hired and in their first year of teaching (4.7 percent) and in the substantial shares of teachers who quit who are certified and experienced. Retaining credentialed teachers is also more difficult for high-poverty schools.

The third report in the series focused on a likely factor behind why teachers are leaving the profession and fewer people are becoming teachers: teacher pay. Specifically, Low Relative Pay and High Incidence of Moonlighting Play a Role in the Teacher Shortage, Particularly in High-Poverty Schools (García and Weiss 2019c) described how teacher compensation compares with compensation in nonteaching occupations, and called attention to the high share of teachers who supplement their earnings by moonlighting. The report found a correlation between measures of teacher compensation and teachers leaving the profession: specifically, it found that teachers who ended up quitting teaching reported, in the year before they quit, receiving on average, lower salaries; participating less in the kinds of paid extracurricular activities that complement their professional development (activities like coaching students or mentoring teachers); and participating more in working options outside the school system than did teachers who stayed at their schools. In high-poverty schools, teachers face compounded challenges. Relative to teachers in low-poverty schools, teachers in high-poverty schools are paid less, receive a smaller amount from moonlighting, and the moonlighting that they do is less likely to involve paid extracurricular or additional activities for the school system that generate extra pay but also help teachers grow professionally.

This report, the fourth in the series, explores another likely factor behind the exodus of teachers from the profession and the shrinking supply of future teachers: the working environment for teachers, broadly referred to here as the “school climate.” We show that school climate affects teacher satisfaction, morale, and expectations about staying in the profession. We show that school climate is challenging for a number of reasons: Teachers confront widespread barriers to teaching and learning, face threats to their emotional and physical safety, lack influence over school policy and what and how they teach in their classrooms, and suffer from dissatisfaction and low motivation. We also demonstrate that there is a significant relationship between these indicators of difficult working conditions and teachers leaving the profession. And finally, as in previous reports, we provide evidence that working conditions are more challenging in high-poverty schools than in low-poverty schools, which compounds the problems already identified in this series. The findings suggest that efforts to address teacher shortages must be holistic and include initiatives to improve school climates, especially in high-poverty schools where teacher shortages and school climate problems are most serious. The next paper in this series follows up with a discussion about teacher training and supports, which also have the potential to alter the availability of teachers and therefore interact with these other factors to drive shortages.

School climate is an issue across the board and it is implicated in the teacher shortage

The environment in which an employee works has a major impact on not just job satisfaction but also on the ability to do the job well and the desire to continue to remain in the job and the profession. This is certainly true for teachers, who spend much of their time interacting with students, fellow teachers, and other school staff and thus are immersed in their workplace climate to a high degree. Teachers in the vast majority of contexts are prepared—able and trained—to deal with the challenges of their vocation. However, there are certain challenges related to the working environment that teachers should not have to deal with or that they are ill-equipped to handle and still do their jobs well.

This report addresses the challenges that arise from poor school climate, and resulting low motivation and satisfaction. A school’s climate is “the quality and character of school life” (The National School Climate Center 2019). It is composed of several areas, including relationships between teachers and administrators and students, school safety, the institutional environment, and the school improvement process (Thapa et al. 2013).2 In this paper, we look at the shares of teachers who face barriers that impede teaching (such as student poverty and poor student health), threats to their safety, a lack of voice and influence over school policy decisions, and a lack of autonomy in the classroom. We then explore the level of morale and satisfaction among teachers, which could be a result of school climate and of other influences (such as pay) described in our series of reports.

Importantly, most of the factors that together create a school’s climate are themselves shaped by larger societal forces such as rising poverty, ongoing racial and economic segregation of schools, and insufficient public investments. Because these larger societal forces contribute to deteriorating working conditions in schools, they cannot be blamed on students, parents, and teachers. (As just one example, students who come to school in poor health because they do not have access to medical care or to assistance programs that provide them with nutritional foods aren’t as prepared to learn as they could be.3) Thus, addressing the poverty- and inequality-related factors that help create a challenging school climate requires investing not only in excellent educators, but also in social workers, physicians, counselors, nurses, and other professionals operating outside the traditional education policy domains (García 2015; García and Weiss 2017a). Research shows that policies to improve school climate could improve the odds that teachers stay in the profession.4 But a poor school climate is not just a factor in the teacher shortage; it can also impede student learning and school performance, lessen teacher effectiveness and morale, and damage the health of the profession overall.5

School climate is shaped by barriers to teaching and learning

Teacher surveys point to a number of conditions among the student body that impede teaching and negatively influence student performance. These conditions include behaviors and factors such as student tardiness and absenteeism, parents’ struggles to be involved in their children’s schools, student disengagement, poor student health, and insufficient student preparation for instruction.6 Across the board, the National Teacher and Principal Survey (NTPS) data we analyzed show that large shares of teachers see these factors as serious problems in their schools, and increasingly so, since a number of these problems worsened between the 2011–2012 and 2015–2016 school years.

As shown in Table 1, in 2015, the share of teachers reporting that various factors were “serious problems” in their schools ranged from around 5 percent for poor student health and class-cutting to nearly 30 percent for poverty specifically and students’ unreadiness to learn. A third set of barriers whose degree of severity falls between these two extremes includes tardiness, cited as a serious problem by 12.1 percent of teachers; absenteeism, cited by 14.9 percent of teachers; apathy among students, reported by 18.4 of teachers; and lack of parental involvement, which more than one in five teachers (21.5 percent) sees as a serious problem in their school.

Table 1

These data affirm our previous reports’ assertions that it is harder to attract and retain teachers in high-poverty schools (see García and Weiss 2019a; 2019b; 2019c). Across all aspects described in Table 1, the share of teachers viewing a given factor as a “serious problem” is between two and nearly five times as high in high-poverty schools relative to low-poverty schools.7

The degree to which poor student health is a problem is one particularly troubling example of greater challenges in high-poverty schools. In high-poverty schools, 8.1 percent of teachers pointed to this issue as a challenge, compared with just 2.0 percent in low-poverty schools. This illustrates the striking disparity in the conditions in which those two groups of teachers are trying to do their jobs—students who are ill are not only more likely to miss a lot of school, but to struggle to focus when they are in class and thus to learn more slowly.8 The data also provide confirmation of well-documented opportunity gaps by socioeconomic status that are associated with achievement gaps: an alarming 38.6 percent of teachers in high-poverty schools report students coming to their classrooms underprepared to learn, versus 12.1 percent of teachers in low-poverty schools.

In our earlier reports we showed the high-poverty schools can also be characterized as harder-to-staff schools (García and Weiss 2019a; 2019b; 2019c). Table 1 here shows that teachers in hard-to-staff/high-poverty schools face additional challenges relative to teachers in low-poverty schools, including higher rates of class-cutting (6.5 percent vs. 2.5 percent, tardiness (16.6 vs. 6.1 percent), student apathy (22.3 percent vs. 11.2 percent) and parents who struggle to engage with the school (31.2 vs. 9.1 percent).9 Finally, teachers weighed in on a topic that has gained national policy attention: student absenteeism. The shares of teachers who report student absenteeism being a problem vary widely across schools.10 Only 8.0 percent of teachers in low-poverty schools reported absenteeism as a serious problem, versus more than double that, 19.7 percent, of teachers in high-poverty schools reporting absenteeism as a serious problem.

Teachers report stress and a lack of safety

The set of school climate indicators in Table 2 speaks to the emotional and mental health, and physical safety, of teachers in the workplace. Across all teachers, one in 20 teachers reports that the stress and disappointments of teaching “aren’t really worth it”: 4.9 percent of teachers strongly agree with that assertion, and, when we look at the 2011–2012 Schools and Staffing (SASS) survey, we see that the share is up slightly from 4.4 percent in 2011. A much larger share of teachers (13.1 percent) strongly agree that student misbehavior interferes with their ability to teach. Most concerning, more than one in five teachers (21.8 percent) report that they have been threatened by a student at the school where they currently teach, and one in eight (12.4 percent) report that they were physically attacked by a student at their current school. Without discussion, these indicators shape the work environment and conditions, and can contribute to shortages by making the profession less attractive.

Table 2

Like the previous indicators of a difficult school climate, stress and lack of safety are more acute problems in high-poverty schools than in low-poverty schools. For example, the share of teachers strongly agreeing that the stress and disappointments of teaching are not worth it is 2.2 percentage points higher in high-poverty schools than in low-poverty schools (5.9 percent versus 3.8 percent, or 1.6 times as large). The gap in the share of teachers frustrated with disruption due to student misbehavior reaches 10 percentage points. There is also a 10 percentage-point gap between the share of teachers who have been threatened by students in high-poverty schools and teachers threatened in low-poverty schools: more than one in four teachers in high-poverty schools has been threatened, compared with about one in six teachers in low-poverty schools. Finally, the shares of teachers who had been physically attacked (14.8 percent in high-poverty schools and 9.5 percent in low-poverty schools) greatly compounds the stress that makes today’s school climate tougher in high-poverty schools.

School climate is shaped by the relationships between teachers and administrators, colleagues, and parents

The relationships between teachers, a school’s administration, and the community more broadly shape a school’s working environment and climate, with repercussions for teachers and also for students (Bryk et al. 2010). This climate affects how well the school provides a learning community in which administrative supports and leadership are strong, there is time for peer collaboration, and employees share a strong sense of purpose. (In the next report, some of these indicators will be examined from the perspective of career supports and professional development.)

Our analysis shows unsatisfactory relationship patterns across the board. Table 3 presents seven attributes of a collegial and supportive school environment. In six of the seven categories reviewed in the table, less than half of teachers report strongly agreeing that the school has that attribute; in other words, less than half report being fully supported by the school administration, their colleagues, or the community in general. The one exception is a proxy of leadership: whether “the principal knows what kind of school he or she wants and has communicated it to the staff.” More than half (51.6 percent) of teachers surveyed said that principals exhibit that attribute. About half (49.6 percent) of teachers report that they see “supportive and encouraging behavior” by school administrators (a proxy for a positive working environment set by the administration). And slightly less than half (47.9 percent) strongly agrees with the statement, “I make a conscious effort to coordinate the content of my courses with that of other teachers” (a proxy of the community environment created by teachers to facilitate coordination, as will be explored further in the next report in the teacher shortage series). Only slightly more than a third of teachers strongly agree that “there is a great deal of cooperative effort among the staff members” (38.4 percent do) or that their colleagues share their views of what the school’s mission should be (36.0 percent). Fewer than one in three teachers affirm that they are recognized for a job well done (32.4 percent), and only 13.3 percent of teachers affirm that they receive a great deal of support from parents for the work they do. Put another way, the survey responses indicate that high shares of teachers experience some level of conflict or disagreement in their schools. Given this level of conflict, it is not surprising that teaching is an unattractive career option, both for people making decisions about their careers and for veteran teachers who are leaving the profession (García and Weiss 2019b).

Table 3

This scenario of a working environment with a degree of conflict or disagreement (which could be described as a poor learning community) is worse in high-poverty schools. A larger share of teachers in high-poverty schools indicate some level of conflict or disagreement in attitudes or beliefs from the administration or colleagues than do teachers in low-poverty schools. By far the biggest gap between high- and low-poverty schools is in support teachers receive from their students’ parents: almost nine out of 10 teachers in high-poverty schools do not feel fully supported by parents for the work they do compared with a still very high eight in 10 teachers in low-poverty schools. The gap in parental support affirms our previous comment in the discussion of Table 1 that schools’ and teachers’ struggles to engage with parents are especially difficult in high-poverty schools.

School climate is shaped by the voice and influence teachers have in their schools and day-to-day work

For teachers, having a sense of purpose and a say over the working conditions and policies of their school is an essential component of a positive school climate, and enhances teaching professionalism. But as shown in Table 4, meager shares of teachers report having a great deal of influence or control over school policy, suggesting a generalized disrespect for teachers’ knowledge of their jobs and professional judgment. A scant 3 percent of teachers report having a great deal of influence over how teachers are evaluated. Other school policy categories with shares under 10 percent are setting discipline policy and hiring new teachers. The category with the highest share of teachers reporting a great deal of influence is establishing the curriculum, but even then just one in five (20.4 percent) teachers have influence over the curriculum. To put it another way, 80 percent or more of teachers do not have a great deal of influence or control over the policies at their schools.

Table 4

Although teachers report much more influence in their classrooms than on school policies, they still indicate a surprisingly small level of control over their daily activities. The shares of teachers who report a great deal of influence or control range from 60 to 70 percent when the action is evaluating and grading students or assigning the amount of homework, but falls to a much lower sub-30 percent share when the actions involve selecting textbooks and other instructional materials and controlling topics and skills to be taught. To put it another way, more than seven in 10 teachers do not control the textbooks they use and the topics and skills they teach.

The usual gaps between working conditions in high- and low-poverty schools also appear here. In the areas of school policy, the gaps between teachers’ autonomy or influence in high- and low-poverty schools are small, in general (under 2 percentage points for all categories except establishing the curriculum), and in fact a slightly greater share of teachers in high-poverty schools report having a great deal of control over setting discipline policy and evaluating teachers. In terms of autonomy in their classrooms, the bottom half of the table shows that in all tasks listed except assigning homework, teachers in high-poverty schools have less of a say than their counterparts in low-poverty schools and that the gaps range from 2 to more than 4 percentage points.

Poor school climate depresses teacher satisfaction and motivation, and teachers’ plans to stay in teaching

Figure A summarizes the findings presented in this report—that school climate indicators are tough across the board. Given the challenging school climate for many teachers, it is little surprise that teachers’ satisfaction, motivation, and desire to stay in teaching is low and has even dwindled slightly in the past few years.11 Figure B shows the shares of teachers who say they are satisfied and who say their peers are satisfied. Dissatisfaction is not only the result of a poor school climate but also a factor leading to a poor school climate: when teachers are not as motivated and engaged as they could be it affects the school climate.

Figure A

Figure B

Almost half of all teachers (48.7 percent) express some level of dissatisfaction with being a teacher at their current school. Just over a quarter would definitely describe their schools’ teachers as a satisfied group (28.7 percent) and affirmatively say that they like the way things are run at the school (26.9 percent). All of the “strongly agree” shares in the figure are lower than they were in the 2011–2012 school year, pointing to lowered satisfaction and motivation across the board.

Table 5 shows that, as with positive school climate factors, teacher satisfaction is lower in high-poverty schools than in low-poverty schools. The gaps between shares of teachers in high- and low-poverty schools who “strongly agree” with the three statements of satisfaction in the table range from 6.3 to 7.9 percentage points (see the last column of table 5). The data also demonstrate that teachers’ motivation (as represented by the share of teachers who are or are not certain they would choose teaching today if given the opportunity to start over) is quite weak. Only about four in 10 teachers say that if they could go back to college and start over, they would certainly go into teaching, and the share is slightly lower in high-poverty schools than in low-poverty schools (41.4 percent vs. 45.5 percent, this share is from 2011–2012).

Table 5

With respect to plans about staying in the profession, a large share of teachers express their expectation of leaving teaching at some point, as opposed to staying as long as possible or until retirement (Table 6). More than one in four teachers plans to quit teaching at some point, i.e., does not plan to stay in teaching for the rest of his or her career. Here, the gaps between high- and low-poverty schools are small.

When we look at data from the 2011–2012 SASS we see that the drop in teachers’ satisfaction, motivation, and expectations are paralleled by a drop in the share of teachers who plan to continue in teaching for the remainder of their careers: this share decreased from 76.0 percent in 2011–2012 to 72.6 percent in 2015–2016.

Table 6

School climate and the struggle to attract and retain teachers

In the previous reports in this series, we saw that low salaries and excessive moonlighting to complement wages with profession-building activities have made teaching particularly unattractive for both current and potential teachers; in addition, those impediments could explain, in part, the gaps between credentials of the teaching workforce in high- and low-poverty schools because all indicators are worse in high-poverty schools (García and Weiss, 2019a, 2019b, 2019c). The findings in this paper provide parallel evidence regarding school climate: the challenging working environments can make teaching an unattractive profession overall; in addition, the comparatively more difficult working environment for teachers in high-poverty schools can contribute the the fact that high-poverty schools have a harder time attracting and retaining highly credentialed teachers than do low-poverty schools.

In this next section, we explore how aspects of school climate—barriers to teaching, stress and physical threats, satisfaction and motivation—are correlated with the supply of available teachers, and thus, implicated in the teacher shortage. We would expect that, across the board, teachers who quit the profession were more likely to have reported, in the year before they quit, feeling stressed, unsatisfied, unsupported, and not involved in setting school or classroom policies. Figure C lists a subset of the negative school climate indicators and reports the share of “staying” and “quitting” teachers who reported, in their responses to the 2011–2012 Schools and Staffing Survey, they they experienced the indicator. Staying teachers are those who, were still at the same school while quitting teachers are those who had quit by the in the 2012–2013 Teacher Follow-up Survey.

Figure C

As the figure shows, larger shares of quitting teachers had reported in the year before they left teaching that key aspects of their school’s climate were problematic than was true among teachers who stayed at their schools. For example, 39.0 percent of teachers who quit felt their students were unprepared to learn, versus 29.4 percent of teachers who stayed at their school. There was a big difference in the stress levels of quitting and staying teachers. The share of quitting teachers who reported being very stressed the year before they quit was 3.5 times as large as the share of staying teachers who reported feeling stressed the previous year. Larger shares of quitting teachers reported that collegiality among teachers was lacking and that they had little influence over school policy or over what they teach in class. Most predictably, the shares of teachers who said they weren’t fully satisfied with teaching and who planned to quit teaching at some point were much higher among those who quit than those who stayed.

The numbers above do not paint a pretty picture about the morale of the current teaching workforce. Among those who stayed, more than one-fifth had reported planning to leave at some point, and over 40 percent had reported some level of dissatisfaction with their jobs. Nearly a third had students who were not prepared to learn, and nearly a fourth were frustrated by the challenge of engaging their students’ parents.12

Conclusion

The various components of a negative working environment—barriers to teaching, stress, physical threats, a lack of say in how to run the classroom, and low levels of satisfaction—interact with one another and make it harder for teachers to do their work, and affect students’ ability to learn. And tough school climates definitely play a role in the teacher shortage: despite their substantial training and ability to deal with the challenges of their job, the negative aspects of the school climate can dissuade young people from becoming teachers and driving some teachers out of our classrooms.

In this report, we show that school climate indicators correlate with teachers’ statuses the year after. Across the board, we note that school climate indicators of teachers who quit were worse than of teachers who stayed the school year before teachers made the decision to quit or stay in the profession.

We also show that, aside from those correlations, certain features that make teaching challenging are so concerning that we would not expect teachers or any professionals to have to handle them without being provided with further supports. When students are unprepared, teachers must spend more time reviewing material and potentially neglecting other students. Students who are in poor health, or who miss school frequently, are not just disruptive on a practical level, but cause concern and emotional distress for teachers who watch them struggle and for other students. These disruptions and distractions lead teachers to feel stressed and disappointed, as does the challenge of engaging parents who, for a variety of reasons, have trouble connecting with teachers in ways that boost their children’s ability to learn. And when the working conditions raise safety concerns—students misbehave, or threaten or attack teachers in the school—it adds to the level of distress.

Our research points to a different source of distress as well: the lack of cooperation and support from the administration and other colleagues, and the limited influence and autonomy teachers have over their daily activities or their schools’ needs, further add to a problematic working environment. Significantly large shares of teachers indicate that their voices go unheard—schools are not fully benefiting from their knowledge, preparation, and expertise.

All of this, of course, depresses satisfaction and drives teachers to consider leaving their schools or the professional altogether. Dissatisfaction increases when poor working conditions are accompanied by weak compensation, lack of professional development opportunities, and the deteriorated prestige of teaching. Clearly, the challenging conditions confronting a growing share of teachers are helping to drive teacher shortages across schools and especially in high-poverty schools.

In sum, the evidence presented in this paper shows that it is imperative that we improve working conditions across the board to stop the teacher exodus and address the substantial pent-up frustration among the existing workforce. As suggested in our companion pieces, only if policymakers think holistically about how to address the teacher shortage will they find the necessary resources to adequately fund our schools, to eliminate the barriers to teaching and learning, and to elevate the respect for teachers’ knowledge, experience, and judgment.

About the authors

Emma García is an education economist at the Economic Policy Institute, where she specializes in the economics of education and education policy. Her research focuses on the production of education (cognitive and noncognitive skills); evaluation of educational interventions (early childhood, K–12, and higher education); equity; returns to education; teacher labor markets; and cost-effectiveness and cost–benefit analysis in education. She has held research positions at the Center for Benefit-Cost Studies of Education, the Campaign for Educational Equity, the National Center for the Study of Privatization in Education, and the Community College Research Center; consulted for MDRC, the World Bank, the Inter-American Development Bank, and the National Institute for Early Education Research; and served as an adjunct faculty member at the McCourt School of Public Policy, Georgetown University. She received her Ph.D. in Economics and Education from Columbia University’s Teachers College.

Elaine Weiss is the lead policy analyst for income security at the National Academy of Social Insurance, where she spearheads projects on Social Security, unemployment insurance, and workers’ compensation. Prior to her work at the academy, Weiss was the national coordinator for the Broader, Bolder Approach to Education, a campaign launched by the Economic Policy Institute, from 2011–2017. BBA promoted a comprehensive, evidence-based set of policies to allow all children to thrive in school and life. Weiss has co-authored and authored EPI and BBA reports on early achievement gaps and the flaws in market-oriented education reforms. She is co-author, with former Massachusetts Secretary of Education Paul Reville, of Broader, Bolder, Better, published by Harvard Education Press in 2019. Weiss came to BBA from the Pew Charitable Trusts, where she served as project manager for Pew’s Partnership for America’s Economic Success campaign. She has a Ph.D. in Public Policy from the George Washington University Trachtenberg School and a J.D. from Harvard Law School.

Acknowledgments

The authors are grateful to Lora Engdahl for her edits and suggested additions to this piece and for her extraordinary contributions to structuring the contents of this series of papers. We also appreciate John Schmitt’s supervision of this project and Lawrence Mishel’s guidance in earlier stages of this research. We acknowledge Julia Wolfe for her assistance with the tables and figures in this report, Kayla Blado for her work disseminating the report and her assistance with the media, John Carlo Mandapat for the infographic that accompanies this report, and the rest of the communications staff at EPI for their contributions to the different components of this report and the teacher shortage series. We appreciate EPI Communications Director Pedro da Costa’s coordination of all the steps required for the publication of this report and of the series.

Data sources used in this report

The analyses presented in this report mainly rely on the Schools and Staffing Survey (SASS) 2011–2012, the Teacher Follow-up Survey (TFS) 2012–2013, and the National Teacher and Principal Survey (NTPS) 2015–2016. The surveys collect data on and from teachers, principals, and schools in the 50 states and the District of Columbia.13 All three surveys were conducted by the U.S. Census Bureau for the U.S. Department of Education. The survey results are housed in the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), which is part of the Department of Education’s Institute of Education Sciences (IES).

The NTPS is the redesigned SASS, with a focus on “flexibility, timeliness, and integration with other Department of Education data” (NCES 2019). Both the NTPS and SASS include very detailed questionnaires at the teacher level, school level, and principal level, and the SASS also includes very detailed questionnaires at the school district level (NCES 2017). The TFS survey, which is the source of data on teachers who stay or quit, was conducted a year after the 2011–2012 SASS survey to collect information on the employment and teaching status, plans, and opinions of teachers in the SASS. Following the first administration of the NTPS, no follow-up study was done, preventing us from conducting an updated analysis of teachers by teaching status the year after the NTPS. NCES plans to conduct a TFS again in the 2020–2021 school year, following the 2019–2020 NTPS.

The 2015–2016 NTPS includes public and charter schools only, while the SASS and TFS include all schools (public, private, and charter schools).14 We restrict our analyses to public schools and teachers in public noncharter schools.

The 2015–2016 NTPS includes public and charter schools only, while the SASS and TFS include all schools (public, private, and charter schools).15 We restrict our analyses to public schools and teachers in public noncharter schools.

Endnotes

1. For a more detailed review of the media coverage of the shortage, see García and Weiss 2019a. Research on costs come from Carver-Thomas and Darling-Hammond 2017 and the Learning Policy Institute 2017 reports, which estimated that filling a vacancy costs $21,000 on average; and from Carroll 2007, which estimated that the total annual cost of turnover was $7.3 billion per year. According to Strauss 2017, that estimated annual cost of turnover would exceed $8 billion at present.

2. School climate is based on patterns of students’, parents’, and school personnel’s experience of school life; it also reflects norms, goals, values, interpersonal relationships, teaching and learning practices, and organizational structures (The National School Climate Center 2019). In a recent post, Kautz and Ross (2019) explain that “school climate covers both tangible and intangible attributes, including relationships among students and staff, school discipline, student engagement, and safety.” A book on supports for school improvement (Bryk et al. 2010) identifies school climate as one of the essential supports (together with school leadership, parent and community ties, professional capacity of the staff, a student-centered learning climate, and instructional guidance system).

3. A recent book covering the range of supports and the role they play in having children prepared to learn is Weiss and Reville 2019. A seminal book on the opportunity gaps created by poverty and inequality is Rothstein 2004.

4. See summary in Katz 2018.

5. See Darling-Hammond 1999; Ladd and Sorensen 2016; Ronfeldt et al. 2013; Jackson and Bruegmann 2009; Kraft and Papay 2014; Moore-Johnson, Kraft, and Papay 2012; Ladd 2011; Loeb, Darling-Hammond, and Luczak 2005; and Warner-Griffin, Cunningham, and Noel 2018.

6. All of these school climate factors are related to student poverty, some more directly than others. Teachers are also explicitly asked about the extent to which “poverty” is a problem at the school.

7. As poverty is the variable (or proxy of it) that we use to classify our schools into low- and high-poverty schools, we do not stress the gap between the shares of teachers who acknowledge “poverty” as a “serious problem” in the two types of schools (45.1 versus 9.5 percent respectively). This perception of poverty as a problem is, by construction, an expected gap, and thus, we focus on the remaining and worrisome evidence in the table.

8. See Weiss and Reville 2019; Rothstein 2011; and Rothstein 2004.

9. Researchers have explored a number of factors that prevent low-income parents from connecting and partnering with their children’s schools. The reasons range from irregular working schedules, having had bad experiences as students, or even having fewer options of supervised care if they need to participate in school activities (Morsy and Rothstein 2015; Weiss and Reville 2019). García and Weiss 2017b, a study examining early education and parenting practices for the kindergarten classes of 1998 and 2010, found that all families but especially low-income families have, over time, become more involved in their young children’s early education and development. Parents were more likely in 2010 than in 1998 to read regularly to their children; to sing to them; to play games with them; and to enroll them in center-based pre-K programs. Parents in 2010 also had significantly higher expectations for their children’s educational attainment, and mothers themselves were more highly educated—both factors that are associated with higher achievement for those children.

10. See our own analysis on the prevalence of absenteeism and its influence on student performance (see García and Weiss 2018).

11. No one of the overarching factors (pay, as described in García and Weiss 2019c, school climate, as described in this report, or career supports, as described in the next report in this series works in isolation. Rather the factors, along with the broader underinvestments in education, jointly influence voluntary attrition, turnover, and lack of incoming teachers.

12. The gaps between the shares of staying and leaving teachers who report these problems are, in general, wider in high-poverty schools than in low-poverty schools (data not shown in this report). This implies that barriers to teaching, safety, and satisfaction play a different role in schools depending on poverty level. These problems likely played a more important part in driving or keeping teachers away in high-poverty schools (but this hypothesis would need a regression analysis to confirm).

13. The 2015–2016 NTPS does not produce state-representative estimates. The forthcoming 2017–2018 NTPS will support state-level estimates.

14. The forthcoming 2017–2018 NTPS additionally includes the private sector.

15. The forthcoming 2017–2018 NTPS additionally includes the private sector.

References

Bryk, Anthony S., Penny Bender Sebring, Elaine Allensworth, John Q. Easton, and Stuart Luppescu. 2010. Organizing Schools for Improvement: Lessons from Chicago. Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press.

Carroll, Thomas G. 2007. Policy Brief: The High Cost of Teacher Turnover. National Commission on Teaching and America’s Future.

Carver-Thomas, Desiree, and Linda Darling-Hammond. 2017. Teacher Turnover: Why It Matters and What We Can Do About It. Learning Policy Institute, August 2017.

Darling-Hammond, Linda. 1999. Teacher Quality and Student Achievement: A Review of State Policy Evidence. Seattle: Center for the Study of Teaching and Policy, University of Washington.

García, Emma. 2015. Inequalities at the Starting Gate: Cognitive and Noncognitive Skills Gaps Between 2010–2011 Kindergarten Classmates. Economic Policy Institute, June 2015.

García, Emma, and Elaine Weiss. 2017a. Reducing and Averting Achievement Gaps. Key Findings from the Report ‘Education Inequalities at the School Starting Gate’ and Comprehensive Strategies to Mitigate Early Skills Gaps. Economic Policy Institute, September 2017.

García, Emma, and Elaine Weiss. 2017b. Education Inequalities at the School Starting Gate: Gaps, Trends, and Strategies to Address Them. Economic Policy Institute, September 2017.

García, Emma, and Elaine Weiss. 2018. Student Absenteeism: Who Misses School and How Missing School Matters for Performance. Economic Policy Institute, September 2018.

García, Emma, and Elaine Weiss. 2019a. The Teacher Shortage Is Real, Large and Growing, and Worse Than We Thought: The First Report in the “Perfect Storm in the Teacher Labor Market” Series. Economic Policy Institute, March 2019.

García, Emma, and Elaine Weiss. 2019b. U.S. Schools Struggle to Hire and Retain Teachers: The Second Report in “The Perfect Storm in the Teacher Labor Market” Series. Economic Policy Institute, April 2019.

García, Emma, and Elaine Weiss. 2019c. Low Relative Pay and High Incidence of Moonlighting Play a Role in the Teacher Shortage, Particularly in High-poverty Schools. The Third Report in “The Perfect Storm in the Teacher Labor Market” Series. Economic Policy Institute, May 2019.

Jackson, Kirabo, and Elias Bruegmann. 2009. “Teaching Students and Teaching Each Other: The Importance of Peer Learning for Teachers.” American Economic Journal: Applied Economics 1, no. 4: 85–108.

Katz, Veronica. 2018. Teacher Retention: Evidence to Inform Policy. EdPolicyWorks Policy Brief, October 2018.

Kautz, Tim, and Christine Ross. 2019. “Developing School Climate Surveys for Statewide Accountability in Maryland.” RELevant (Regional Educational Laboratory Mid-Atlantic blog), January 24, 2019.

Kraft, Matthew A., and John P. Papay. 2014. “Can Professional Environments in Schools Promote Teacher Development? Explaining Heterogeneity in Returns to Teaching Experience.” Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis 36, no. 4: 476–500.

Ladd, Helen. 2011. “Teachers’ Perceptions of Their Working Conditions: How Predictive of Planned and Actual Teacher Movement?” Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis 33, no. 2: 235–261.

Ladd, Helen F., and Lucy C. Sorensen. 2016. “Returns to Teacher Experience: Student Achievement and Motivation in Middle School.” Education Finance and Policy 12, no. 2: 241–279.

Learning Policy Institute. 2017. What’s the Cost of Teacher Turnover? (calculator). September 2017.

Loeb, Susanna, Linda Darling-Hammond, and John Luczak. 2005. “How Teaching Conditions Predict Teacher Turnover in California Schools.” Peabody Journal of Education 80, no. 3: 44–70.

Moore-Johnson, Susan, Matthew A. Kraft, and John P. Papay. 2012. “How Context Matters in High-Need Schools: The Effects of Teachers’ Working Conditions on Their Professional Satisfaction and Their Students’ Achievement.” Teachers College Record 114, no. 10: 1–39.

Morsy, Leila, and Richard Rothstein. 2015. Five Social Disadvantages That Depress Student Performance: Why Schools Alone Can’t Close Achievement Gaps. Economic Policy Institute, June 2015.

National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) (U.S. Department of Education). 2011–2012. Licensed microdata from the 2011–2012 Schools and Staffing Survey (SASS).

National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) (U.S. Department of Education). 2012–2013. Licensed microdata from the 2012–2013 Teacher Follow-up Survey (TFS).

National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) (U.S. Department of Education). 2015–2016. Licensed microdata from the 2015-2016 National Teacher and Principal Survey (NTPS).

National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) (U.S. Department of Education). 2017. Documentation for the 2011–12 Schools and Staffing Survey. March 2017.

National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) (U.S. Department of Education). 2019. “NTPS Overview” (web page), accessed March 2019.

National School Climate Center. 2019. “What Is School Climate and Why Is It Important?” (web page). National School Climate website. Accessed May 2019.

Ronfeldt, Matthew, Hamilton Lankford, Susanna Loeb, and James Wyckoff. 2013. “How Teacher Turnover Harms Student Achievement.” American Educational Research Journal 50, no. 1: 4–36.

Rothstein, Richard. 2004. Class and Schools: Using Social, Economic, and Educational Reform to Close the Achievement Gap. Washington, D.C., and New York: Economic Policy Institute and Columbia University Teachers College.

Rothstein, Richard. 2011. A Look at the Health-related Causes of Low Student Achievement. Economic Policy Institute, March 2011.

Strauss, Valerie. 2017. “Why It’s a Big Problem That So Many Teachers Quit—and What to Do About It,” Washington Post, November 27, 2017.

Sutcher, Leib, Linda Darling-Hammond, and Desiree Carver-Thomas. 2016. A Coming Crisis in Teaching? Teacher Supply, Demand, and Shortages in the U.S. Learning Policy Institute, September 2016.

Thapa, Amrit, Jonathan Cohen, Shawn Guffey, and Ann Higgins-D’Alessandro. 2013. “A Review of School Climate Research.” Review of Educational Research 83, no. 3: 357–385. https:// doi.org/10.3102/0034654313483907.

Warner-Griffin, Catharine, Brittany C. Cunningham, and Amber Noel. 2018. Teachers’ Perceptions of Autonomy, Satisfaction, Job Security, and Commitment: 1999–2000 and 2011–12. Institute of Education Statistics, National Center for Education Statistics, U.S. Department of Education, Stats in Brief no. 2018-103, March 2018.

Weiss, Elaine, and Paul Reville. 2019. Broader, Bolder, Better. How Schools and Communities Help Students Overcome the Disadvantages of Poverty. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard Education Publishing Group.

This report is the second in a series examining the magnitude of the teacher shortage and the working conditions and other factors that contribute to the shortage.

What this series finds: The teacher shortage is real, large and growing, and worse than we thought. When indicators of teacher quality (certification, relevant training, experience, etc.) are taken into account, the shortage is even more acute than currently estimated, with high-poverty schools suffering the most from the shortage of credentialed teachers.

What this report finds: This report describes the challenges schools face in staffing themselves, both as a consequence of the teacher shortage and further contributing to it. It shows that a high share of public school teachers are leaving their posts: 13.8 percent are either leaving their school or leaving teaching altogether, according to most recent data. It also shows that schools are having a harder time filling the vacancies that turnover, attrition, and other factors (like increasing student enrollment or broadened curriculums) create. The share of schools that were trying to fill a vacancy but couldn’t tripled from the 2011–2012 to 2015–2016 school years (increasing from 3.1 to 9.4 percent), and in the same period the share of schools that found it very difficult to fill a vacancy nearly doubled (from 19.7 to 36.2 percent). These difficulties are also shaped by a dwindling pool of applicants to fill vacancies. From the 2008–2009 to 2015–2016 school years, there was a 15.4 percent drop in the number of education degrees awarded and a 27.4 percent drop in the number of people who completed a teacher preparation program. Schools are also having a harder time retaining credentialed teachers: that can be seen in the small but growing share of all teachers who are newly hired and in their first year of teaching (4.7 percent) and in the substantial shares of teachers who quit who are certified and experienced. All these challenges are more acute for high-poverty schools.

Why it matters: A shortage of teachers harms students, teachers, and the public education system as a whole. Lack of sufficient, qualified teachers and the staff instability that accompanies turnover threaten students’ ability to learn and reduce teachers’ effectiveness, and high teacher turnover consumes economic resources that could be better deployed elsewhere. The teacher shortage makes it more difficult to build a solid reputation for teaching and to professionalize it, which further contributes to perpetuating the shortage. In addition, the fact that the shortage is distributed so unevenly among students of different socioeconomic backgrounds challenges the U.S. education system’s goal of providing a sound education equitably to all children.

What we can do about it: Tackle the working conditions and other factors that are prompting teachers to quit and dissuading people from entering the profession, thus making it harder for school districts to retain and attract highly qualified teachers: low pay, a challenging school environment, and weak professional development support and recognition. In addition to tackling these factors for all schools, we must provide extra supports and funding to high-poverty schools, where teacher shortages are even more of a problem.

Introduction

The teacher shortage in the nation’s K–12 schools is an increasingly recognized but still poorly understood crisis: The shortage is recognized by the media and policymakers, and researchers have estimated the size of the shortage—about 110,000 teachers in the 2017–2018 school year, up from no shortage before 2013 (Sutcher, Darling-Hammond, and Carver-Thomas 2016).1 But the shortage is poorly understood because the reasons for it are complex and interdependent. The shortage occurs because there is an insufficient number of credentialed teachers to fill vacancies at schools. Unfilled vacancies happen for any number of reason, including reduced attractiveness of teaching as a profession, increases in school enrollment, reductions in class sizes, and excessive number of teachers leaving their schools. The teacher shortage constitutes a crisis because of its negative effects on students, teachers, and the education system at large. This crisis calls for urgent, comprehensive, and sustainable policy solutions.

The first report in this series, The Teacher Shortage Is Real, Large and Growing, and Worse Than We Thought (García and Weiss 2019a), established that current national estimates of the teacher shortage likely understate the magnitude of the problem: When issues such as teacher qualifications and the unequal distribution of highly credentialed teachers across high- and low-poverty schools are taken into consideration, the teacher shortage problem is much more severe than previously recognized. Building on that research, and using the same quality and equity angles, this paper examines challenges schools are facing in trying to recruit, hire, and retain sufficient, qualified teachers, with a particular focus on high-poverty schools, where those struggles are heightened.

This report shows that schools’ staffing efforts are challenged by teachers leaving the profession at high rates and by the reduced pipeline of new teachers as fewer people have entered teaching preparedness pathways in recent years. We also present data suggesting that teachers entering the profession don’t have the same qualifications their peers in years past had, due to the proliferation of nontraditional teacher preparation programs and changes in the requirements for obtaining an initial teaching certificate. We also show staffing trends are affecting the qualifications held by the teaching workforce overall: A lot of teachers quit teaching and some of the teachers who quit are as credentialed or more credentialed than the teachers who stay, and the share of all teachers who are inexperienced has increased over time.

These challenges and changes in the aggregate qualification of the teaching labor force manifest in schools in many ways. Schools are reporting difficulties in staffing their schools and are leaving vacancies unfilled despite actively trying to hire for them. Over time the share of teachers who are newly hired has increased as has the share of teachers who are newly hired and in their first year of teaching. High-poverty schools are hit hardest: They find it harder to fill vacancies than low-poverty schools and schools overall, and they experience higher turnover and attrition than low-poverty schools. These findings suggest that efforts to address teacher shortages must consider how schools are affected by both teacher attrition and turnover and by the shrinking pipeline of new potential teachers and the factors that have eroded the appeal of—and regard for—teaching as a profession for both incoming and acting teachers.

How do struggles to recruit and hire drive the teacher shortage, and why is the shortage a concern?

For schools, the teacher shortage manifests in their inability to staff themselves with teachers who have qualifications appropriate to their specific needs. The number of new teachers a school needs and the qualifications those teachers must have depend on the subject matter and courses the school needs to offer, the size and characteristics of the student body, the state or district requirements that broadened the curriculum or reduced class sizes, the vacancies generated by teachers who left the school or the profession, and other “supply and demand” drivers.2

Net of some of the external or institutional factors just mentioned, the staffing problem arises when vacancies occur against a backdrop of high rates of teacher attrition (teachers quitting teaching altogether) and turnover (teachers leaving their position to another position or school) and a shrinking pool of new teachers with the needed qualifications due to a waning interest in a teaching career. Indeed, high attrition and a dwindling pool of applicants are the two most troubling dynamics of the education labor market and are largely driving the teacher shortage and hence are largely responsible for the costs and consequences of the teacher shortage (Ingersoll 2004, 2014; Sutcher, Darling-Hammond, and Carver-Thomas 2016; Darling-Hammond et al. 2017).

As we saw in the first report, the shortage imposes real costs on teachers themselves, on students, on schools, and on the education system at large. In addition to the economic cost of replacing teachers who are leaving (Carroll 2007; Carver-Thomas and Darling-Hammond 2017; LPI 2017), there are performance costs when highly qualified teachers leave schools. High absolute and net teacher turnover—i.e., overall and when comparing the shares of teachers who leave a school with the share who arrive—harms both the morale of those teachers who stay, and the cohesion of the school as a whole, which makes sense given the central role teachers play in one another’s decisions regarding curriculum, instruction, student assessment, and school governance and policy (Sorensen and Ladd 2018; Kraft and Papay 2014). Net turnover increases a school’s share of inexperienced teachers who are not fully certified or credentialed to teach the subject to which they are assigned, and turnover begets further turnover, substantially weakening the overall quality and ability of the school’s teacher pool (Sorensen and Ladd 2018).3 Turnover also depresses student achievement (Ronfeltd, Loeb, and Wyckoff 2013; Darling-Hammond 1999; Ladd and Sorensen 2016), especially in our highest-poverty schools, with “turnover-induced loss of general and grade-specific experience” as the main driver of declining student achievement (see Sorensen and Ladd 2018, 2, citing Hanushek, Rivkin, and Shiman 2016).4

In this report, we examine the challenges schools face accessing a sufficient pool of qualified applicants, filling vacancies that arise, and retaining credentialed teachers. We also identify disparities in recruitment and attrition between high- and low-poverty schools, which should be expected, given the substantial disparities between working conditions in high-poverty schools and in low-poverty schools (as examined in the forthcoming reports in this series).

Challenges to recruiting and hiring credentialed teachers

How easy or hard it is for schools to recruit and hire strong teachers to fill open positions depends in part on the size and qualifications of the pool of potential new teachers. That is why changes to the pool of potential new teachers, to how well teachers in the pool were prepared, to what requirements they had to meet to access a teaching credential, and to the total number of teachers who need to be recruited all affect the ease or difficulty of filling openings in a school.

The pipeline of potential teachers is shrinking

The diminishing pool of applicants and changes in the characteristics of those applicants over time help to explain some of the challenges to recruitment. Schools will struggle to staff their ranks with well-prepared teachers if fewer individuals are attracted into teaching or if their training and preparation have weakened.

While requirements vary state to state, generally someone must earn a bachelor’s degree from an accredited institution and complete a teacher preparation program (or “teacher certification program,” as referred to in our last report) to be eligible to obtain a certificate to teach. (Teacher preparation programs prepare candidates to meet certification requirements but do not award certificates—only the state can do that. Candidates may complete a program but fail to pass the required certification tests or may fail to meet some other requirements to earn the certification.) All teachers need a bachelor’s degree, but not all teachers need a bachelor’s degree in education. However, a bachelor’s degree in education is a common route into teaching because the teacher preparation program is completed as part of the education major. Persons who wish to be teachers but who did not major in education as an undergraduate may pursue a master’s degree in education or may enroll in an alternative teacher preparation program. Teachers also pursue master’s degrees and doctorates to advance their education. For these reasons, we can glean insights into the popularity of teaching and the strength of the teacher pipeline by looking at the number of people pursing education degrees and enrolling in teacher preparation programs (see footnote 6 and table notes for descriptions of the types of teacher preparation programs).

Both the appeal of education as a discipline and the pool of potential new teachers shrank significantly between the 2008–2009 and 2015–2016 school years, as suggested by Figure A, which shows a dramatic drop in both the number of people awarded degrees in education and the number of people enrolling in and completing teacher preparation programs. From 2008–2009 to 2015–2016, the number of enrollees in teacher preparation programs fell 37.8 percent, and the number of people who completed teacher preparation programs fell 27.4 percent.5

Figure A

Table 1 further unpacks these sharp reductions and provides context. For example it shows that not only did the number of people awarded education degrees fall, the share of education degrees awarded as a percentage of all degrees awarded fell, with the exception of Ph.D.s. (Ph.D.s increased in both total number of degrees and as a share of degrees awarded but constitute a very small percentage of education degrees awarded.) Of all the bachelor’s degrees awarded in 2015–2016, 4.5 percent were in the field of education; of all the master’s degrees awarded, 18.6 percent were in education. These shares were 1.8 and 8.4 percentage points smaller than in 2008–2009, before the teacher shortage crisis developed. (During the 2008–2009 school year school systems were just starting to grapple with the economic recession, which led to big cuts in school spending that in some cases have yet to be fully restored, as noted in Leachman, Masterson and Figueroa 2017 and Leachman and Figueroa 2019). To put it another way, in percent terms, bachelor’s and master’s degrees in education awarded as a share of all degrees fell by roughly a third (28.5 percent and 31.2 percent, respectively) from 2008–2009 to 2015–2016.

Table 1

The table also shows negative but much more intense trends for enrollees in specific types of teacher preparation programs. Although, as shown above, overall enrollees decreased by 37.8 percent from 2008–2009 to 2015–2016, enrollees in traditional programs fell by 44.6 percent, and enrollees in alternative programs offered by institutions of higher education (IHEs) fell by 40.1 percent. When we look at the number of people who completed teacher preparation programs by program type, the changes by program type are closer. Overall, the number of completers decreased by 27.4 percent. Completers of alternative programs at institutions of higher education decreased the most (down by 29.6 percent), followed by completers of traditional programs (down by 27.8 percent), and by completers of alternative programs (down by 22.9 percent).6

The aggregate numbers alone point to a reduction in the size of the pool of teachers. But the qualifications of that pool are also affected by the type and quality of the training of the applicants, which in turn can affect the effectiveness of novice teachers in the classrooms. As shown in the table, the increase of potential teachers who are enrolled in or who have completed alternative training programs is notable. Our first report in this series (García and Weiss 2019a) found a marked increase in the share of current teachers who had followed alternative routes into teaching between 2011–2012 and 2015–2016 (i.e., who went into teaching after completing an alternative teacher preparation program). Although the research on the quality of preparation programs is inconclusive, there are concerns associated with the proliferation of nontraditional programs (Fraser and Lefty 2018).7 Some of these concerns relate to the relative instability of nontraditional-entry teachers as members of the teaching workforce as alternative routes into teaching are associated with higher turnover (Redding and Smith 2016). 8

Other factors that influence the qualifications of the teacher workforce include changes in the standards for becoming a teacher such as licensure examinations and the requirements of preparation programs. Our exploration of Title II data from the U.S. Department of Education (2017c and 2017d) identifies certain trends that could negatively affect teacher qualifications (although more detailed qualitative work would be needed to assess the reasons for, and net impact of, the changes, which is beyond of the scope of this report).

Nevertheless, we found that the number of states requiring content-specific bachelor’s degrees for initial teaching credentials decreased. (If a state requires a content-specific bachelor’s degree, that generally means that if a teacher is to teach a specific subject, such as math, the teacher must have majored in that subject.) Of states with data in 2008–2009 and 2015–2016, fewer states required a content-specific bachelor’s for elementary, middle-level, and secondary level certificates in 2015–2016. Examining the requirements across all initial certificates available, we also noted a large decrease in the share initial teaching certificates requiring a content-specific bachelor’s degree for middle school, which fell from 38.6 percent to 22.8 percent of all initial certificates, a 15.8 percentage-points decrease. Over the same period there were also drops in the share of initial certificates requiring performance assessments (down 16.2 percentage points), supervised clinical experience (down 10.8 percentage points), or a police record examination (down 17.2 percentage points) in order to earn a teaching certificate. However, there was an increase in the share of initial certificates requiring “prescribed coursework” (up 10.8 percentage points) in order to get a teaching certificate.

Hiring teachers is difficult, especially in high-poverty schools

Schools’ hiring patterns help explain the teacher shortage because they reflect the actual school-level need for teachers, the share of schools that are hiring (irrespective of the reasons), and challenges filling vacancies.9 Shortages arise when finding proper, qualified candidates is difficult or when some vacancies remain unfilled, and shortages grow if these circumstances become more challenging over time.10

As shown in Table 2, a large majority of schools report having vacancies to fill, so most are hiring at a given time (about eight in 10 schools report having vacancies for the 2015–2016 school year). And nearly one in 10 (9.4 percent) of those schools that were trying to hire said they were unable to fill a vacancy in at least one field (math, English, etc.) in the 2015–2016 school year. Finally, over a third (36.2 percent) of schools trying to fill vacancies report finding it very difficult to fill a vacancy in at least one field.

Table 2

The data also show that while high-poverty schools were less likely to be hiring than their low-poverty counterparts (i.e., fewer of them reported having teaching vacancies for which teachers were recruited and interviewed), high-poverty schools with vacancies found it more difficult to hire teachers. Well over a third (36.8 percent) of high-poverty schools with vacancies reported that it was “very difficult” to fill at least one of their vacancies versus 34.3 percent of low-poverty schools.

There are also differences between high- and low-poverty schools in the share that are unable to fill vacancies. While these differences are small in absolute terms, they are relatively large. For example, the share of high-poverty schools that had vacancies and report being unable to fill teaching positions in at least one field is 10.5 percent, but this share is greater than the 7.2 percent share in low-poverty schools.

One consequence of this greater challenge in high-poverty schools is their higher share of brand new teachers and teachers who are new hires. Here our analysis coincides with what Sorensen and Ladd found in their 2018 study. The share of all teachers who were newly hired teachers (new to the school completing the survey) was 11.2 percent, on average, in the 2015–2016 school year (Table 3). But that share was two percentage points higher in high-poverty schools (12.1 percent versus 10.1 percent in low-poverty schools). And, when we look at the share of all teachers who are not only newly hired teachers but in their first year of teaching, we see again that the share is higher in high-poverty schools (5.3 percent versus 3.7 percent). Finally, in high-poverty schools, the share of newly hired teachers who are in their first year of teaching is much higher than in low-poverty schools (39.8 percent versus just 33.8 percent). Although the differences are small in relative terms, these three measures together point to an added source of disadvantage for low-income children and the schools that serve them.

Table 3

Challenges to hiring teachers have increased over time

Not only is hiring a challenge, but the data show that it has become substantially harder in the past few years. First, the share of schools reporting any vacancy increased by more than 11 percentage points between the 2011–2012 and 2015–2016 school years (from 67.2 percent to 78.8 percent, top panel Figure B). Even more troubling, the share of schools that were trying to hire but reported an unfilled vacancy in at least one position tripled during this period (from 3.1 percent to 9.4 percent). And the share of hiring schools reporting that they had found it “very difficult” to fill at least one vacancy also increased—almost doubling (from 19.7 percent to 36.2 percent). Relatedly, the share of all teachers who were newly hired teachers increased between the 2011–2012 and 2015–2016 school years (from 7.2 percent to 11.2 percent), as did the share of all teachers who were newly hired and in their first year of teaching (from 4.0 percent to 4.7 percent), indicating that the teaching workforce became less experienced over this period.

Figure B

Retaining credentialed teachers is difficult

Excessive attrition is another troubling dynamic plaguing teacher labor markets and a major driver of shortages (Ingersoll 2004, 2014; Sutcher, Darling-Hammond, and Carver-Thomas 2016; Darling-Hammond et al. 2017). Attrition and turnover—leaving the profession altogether or switching schools—are high in teaching in both absolute and relative terms. Turnover and attrition have been increasing over time (Goldring, Taie, and Riddles 2014) and are higher for U.S. teachers than among teachers in other countries (Darling-Hammond et al. 2017).11 Teachers see much higher attrition than their peers in most occupations: About 30 percent of college graduates who became teachers were not in the profession five years later, compared with 14 percent of pharmacists, 16 percent of engineers, and 19 percent of nurses and lawyers (Ingersoll 2014).12 Among the other professions Ingersoll described in his study, the only ones with higher attrition rates are secretaries, child care workers, paralegals, and correctional officers. It is worth noting that these other professions, with the exception of correctional officers, are very heavily female and relatively low paying, unlikely a coincidental association and one that affirms the findings in our later reports in this series about teachers’ insufficient pay, weak supports, and even lack of societal respect.

Teacher turnover and attrition rates are high, causing staff instability and increasing pressure to hire

After the 2011–2012 school year, 6.5 percent of teachers left the school but remained in the profession (the measure of turnover), and 7.3 percent left the teaching profession (the measure of attrition), for a total of 13.8 percent of teachers lost to turnover or attrition generating the potential need for a replacement (Figure C). As in other aspects of teacher shortages, however, rates vary between low- and high-poverty schools. In low-poverty schools, 88.1 percent of teachers who were teaching when the 2011–2012 Schools and Staffing Survey was administered were at the same school the following year, compared with 84.6 percent in high-poverty schools. To put it another way, the aggregate turnover and attrition rate is 15.3 in high-poverty schools—that’s 3.4 percentage points higher than the aggregate turnover and attrition rate in low-poverty schools (11.9 percent), creating more potential vacancies in high-poverty schools than in better-off schools.13

Figure C

Teacher turnover and attrition rates affect the overall qualifications of the teaching labor force

More data are needed to determine whether attrition causes certain schools to lose teachers with qualifications associated with effective teaching. As suggested by the literature and noted in our first paper in this series, overall, the credentials of teachers who stay in teaching are stronger than the credentials of teachers who quit the profession, which would indicate no leakage in teaching overall through attrition. 14

Table 4 provides a detailed look at the shares of teachers with various qualifications (certification, experience, and educational background, as in our first report) by teacher status, i.e., whether the teacher stays in the school, leaves the school but stays in the profession, or leaves teaching altogether. The table also provides shares of teachers with an additional qualification—certification by the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards (NBPTS) in at least one content area. (The NBPTS is a nongovernmental organization that administers National Board certification, a voluntary national assessment program that certifies teachers who demonstrate advanced knowledge, skills, and practice in their certificate area.)

Table 4

As the table shows, the qualifications of teachers who stay, leave the school, or quit the profession differ, but schools are not consistently losing strong credentials due to attrition, because the qualifications of teachers staying at the school are the strongest (with the exception of teachers who are NBTPS).15 On average, 92.1 percent of teachers who stay at the same school have a regular, state, or advanced professional certificate (i.e., are fully certified); 86.1 percent took a traditional route into teaching, 80.9 percent are experienced, and 69.5 percent have an educational background in the subject of main assignment. Among teachers who left the school or quit teaching, smaller shares are fully certified (88.1 percent and 90.3 percent, respectively), have taken a traditional route into teaching (82.5 percent and 82.9 percent), are experienced (66.1 percent and 77.2 percent), and have an educational background in the subject of main assignment (66.9 percent and 63.1 percent, respectively).16

Earlier in this report we showed that turnover and attrition are higher in high-poverty schools (see discussion around Figure C). Here we discuss how turnover and attrition could be responsible for some leakage of credentials from high-poverty schools. One reason is the weaker link between higher credentials and retention in high-poverty schools. As we showed in our last paper in this series (see García and Weiss 2019a, particularly Table 2), while higher credentials deter attrition (in our analysis, shown descriptively, not causally), this link between quality and retention was weaker in high-poverty schools.17 Also, because, just as teachers who stay in high-poverty schools are less qualified than teachers who stay in low-poverty schools (García and Weiss 2019a, Figure D), teachers in high-poverty schools who end up quitting the profession are more qualified with respect to certification than teachers who in low-poverty schools who quit the profession. See Appendix Table 3, which replicates Table 2 from Garcia and Weiss 2019a; Appendix Figure A, which replicates Figure D in Garcia and Weiss 2019a; and Appendix Figure B, which provides data on teachers in high- and low-poverty schools who quit.18

It’s hard to determine exactly how the exit of credentialed teachers affects the qualifications of the teacher labor force overall and in high- and low-poverty schools because the qualifications of the overall teacher pool also depend on the qualifications of the teachers coming into the workforce and into these schools. But as Ladd and Sorensen (2018) find, “all schools experiencing periods of high turnover are more likely to hire not-fully-licensed teachers,” and “schools serving large proportions of low-income student are much more likely to do so. Since schools serving high-poverty student populations already experience above average turnover rates, these differential impacts are particularly worrying” (p. 20). In short, high-poverty schools would need to compensate for these negative trends by hiring greater shares of credentialed teachers to keep up with their wealthier counterparts, and we know that doing so would be extremely unlikely.

Conclusion

In practice, the teacher shortage manifests in schools as an inability to be staffed adequately. A school may need to hire more teachers for any one or more of the following reasons: school enrollment increases, teachers leave, the curriculum expands and teachers are needed in new fields, a policy reduces class size, the school’s budget increases, etc. And for any reason or combination of reasons—insufficient teachers coming into teaching, excessive numbers of teachers quitting the profession because of worsening working conditions, etc.—those needed teachers are increasingly difficult for a school to find.19 This imbalance creates a shortage.

This report focuses on the challenges schools face filling their vacancies (or meeting their staffing needs) primarily due to two trends: more teachers leaving schools and the profession and fewer people entering the teaching profession. It also raises three concerns on top of the leakage of teachers from the profession and the dwindling pool or potential new teachers. First is the potential change or decline in the qualifications of the teaching workforce, driven by increased churn (turnover and attrition) in the teacher labor market, by changes in the strength of the teaching preparation programs, by alterations in the requirements to accessing an initial teaching credential, and by the slight loss of credentialed teachers who leave the profession. Second is the increased difficulty that schools are having filling vacancies, which in turn has increased the pressure on schools to hire teachers with fewer credentials and thus affected the overall qualifications of the teaching workforce. Third is the fact the high-poverty schools are in an especially difficult position: they are more likely to have vacancies and have a hard time filling vacancies, they are more likely to fill positions with newly hired teachers (and newly hired teachers in their first year of teaching), their teachers are more likely to leave the school or leave the profession, and, as shown in García and Weiss 2019a, they are more likely to face a shortage of highly qualified teachers.

In our next reports, we will discuss the factors that make it hard for schools—and especially for high poverty schools—to attract and retain teachers, and, relatedly, why teachers want to leave the profession and why people are less inclined to pursue a teaching career in the first place. In brief, we will show that the supply of new teachers is not meeting the demand at least in part because teacher pay and working conditions and the prestige of teaching are deteriorating. We argue that policymakers are failing to meet the needs of their constituents by failing to address the factors that are prompting teachers to quit and dissuading people from entering the profession, by underestimating what this job involves and by not supporting efforts to professionalize teaching.

About the authors

Emma García is an education economist at the Economic Policy Institute, where she specializes in the economics of education and education policy. Her research focuses on the production of education (cognitive and noncognitive skills); evaluation of educational interventions (early childhood, K–12, and higher education); equity; returns to education; teacher labor markets; and cost-effectiveness and cost–benefit analysis in education. She has held research positions at the Center for Benefit-Cost Studies of Education, the Campaign for Educational Equity, the National Center for the Study of Privatization in Education, and the Community College Research Center; consulted for MDRC, the World Bank, the Inter-American Development Bank, and the National Institute for Early Education Research; and served as an adjunct faculty member at the McCourt School of Public Policy, Georgetown University. She received her Ph.D. in economics and education from Columbia University’s Teachers College.

Elaine Weiss is the lead policy analyst for income security at the National Academy of Social Insurance, where she spearheads projects on Social Security, unemployment insurance, and workers’ compensation. Prior to her work at the academy, Weiss was the national coordinator for the Broader Bolder Approach (BBA) to Education, a campaign launched by the Economic Policy Institute, from 2011–2017. BBA promoted a comprehensive, evidence-based set of policies to allow all children to thrive in school and life. Weiss has coauthored and authored EPI and BBA reports on early achievement gaps and the flaws in market-oriented education reforms. She is co-authoring Broader, Bolder, Better, a book with former Massachusetts Secretary of Education Paul Reville that will be published by Harvard Education Press in June 2019. Weiss came to BBA from the Pew Charitable Trusts, where she served as project manager for Pew’s Partnership for America’s Economic Success campaign. She has a Ph.D. in public policy from the George Washington University Trachtenberg School and a J.D. from Harvard Law School.

Acknowledgments

The authors are grateful to Lora Engdahl for her edits to this piece and for her extraordinary help and contributions to structuring the contents of this series of papers. We are also thankful to John Schmitt for his supervision of this project and to Lawrence Mishel for his guidance in earlier stages of the development of this research. We acknowledge Julia Wolfe for her assistance with the tables and figures in this report, Kayla Blado for her work disseminating the report and her assistance with the media, John Carlo Mandapat for the infographic that accompanies this report, and the rest of the communications staff at EPI for their contributions to the different components of this report and the teacher shortage series. We appreciate EPI communications director Pedro da Costa’s coordination of all the steps required for the publication of this report and of the series.

Data sources used in this report

The analyses presented in this report mainly rely on the Schools and Staffing Survey (SASS) 2011–2012, the Teacher Follow-up Survey (TFS) 2012–2013, and the National Teacher and Principal Survey (NTPS) 2015–2016. The surveys collect data on and from teachers, principals, and schools in the 50 states and the District of Columbia.20 All three surveys were conducted by the U.S. Census Bureau for the U.S. Department of Education. The survey results are housed in the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), which is part of the Department of Education’s Institute of Education Sciences (IES).

The NTPS is the redesigned SASS, with a focus on “flexibility, timeliness, and integration with other Department of Education data” (NCES 2019). Both the NTPS and SASS include very detailed questionnaires at the teacher level, school level, and principal level, and the SASS also includes very detailed questionnaires at the school district level (NCES 2017). The TFS survey, which is the source of data on teachers who stay or quit, was conducted a year after the 2011–2012 SASS survey to collect information on the employment and teaching status, plans, and opinions of teachers in the SASS. Following the first administration of the NTPS, no follow-up study was done, preventing us from conducting an updated analysis of teachers by teaching status the year after the NTPS. NCES plans to conduct a TFS again in the 2020–2021 school year, following the 2019–2020 NTPS.

The 2015–2016 NTPS includes public and charter schools only, while the SASS and TFS include all schools (public, private, and charter schools).21 We restrict our analyses to public schools and teachers in public noncharter schools.

Digest of Education Statistics 2018

The Digest of Education Statistics 2018 (NCES 2018) provides “a compilation of statistical information covering the broad field of American education from prekindergarten through graduate school.” We use information included in “Chapter 3 Postsecondary Education.”

In the tables consulted, the information is available from 1970 to 2016–2017, which we reproduce in the appendix. In the body of the report, we focus on academic years 2008–2009 and 2015–2016 (the first year serves as a pre-recession marker and allows us to match it with the eldest information available in the Title II data (see below); 2015–2016 allows us to match it with the most recent NTPS data). Values for other years, including the SASS’s 2011–2012 data, the TFS’s 2012–2013 data, and several rates of change, are also shown in the appendix. The tables consulted are:

• Table 322.10. Bachelor’s degrees conferred by postsecondary institutions, by field of study: Selected years, 1970–71 through 2016–17 (available at: https://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d18/tables/dt18_322.10.asp)
• Table 323.10. Master’s degrees conferred by postsecondary institutions, by field of study: Selected years, 1970–71 through 2016–17 (available at: https://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d18/tables/dt18_323.10.asp)
• Table 324.10. Doctor’s degrees conferred by postsecondary institutions, by field of study: Selected years, 1970–71 through 2016–17 (available at: https://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d18/tables/dt18_324.10.asp)

Title II data

The Title II of the Higher Education Act of 1965 (HEA), “as amended in 2008 by the Higher Education Opportunity Act (HEOA), requires states to report annually on key elements of their teacher preparation programs and requirements for initial teacher credentialing, kindergarten through 12th grade.” (U.S. Department of Education 2016)

The U.S. Department of Education maintains a Title II website with a “Data Tools” tab linking to Excel spreadsheets with data on various measures for academic years 2008–2009 (the first available year of data) and subsequent years, up to the most recent available year (academic year 2015–2016). We use the spreadsheets for enrollees and completers22 of teacher preparation programs, for requirements for an initial teaching credential, and for states requiring content-specific bachelor’s degrees for all initial teaching credentials.

The “Data Tools” tab can be found here ( https://title2.ed.gov/Public/DataTools/Tables.aspx) and is cited as U.S. Department of Education 2017e in the references section. Specific spreadsheets used are:

• U.S. Department of Education 2017b (https://title2.ed.gov/Public/DataTools/NewExcels/EnrollmentProgramType.aspx)
• U.S. Department of Education 2017a (https://title2.ed.gov/Public/DataTools/NewExcels/CompletersProgramType.aspx)
• U.S. Department of Education 2017c (https://title2.ed.gov/Public/DataTools/NewExcels/Requirements.aspx)
• U.S. Department of Education 2017d (https://title2.ed.gov/Public/DataTools/NewExcels/ContentDegrees.aspx)

Appendix

Appendix Figure A

Appendix Figure B

Appendix Table 1

Appendix Table 2

Appendix Table 3

Endnotes

1. For a more detailed review of the media coverage of the shortage, see García and Weiss 2019a.

2. Teacher demand-side drivers are linked to the need for teachers, i.e., how many teachers are needed for a given number of students with a given set of needs, or with the size of school budgets. Supply-side drivers are linked to the number of qualified people who are available and willing to teach, i.e., the number of people interested in and training to be teachers and the attachment existing teachers feel to the profession.

3. Sorensen and Ladd note that class sizes did not generally increase as a result of high teacher turnover in North Carolina, likely because of state policies that preclude increasing class size to accommodate teacher vacancies. On average, across math and English language arts (ELA) classes in middle school, 20.9 percent of teachers have three or fewer years of experience, 12.0 percent have lateral or provisional licenses, and 29.5 percent are teaching out of their subject of certification. Licensure exam scores of middle school math and ELA teachers are, on average, 0.13 standard deviations below the mean of all teachers. For a comparison with national-level shares, see García and Weiss 2019a.

4. This finding contrasts with prior suggestions by Hanushek and others that, because teachers who leave tend to be less able and skilled, their exit will improve the quality of a schools’ teaching pool (Hanushek and Rivkin 2007). This perspective reduces pressure to adopt policies that encourage the retention of teachers, overlooking the trade-off between the qualifications and quality of teachers who leave and those who come (Sorensen and Ladd 2018).

5. Notwithstanding this evidence of the short-term decrease in people awarded teaching degrees or completing teacher preparation programs, Cowan et al. (2016) note that “teacher production has grown steadily since the mid-1980s.” They add that this increase “has more than kept up with increases in student enrollment in public schools.” The long-term view provides a broader context but in a way hides short-term issues that more closely affect today’s teacher labor markets. Indeed, the short-term trend is one in which the number of pupils increased, so unless there is an intention to scale back staffing, any decline of the teacher pool is problematic.

6. Traditional teacher preparation programs are typically undergraduate programs offered by institutions of higher education (IHEs) and entered into by individuals who enter college with the goal of becoming a teacher (U.S. Department of Education 2016). (Programs at IHEs leading to a master’s of the arts degree in education are also often considered traditional programs.) Alternative programs are almost exclusively post-baccalaureate programs that require a bachelor’s degree for admission to the program, offered by IHEs, private or nonprofit organizations, state or local education agencies, or partnerships of entities. (For main differences between traditional and alternative teacher preparation programs, see U.S. Department of Education 2015 and U.S. Department of Education 2016.) The requirements for alternative routes to a teaching certificate vary significantly across states.

7. Teachers from alternative routes have been found to be more effective in some studies (Xu, Hannaway, and Taylor 2011), as effective as teachers from traditional programs in other research (Whitford, Zhang, and Katsiyannis 2017, Clark et al. 2017; Kane, Rockoff, and Staiger 2008), and less effective than their peers (Darling-Hammond et al. 2005). After assessing the pros and cons of both types of programs, Fraser and Lefty (2018) acknowledge that “advocates for alternative approaches claim that education schools are hopelessly stuck and unlikely to reform, and that alternative routes represent the optimal way to prepare new teachers for twenty-first-century classrooms” but conclude that “the university is the proper home for teacher preparation and that the rise of alternative routes is a mostly negative development.

8. Moreover, in our analysis of the National Teacher and Principal Survey (NTPS) 2015–2016 data (to be published in a forthcoming paper in this series), we find that, on average, teachers who enter teaching from alternative programs feel less prepared to do their jobs in the classroom (García and Weiss 2019b).

9. Vacancies and hires may happen for any of a number of reasons, including a school’s need to replace teachers who left the school or quit teaching, to increase the number of teachers in order to offer additional subjects or reduce the student-to-teacher ratio, to adapt to increases in student enrollment, etc. These factors, which differ across schools, may point to greater difficulties hiring in some schools, but our data do not allow us to explore vacancies that arise due to curriculum changes and other factors mentioned in this note.

10. A school may end up filling in a vacancy in a temporary manner, or may make some adjustment to cover the vacancy, for example by expanding a class size or finding an underprepared teacher.

11. See Ingersoll (2014) for a comparison of attrition among teachers and their peers in most occupations (discussed later in this report). See Goldring, Taie, and Riddles (2014) for the evolution of rates of stayers, movers, and leavers among public school teachers between 1988–1989 and 2012–2013 (Table 1 in their report). See Darling-Hammond et al. (2017) for some notes on the attrition and turnover rates in the U.S. and other jurisdictions. Some of the comparisons yield only modest gaps.

12. These shares are based on data that follows individuals over time, whereas the information in Table 4 is based on the characteristics of the 2011–2012 teaching cohort. They offer complementary information to each other.

13. Using the SASS data and classifying schools by eligibility of Title I funds, Sutcher et al. (2016) find that attrition of full-time teachers was approximately 55 percent higher in high-poverty schools (schools eligible for Title I funds) than in low-poverty schools (schools ineligible for Title I). Using data from North Carolina, Sorensen and Ladd (2018) find that “an urban school with high levels of student poverty faces an average turnover rate of over 34 percent versus just above 20 percent in low-poverty rural schools” (p. 13). Title I of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965 (20 U.S.C. 6301 et seq.) provides financial assistance to local educational agencies (LEAs) and public schools with high numbers or percentages of poor children to help ensure that all children meet challenging state academic content and student academic achievement standards.

14. See summary in García and Weiss (2019a). A caveat is that the credentials by teaching status are not independent from the reasons why teachers stay, quit, or leave. For example, teachers who are close to retirement are likely to have more experience, be fully certified, etc.).

15. The share of teachers who are certified by the NBPTS is larger among teachers who leave the profession than among teachers who stay (18.3 percent versus 16.6; this may be driven by teachers who are retiring).

16. Early career teachers are more likely to quit than middle-career teachers (Allensworth, Ponisciak, and Mazzeo 2009; Guarino, Santibáñez, and Daley, 2006; Ingersoll 2001). Podolsky et al. 2016 estimate that attrition rates after five years in teaching are “at least” 19 percent using longitudinal data and explain that the rate with national cross-sectional data was about 30 percent (Podolsky et al. 2016; Darling-Hammond and Sykes 2003).

17. As we noted in our previous study, “in both types of schools, the credentials of teachers who stay in the school are better than those of teachers who quit teaching altogether. But the differences are narrower for teachers in high-poverty schools (with the exception of the share of teachers who majored in their subject of main assignment).” (García and Weiss 2019a)

18. The share of certified teachers who quit is larger (a gap of 0.4 percentage points), and the share of NBPTS certified teachers is larger (by 6.1 percentage points). The share of teachers who entered the profession following alternative certification programs is smaller (by 11.1 percentage points), and a substantially smaller share has an educational background in the subject of main assignment (by 9.5 percentage points).

19. The shortage could occur even if demand were decreasing or staying constant, if supply decreased more drastically, or if supply stayed constant (or increased insufficiently). A shortage can be explained starting from a change in demand, or starting from a change in supply, as it is a gap, or difference, or imbalance between two curves.

20. The 2015–2016 NTPS does not produce state-representative estimates. The forthcoming 2017–2018 NTPS will support state-level estimates.

21. The forthcoming 2017–2018 NTPS additionally includes the private sector.

22. Information for completers is available for school years before 2008–2009, but not for the breakdown by type of institution shown in the tables.

References

Allensworth, Ellen, Stephen Ponisciak, and Christopher Mazzeo. 2009. The Schools Teachers Leave: Teacher Mobility in Chicago Public Schools. Consortium on Chicago School Research at the University of Chicago Urban Education Institute, June 2009.

Carroll, T.G. 2007. Policy Brief: The High Cost of Teacher Turnover. National Commission on Teaching and America’s Future.

Carver-Thomas, Desiree, and Linda Darling-Hammond. 2017. Teacher Turnover: Why It Matters and What We Can Do About It. Learning Policy Institute, August 2017.

Clark, Melissa A., Eric Isenberg, Albert Y. Liu, Libby Makowsky, and Marykate Zukiewicz. 2017. Impacts of the Teach for America Investing in Innovations Scale-Up. Mathematica Policy Research, February 2017.

Cowan, James, Dan Goldhaber, Kyle Hayes, and Roddy Theobald. 2016. “Missing Elements in the Discussion of Teacher Shortages.” Educational Researcher 45, no. 8: 460–462. https://doi.org/10.3102/0013189×16679145.

Darling-Hammond, Linda, Dion Burns, Carol Campbell, A. Lin Goodwin, Karen Hammerness, Ee-Ling Low, Ann McIntyre, Mistilina Sato, and Ken Zeichner. 2017. Empowered Educators: How High-Performing Systems Shape Teaching Quality Around the World, 1st Edition. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Darling-Hammond, Linda. 1999. Teacher Quality and Student Achievement: A Review of State Policy Evidence. Center for the Study of Teaching and Policy, University of Washington, December 1999.

Darling-Hammond, Linda, Deborah J. Holtzman, Su Jin Gatlin, and Julian Vasquez Heilig. 2005. Does Teacher Preparation Matter? Evidence about Teacher Certification, Teach for America, and Teacher Effectiveness. Education Policy Analysis Archives 13, no. 42. https://doi.org/10.14507/epaa.v13n42.2005.

Darling-Hammond, Linda, and Gary Sykes. 2003. “Wanted: A National Teacher Supply Policy for Education: The Right Way to Meet the ‘Highly Qualified Teacher’ Challenge.” Education Policy Analysis Archives 11, no. 33.

Fraser, James W., and Lauren Lefty. 2018. Three Turbulent Decades in the Preparation of American Teachers: Two Historians Examine Reforms in Education Schools and the Emergence of Alternative Routes to Teaching. Johns Hopkins School of Education, Institute for Education Policy, September 2018.

García, Emma, and Elaine Weiss. 2019a. The Teacher Shortage Is Real, Large and Growing, and Worse Than We Thought: Report 1 in the “Perfect Storm in the Teacher Labor Market” series. Economic Policy Institute, March 2019.

García, Emma, and Elaine Weiss. 2019b. Insufficient Teacher Preparation and Support Challenge Recruitment and Drive Exits, Especially in High-Poverty Schools. Report 5 in the “Perfect Storm in the Teacher Labor Market” series. Economic Policy Institute, forthcoming 2019.

Goldring, Rebecca, Soheyla Taie, and Minsun Riddles. 2014. Teacher Attrition and Mobility: Results From the 2012–13 Teacher Follow-up Survey (NCES 2014-077). U.S. Department of Education. Washington, DC: National Center for Education Statistics.

Guarino, Cassandra M., Lucrecia Santibáñez, and Glenn A. Daley. 2006. “Teacher Recruitment and Retention: A Review of the Recent Empirical Literature.” Review of Educational Research 76, no. 2: 173–208.

Hanushek, Eric A., and Steven G. Rivkin. 2007. “Pay, Working Conditions, and Teacher Quality.” The Future of Children 17, no. 1: 69–86.

Hanushek, Eric A., Steven G. Rivkin, and Jeffrey C. Shiman. 2016. “Dynamic Effects of Teacher Turnover on the Quality of Instruction.” National Center for Analysis of Longitudinal Data in Education Research (CALDER) Working Paper no. 170, November 2016.

Ingersoll, Richard M. 2001. “Teacher Turnover and Teacher Shortages: An Organizational Analysis.” American Educational Research Journal 38, no. 3: 499–534. https://doi.org/10.3102/00028312038003499.

Ingersoll, Richard M. 2004. “Revolving Doors and Leaky Buckets.” In Letters to the Next President: What We Can Do about the Real Crisis in Public Education, edited by Carl D. Glickman, 141–150. New York: Teachers College Press.

Ingersoll, Richard M. 2014. “Why Do High-Poverty Schools Have Difficulty Staffing Their Classrooms with Qualified Teachers?” Presentation for panel discussion How Do We Get Experienced, Accomplished Teachers into High-Need Schools?,” Albert Shanker Institute, October 8, 2014.

Kane, Thomas J., Jonah E. Rockoff, and Douglas O. Staiger. 2008. “What Does Certification Tell Us About Teacher Effectiveness? Evidence from New York City.” Economics of Education Review 27, no. 6: 615–631.

Kraft, Matthew A., and John P. Papay. 2014. “Can Professional Environments in Schools Promote Teacher Development? Explaining Heterogeneity in Returns to Teaching Experience.” Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis 36, no. 4: 476–500.

Ladd, Helen F., and Lucy C. Sorensen. 2016. “Returns to Teacher Experience: Student Achievement and Motivation in Middle School.” Education Finance and Policy 12, no. 2: 241–279.

Leachman, Michael, Kathleen Masterson, and Eric Figueroa. 2017. A Punishing Decade for School Funding. Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, November 2017.

Leachman, Michael, and Eric Figueroa. 2019. K-12 School Funding Up in Most 2018 Teacher-Protest States, But Still Well Below Decade Ago. Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, November 2017.

Learning Policy Institute (LPI). 2017. What’s the Cost of Teacher Turnover? (calculator). September 2017.

National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) (U.S. Department of Education). 2017. Documentation for the 2011–12 Schools and Staffing Survey. March 2017.

National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) (U.S. Department of Education). 2018. Digest of Education Statistics: 2018.

National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) (U.S. Department of Education). 2019. “NTPS Overview” (web page), accessed March 2019.

Podolsky, Anne, Tara Kini, Joseph Bishop, and Linda Darling-Hammond. 2016. Solving the Teacher Shortage: How to Attract and Retain Excellent Educators. Learning Policy Institute, September 2016.

Redding, Christopher, and Thomas M. Smith. 2016. “Easy In, Easy Out: Are Alternatively Certified Teachers Turning Over at Increased Rates?” American Educational Research Journal 53, no. 4: 1086–1125. https://doi.org/10.3102/0002831216653206.

Ronfeldt, Matthew, Susanna Loeb, and James Wyckoff. 2013. “How Teacher Turnover Harms Student Achievement.” American Educational Research Journal 50, no. 1: 4–36.

Sorensen, Lucy C., and Helen Ladd. 2018. “The Hidden Costs of Teacher Turnover.” National Center for Analysis of Longitudinal Data in Education Research (CALDER) Working Paper no. 203-0918-1, September 2018.

Sutcher, Leib, Linda Darling-Hammond, and Desiree Carver-Thomas. 2016. A Coming Crisis in Teaching? Teacher Supply, Demand, and Shortages in the U.S. Learning Policy Institute, September 2016.

U.S. Department of Education. 2015. Alternative Teacher Preparation Programs, June 2015.

U.S. Department of Education. 2016. Preparing and Credentialing the Nation’s Teachers: The Secretary’s 10th Report on Teacher Quality, August 2016.

U.S. Department of Education. 2017a. “Completers, by State, by Program Type” [data table]. Data from the Higher Education Act Title II State Report Card (SRC) Reporting System. Spreadsheet downloadable at https://title2.ed.gov/Public/DataTools/NewExcels/CompletersProgramType.aspx.

U.S. Department of Education. 2017b. “Enrollment, by State, by Program Type” [data table]. Data from the Higher Education Act Title II State Report Card (SRC) Reporting System. Spreadsheet downloadable at https://title2.ed.gov/Public/DataTools/NewExcels/EnrollmentProgramType.aspx.

U.S. Department of Education. 2017c. “Requirements for an Initial Teaching Credential, by State” [data table]. Data from the Higher Education Act Title II State Report Card (SRC) Reporting System. Spreadsheet downloadable at https://title2.ed.gov/Public/DataTools/NewExcels/Requirements.aspx.

U.S. Department of Education. 2017d. “States Requiring Content Specific Bachelor’s Degrees for All Initial Teaching Credentials” [data table]. Data from the Higher Education Act Title II State Report Card (SRC) Reporting System. Spreadsheet downloadable at https://title2.ed.gov/Public/DataTools/NewExcels/ContentDegrees.aspx.

U.S. Department of Education. 2017e. Higher Education Act Title II State Report Card (SRC) Reporting System [data series]. Office of Postsecondary Education. Data accessed via data tools at https://title2.ed.gov/Public/DataTools/Tables.aspx.

Whitford, Denise K., Dake Zhang, and Antonis Katsiyannis. 2017. “Traditional vs. Alternative Teacher Preparation Programs: A Meta-Analysis.” Journal of Child and Family Studies 27, no. 3: 671–685.

Xu, Zeyu, Jane Hannaway, and Colin Taylor. 2011. “Making a Difference? The Effects of Teach For America in High School.” Journal of Policy Analysis and Management 30, no. 3: 447–469. https://doi.org/10.1002/pam.20585.

The estimated teacher shortage of about 110,000 teachers may seem small in a labor force of about 3.8 million. But its sudden appearance after years of teacher surpluses and its consequences are certainly a large cause for concern. Teacher shortages depress student performance, reduce teachers’ effectiveness, alter the cohesion of the school, and consume economic resources that could be better deployed elsewhere. These consequences also make it more difficult to build a solid reputation for teaching and to professionalize it, further perpetuating shortages. Finally, the teacher shortage reflects school districts’ failure to make the kinds of investments (in smaller class sizes, in resources to meet the needs of students, and in teacher development) that the expanding teacher protest movement seeks.

EPI has published the first in a series of reports that will document some of the reasons why the demand for teachers is outstripping the supply. In our report we argue that when issues such as teacher qualifications and equity across communities are taken into consideration, shortages are more concerning than we thought.

If we consider the declining share of teachers who hold the credentials associated with teacher quality and effective teaching (they are fully certified, took the standard route into teaching, have more than five years of experience, and they have an educational background in the subject they teach), the teacher shortage grows. If we compare the share of these teachers in high-needs schools (schools with a large share of students from families living in poverty) with other schools, we see that the shortages there are even more severe in those high-needs schools.

Our research shows that as of the 2015–2016 school year, one in eleven (8.8 percent) of K–12 teachers in the country are not fully certified, over one-fifth (22.4 percent) of teachers are inexperienced (with five or fewer years of experience (22.4 percent), 17.1 percent followed an alternative route into teaching, and about one in three (31.5 percent) of teachers do not have an educational background in their subject of main assignment. Teacher quality, as measured by these shares, either eroded in recent years in some respects, or failed to improve in others, thus growing the teacher shortage. Children in high-poverty schools are consistently, albeit modestly in some cases, more likely to be taught by lower-credentialed and inexperienced teachers, meaning that the shortage of qualified teachers is more acute in high-poverty schools.

Table 1

When we realize that the teacher shortage problem is much worse than we thought, we understand that addressing it becomes more urgent than we thought. Whether teacher shortages result from excessive turnover or attrition, insufficient hires, unattractive working conditions, widened curriculums, student population increases, or other influences, their existence strongly suggests that we are not living up to our ideal of providing a sound quality education to all children. If we do not act, some of the causes projected to get worse will get worse, and thus threaten to turn shortages into a new ingrained characteristic of our education system.

Our goal with this series of reports is to provide evidence of the increasing challenges school districts are facing as they seek to hire teachers, the lack of interest in becoming a teacher, the increasing exodus from teaching, and what conditions might be behind these trends so that policymakers can design effective policy interventions. Research such as this can support—but not replace—the importance of listening to teachers. In their meaningful ongoing protests, they continue to teach us very useful lessons about potential long-term fixes to existing shortages.