Addressing K-12 teacher shortages and improving workforce development are top of mind for state higher education leaders as the 2023 legislative sessions begin, according to a new survey from the State Higher Education Executive Officers Association.

Roughly 95% of surveyed higher education leaders called those issues either important or very important. Filling out the remaining top five most important issues were state funding for financial aid programs, state operating support for public colleges, and the value proposition of higher education.

Worker shortages during the pandemic fell hard on the teaching profession. An August working paper from the Annenberg Institute at Brown University estimated 36,000 K-12 teaching positions are vacant and roughly 163,000 roles are filled by underqualified teachers.

These issues are critical to higher education, SHEEO notes. Colleges rely on the K-12 system to prepare students for their curriculum. Meanwhile, colleges are also responsible for helping graduate more qualified teachers.

State lawmakers are attempting to address these issues. Michigan lawmakers, for instance, recently approved a 2023 state budget providing $305 million to pay tuition and other costs for people who want to be teachers, The Center Square reported.

The online survey was sent to 61 SHEEO members in late November and closed in mid-December.

The special education teacher shortage is at such a critical level, it's the biggest issue facing the National Association of State Directors of Special Education, said Executive Director John Eisenberg. 

"We're seeing a crisis of epic proportions in the field of education in terms of shortages," said Eisenberg, a former Virginia state director of special education.

Yet, from this crisis, several positive developments have emerged, Eisenberg and others say. 

Namely, it has brought administrators in state agencies and district offices together to forge solutions. The teacher shortage, coupled with the pandemic, have accelerated collaborations from the past decade to chip away at the siloing of special education, Eisenberg said.

"Superintendents, local directors, everyone had to address the issue en masse," he said. "It got to such a level of critical shortages, that you couldn't even open school if you did not work together to at least come up with some creative solutions." 

And some of those creative solutions have the potential to at long last make sure schools have enough teachers trained to specifically teach students with disabilities, educators say. 

Nonetheless, many barriers remain. Low pay, poor working conditions and lack of mentoring support — especially for new special educators — continue to challenge recruitment and retention efforts, Eisenberg said. 

Prohibiting emergency licenses

School districts carry much of the responsibility for making sure classrooms have enough qualified special educators to meet the individualized needs of students with disabilities. But state education offices play vital roles when it comes to funding and policy. They also are ultimately responsible for ensuring states meet federal requirements when it comes to special educator qualifications.

Officials in Indiana knew the state was not fulfilling these requirements under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act. It had been issuing emergency teaching licenses for decades that allowed educators to lead special education classrooms without being certified for special education instruction and services. 

But in 2021, a group of educators approached state leaders with concerns about unqualified special educators. In response, the state announced it would end its dependency on emergency licenses to solve teacher shortages and make sure every special educator was properly qualified. 

And the change was going to happen in just one year, meaning starting this school year, the state no longer issued emergency teaching permits for special education. "Sometimes as states, we take way too long to solve problems," said Indiana Secretary of Education Katie Jenner. "This was like, 'Hey, we have this amount of time. That's all. We're going to turn it around pretty quickly.’"

To start, the state sought feedback and input from local administrators, as well as advocacy groups, parents and students. Indiana officials also focused on clearly communicating to educators, families and communities about the downsides of having unqualified special educators.

"Where we have found the power and the most impact is when we're clear on the problem statement, we pull together stakeholders and we attack that specific problem. And in this case, it was how do we increase the number of quality special education teachers to serve in our schools?" Jenner said.

Alternative licensure programs

The state and its stakeholders evaluated existing alternative pathways for educators to earn special education licenses that meet federal requirements and also developed new pathways. In total, the state now has 17 programs for initial special education licensure in addition to many other approved alternative special education licensure programs.

Under the alternative pathways, educators need to commit to meeting full licensure requirements within three years. For the state, the programs help with enforcement and monitoring, which was difficult with the emergency permits, according to Courtney Bearsch, director of communications for the Indiana Department of Education, in an email.

One new program — developed jointly by the state and the University of Indianapolis — funds a tuition assistance program for teachers enrolled in approved alternative special education licensure programs. This ensures teachers working with students are getting specific training to earn their special education license. 

That program — Indiana Special Education Assisted Licensure, or I-SEAL — began in November 2021. As of Jan. 3, it has had 727 participants. The program is funded at $2.6 million and paid for through federal COVID-19 grants and state IDEA Part B money, according to Bearsch.

The success of the I-SEAL program spurred the state to launch a similar assistance program for teachers of English learners to earn a full license. 

Another special educator preparation approach in Indiana is the Aspiring Statewide Special Education Teacher, or ASSET, program, which supports licensed educators in adding a special education teaching credential. The state is using $238,234 in federal COVID-19 funds for this program.

In total, from July 1, 2022, to Dec. 31, 2022, the state has issued 1,102 alternative special education licenses in mild interventions, intense interventions, blind/low vision, and deaf/hard of hearing specialty areas, said Bearsch. 

"I think that's part of the success certainly — that we've removed the barriers, that they can customize their own path," Jenner said. 

Working to stay compliant

Elsewhere, states are also looking to wean themselves from noncompliant special education emergency licenses, expand pathways that are compliant and create innovative practices that improve teaching practices, meet federal requirements and overcome teacher shortages, Eisenberg said. 

For example, some areas are using job-embedded training because the overall educator shortage makes it difficult for teachers-in-training to leave the classroom for professional development. This approach could include having a coach in the classroom with a teacher or using a webcam with a remote coach giving live feedback.

State and local special education offices are also teaming up with advocacy groups and higher education institutions for solutions, Eisenberg said.

Special education is one of the highest need teacher positions. According to the National Center for Education Statistics, 45% of schools with at least one teacher vacancy said they were missing special educators last winter. U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data predicted an annual need for 37,600 special educators between 2021 and 2031. Many of those openings, the bureau estimates, will result from teachers switching to other occupations or leaving the labor force. 

Meanwhile, some education experts expect the number of special education students to continue to increase nationally, as it has for the past decade, causing even more of a need for special educators.

The teacher demand vs. supply issue makes progress difficult — even with the collaboration and innovative practices. What also is needed, Eisenberg said, is more federal attention and funding. 

In reaction to some states loosening educator qualifications to meet the demand for teachers, the U.S. Office of Special Education Programs in October sent a letter to state special education directors emphasizing that states may not waive certification or license requirements for special education teachers and related services personnel on an emergency, temporary or provisional basis.

Eisenberg said state directors agreed with the letter's intent. "We want to make sure that every student has a qualified teacher to be able to give them the right supports and the right instruction," he said. "Now that being said, the reality is that's just probably not possible because of the sheer scope of the shortage."

While the federal government has offered guidance and best practices for combating teacher shortages and has a technical assistance center focused on special educator preparation, more is required, Eisenberg said. He pointed specifically to the need for a big increase in IDEA funding and a national summit on teacher shortages.

States typically work hard to stay compliant with federal rules, Eisenberg said, adding that he hasn't heard of any states cited for noncompliance regarding special educator qualifications. But if shortages become more severe, following the rules will get harder, he said

"At a certain point with this, the bow is going to break and they're not going to be able to be in compliance," Eisenberg said.

"So at some point, people are going to say, 'We didn't have a choice. I mean, unless you [the federal government] come in and try to help us fix this. We've exhausted all possible efforts so come show us how to fix it.' I think is what people are gonna start to say.”

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By Moreland University

Around the country, schools are facing a massive teacher shortage following nearly three years of a global pandemic that sent most industries, particularly education, into a tailspin.

Today, full-time teachers are leaving the profession at alarming rates and, throughout COVID-19, finding substitutes has become increasingly difficult. A big reason for their departure? Enduring more than two years of remote teaching, a method for which they were never trained.

And though schools have seen a return to in-person teaching, it no long resembles the more digestible pre-pandemic days. Changes in personal relationships, emotional support, and logistics are causing increased anxieties in a field that already suffered from high burnout rates and low morale.

Educational institutions, now more than ever, are experiencing a mass exodus of teachers: In fact, between February 2020 and May 2022, more than 300,000 educators left the industry.

Today, we have a dual challenge in this country: We are not producing enough teachers, and those we are producing don’t receive the needed skills to effectively teach in our new world. Fortunately, a small number of education schools have made the necessary shifts. These forward-thinking schools predicted that the technological shift occurring in many industries would soon occur in ours. Thus, they started preparing their graduates for a totally new way of teaching.

Working with these schools, we identified three critical components that will improve the country’s chances of producing well-trained teachers over the next 10 years:

1. Train teachers in the way we want students to learn.

Early on, we learned it was ineffective to place teachers in a large lecture hall with a professor who hasn’t seen a K-12 classroom in decades. Instead, we’ve seen the effectiveness of grouping teachers into small cohorts who work together to solve problems.

Presenting teachers with real-world, challenging situations and empowering them to collaborate leads to success. Together, teachers can create collaborative learning environments, engage students who learn online, and adapt classroom lessons to support students learning English as a second language.

After a year of learning in this manner, teachers are more prepared to handle the actual work of teaching when they enter a classroom.

2. Use technology as a tool for learning, not as a replacement for teachers.

While it’s true technology is an incredible tool for educators to enhance their teaching and blur the lines between in-school and at-home learning, it cannot replace teachers — nor the special and important relationship between teachers and students.

Technology allows students to learn anytime, anywhere, about any subject. We’ve seen middle-school students get chills watching an original recording of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s speech, “I Have a Dream”; we’ve seen elementary students gain an entirely new perspective by chatting live with astronauts living on the International Space Station. These transformative learning experiences were only possible through technology used in the classroom.

Teachers must no longer be dispensers of knowledge to their students; they must facilitate learning with technology as a tool and a guide. Teacher training programs must help educators become resourceful problem solvers by understanding the internet’s gifts and nuances, as well as the associated software that brings learning to life.

By training teachers to effectively use technology as a tool for their own learning, they can replicate this experience for students. What was once a snow day can now become a collaborative remote-learning day where teachers and students can continue their journey.

3. Get creative to increase the supply of teachers.

Improving the skills of new teachers is only half the battle; we must also greatly increase the number of teachers.

Most brick-and-mortar graduate schools are limited by classroom size and the geographic location of students. By moving graduate school instruction entirely online — where students and faculty guide their own instruction in small cohorts — we are no longer limited by geography. Graduate schools can create cohorts comprised of students from around the globe, increasing the number of potential teachers and improving the diversity of classroom staff.

Consider this: In California, a state-wide shortage of bilingual teachers has plagued the area for years. Imagine if California could train Spanish bilingual teachers from Puerto Rico, Colombia, or Spain, then hire them to teach at schools in Los Angeles, San Francisco, and San Diego.

In the last few years, some U.S. school districts have recruited teachers from abroad, but teacher preparation programs have varied widely. For that reason, recruits are often not prepared for teaching American students.

However, by partnering with more forward-thinking graduate schools of education, U.S. schools can be confident that their international teachers are successfully trained to teach their students — and all from overseas.

After years of turbulence in the education industry, one thing is clear: The U.S. must greatly increase the amount of teachers entering the profession and, perhaps more important, a shift is necessary in the way they’re trained. And while this has been a necessity for years, the pandemic has required us to accelerate this progress.

The good news? A handful of education graduate schools exist that are helping create new models for teaching in the digital age. It’s the responsibility of these innovative schools to widely share their experience and knowledge. As for the other graduate schools of education, it’s their responsibility to pay attention and begin preparing teachers for today’s classrooms and beyond. 

This is what prospective teachers want, what our students deserve, and what our society needs.

Written by Dr. Susanne H. Thompson, President of Moreland University with Colibri Group’s teacher education ecosystem and Dr. Emily Feistritzer, founder of Moreland University/TEACH-NOW and currently founder/president of the Future Teaching Institute

As districts wrestle with finding teachers for hard-to-staff subject areas or high-poverty schools, some are turning to “strategic pay” — or compensating teachers differently depending on what or where they teach. 

The teacher shortage can vary by district and even within schools, but research is clear that certain subject areas — special education, math and science — are the most difficult to fill. In 2021-22, 49 states reported teacher shortages in special education, 44 states faced math teacher shortages and 42 states struggled to fill science teaching positions, according to the National Council on Teacher Quality’s analysis of federal teacher shortage data.

Some experts studying teacher shortages argue that as districts allocate their federal COVID-19 relief funding, that money should be used in a more precise way for teacher recruitment and retention. Currently, 23 states have incentive policies for hard-to-staff subject areas, said NCTQ president Heather Peske during a Dec. 15 webinar held by Georgetown University think tank FutureEd. 

“If we have a limited pot of money, we have to direct it where it’s needed the most,” Peske said.

But focusing on pay distribution alone will not solve teacher shortages, said Rob Weil, director of research, policy and field programs for the American Federation of Teachers, during the FutureEd webinar. Weil also recommended against relying on federal pandemic relief money to address teacher vacancies. 

“If we’re serious about improving our schools, it’s going to take a collective, long-term, reflected effort. Because it’s not as simple as just paying some bonuses here or there,” Weil said.

Strategic pay in action

There are, of course, other ways to take on teacher shortages, such as improving working conditions, building up teacher apprenticeship programs or improving access to educator preparation programs. Yet researchers point to case studies, like that of the Hawaii State Department of Education, showing that strategic pay is a useful tool. 

In January 2020, Hawaii’s Education Department began paying targeted annual $10,000 salary bonuses to teachers in high-needs subject areas like special education and $8,000 annual bonuses to teachers in the state’s language immersion program. Certain geographic areas with higher teacher shortages also saw annual teacher salary bonuses of $3,000 to $8,000. The program carried an estimated price tag of $37 million for 2021 if all positions were filled, according to a report by the Hawaii Education Department. 

Less than a year after Hawaii established this strategic pay policy, statewide special education teacher vacancies fell from 122 to 69 positions between October 2019 and October 2020, the department found.

Meanwhile, in spring 2021, the Detroit Public Schools Community District announced an annual $15,000 stipend for certain exceptional student education — formerly known as special education — teachers. At the time, a majority of the district’s teacher vacancies were in these positions, according to the district. 

As of now, the district only has three exceptional student education vacancies. That’s a noticeable decrease from the 60 vacancies five years ago, the district said in an emailed statement to K-12 Dive. 

Detroit schools have substantially eliminated their overall teacher vacancies, too, according to the district.

“Over the last five years, DPSCD reduced its teacher vacancies significantly by building a pipeline to grow its own teachers, raising teacher salaries across-the-board, and improving recruitment and hiring practices,” the district said. “In 2017 the District opened with more than 300 teacher vacancies and this fall (2022) opened with fewer than 10.”

An ‘underutilized’ solution?

While compensation is not the only solution for teacher shortages, strategic pay may be a “step in the right direction toward recognizing important differences in the labor market for STEM teachers” and for schools that have historically faced challenges finding qualified teachers, said Matthew Kraft, an associate professor of education and economics at Brown University. 

Strategic pay is an “underutilized,” option, said Shannon Holston, chief of policy and programs at NCTQ. But districts face barriers such as union negotiations and budget limitations, she said.

While some districts are trying to experiment with strategic pay using federal COVID-19 relief funds, Kraft said, district leaders may be hesitant to pursue this tactic because those dollars will run out by 2024. As such, districts are more likely to use the federal funds for one-time hiring and retention bonuses rather than a permanent change to their compensation models, he said.

Still, salaries are often shaped by conversations between local education unions and administrators. If state leaders want to push districts in a direction to consider strategic pay, Kraft said statewide incentives can play a role in those discussions.

But a uniform approach at the state level could conflict with local teacher workforce needs, he said. Kraft recently co-authored a working paper for Brown University’s Annenberg Institute for School Reform that found teacher shortages can look different at the school, district and state levels. 

Another way districts could fund a strategic teacher pay model is by using funds that provide salary raises for teachers with master’s degrees to go toward high-needs positions instead, Holston said. 

Districts should think about other forms of expertise and working conditions to determine teacher pay, Holston added.

“That’s a challenge to consider to think completely differently about a compensation structure that typically has historically” prioritized teachers with master’s degrees, she said. 

But many questions remain for district leaders regarding strategic pay. Sharie Lewis, director of business services and operations for Parkrose School District in Portland, Oregon, wonders if districts offer incentives, will teachers be required to stay for a set amount of time? 

On top of that, Lewis asked, is the policy fair?

When Parkrose schools began weighing options for a $1,000 retention bonus for all teachers, Lewis said she met separately with administrators and the union before making a recommendation. The district did ultimately decide to provide the $1,000 bonus, she said. The bottom line, she said: District leaders should ensure everyone has a voice in this kind of decision.

Less than 2% — just 609 —  of more than 40,000 teaching positions statewide in Tennessee were vacant, according to an analysis of teacher shortages at the state, regional, district and school levels during the start of the 2019-20 school year. However, secondary schools accounted for 73% of teaching vacancies in the state, twice as many as in elementary schools, according to a November working paper published by Brown University’s Annenberg Institute for School Reform. 

Tennessee schools with vacancies reported 39% higher turnover rates, on average, compared to schools without openings, the paper found. In addition, teachers rated working conditions lower in schools with vacancies than did teachers in fully staffed schools. 

The study suggests education leaders could use historical teacher attrition rates to determine which schools are likely to have teacher shortages. Improving workplace conditions and frontloading salary schedules for early-career teachers is another potential solution to addressing shortages in specific areas and districts, the paper said. 

The findings create an opportunity to bring together those on both sides of the issue: Namely, is there a widespread teacher shortage or not? 

“Shortages can occur for individual schools even when there is a statewide surplus, and schools can enjoy a surplus of labor even when there is a statewide shortage,” the researchers wrote. “Additionally, teacher staffing challenges can vary by subject within and between districts and schools.” 

Factors like an area’s supply of new teachers, school working conditions, salary raises tied to experience, and historical attrition rates can strongly influence teacher vacancies, researchers said. 

But there is still a lot of data needed to track the matter in real time. Less than 40% of states publish any kind of teacher demand data like the percentage of vacancies or the number of newly hired teachers, the paper said. To tackle this lack of data, researchers suggest expanding federal reporting on teacher labor market and workforce shortage data. 

In an October report, the U.S. Government Accountability Office also called out the U.S. Department of Education for not doing enough to track its own goals on the teacher shortage. Specifically, the agency said the Education Department needs to collect data that lets district and state leaders know if ongoing efforts are working.  

States have also stepped up their own initiatives to address teacher shortages. These include everything from allowing veterans without a bachelor’s degree to teach in Florida classrooms to a newly formed teacher shortage task force in New Jersey.

A new study links increased youth suicide rates with mental health workforce shortages — at a time when two-thirds of U.S. counties faced such shortages.

Researchers found the adjusted suicide rate rose 4% with each one-point increase in the workforce shortage score, according to the study published Nov. 21 by the Journal of the American Medical Association. 

The study analyzed suicide data among children and teens ages 5-19 between 2015 and 2016 in 3,133 U.S. counties. As researchers looked at the relationship between youth suicide rates and workforce shortages, they controlled for factors such as presence of children’s mental health hospitals, health insurance coverage, education, unemployment, income, poverty, race and ethnicity in a county.

In 2020, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported suicide to be the second leading cause of death for children ages 10-14, and the third leading cause of death for teens and young adults ages 15-24. 

While youth suicide rates and mental health workforce shortages have separately raised flags among leaders and researchers before, this new research significantly links the two growing problems.

As the pandemic exacerbated the mental health crisis among children and teens, schools are also scrambling to recruit and hire their own mental health staff. To help with those efforts, programs are being launched to take on both the workforce shortage and pipeline concerns.

In October, the U.S. Department of Education opened applications for two school mental health support programs totaling $280 million with funding from the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act and FY 2022 annual appropriations. 

The first program, School-Based Mental Health Services Grants, will help raise the number of credentialed school-based mental health service providers in states and districts that show a need. The second program, Mental Health Service Professional Demonstration Grants, plans to fund innovative partnerships to train school-based mental health professionals.

Even before those federal funds opened up, California announced a plan in August to add 10,000 counselors to the state’s public schools over the next several years. The effort would give up to $20,000 in scholarships to graduate students seeking degrees to become mental health clinicians and work for two years in a school. 

This would nearly double the number of school counselors currently working in the state, but that could be a challenge considering just 11,000 students graduate with a master’s degree in school counseling nationwide each year.

To successfully address the nationwide teacher shortage, the U.S. Department of Education needs to clearly communicate time frames, milestones and performance measures on this issue, the U.S. Government Accountability Office reported Thursday. While the Education Department has established five strategies to support teacher development and address recruiting and retention concerns, more is needed, GAO said.

Staffing issues are particularly acute in Western states, urban and rural districts, high-poverty communities and schools that predominantly teach students of color, the GAO report found. Especially tough to fill are spots in science, foreign languages and special education, the agency said.

To help states and districts address specific recruitment and retention concerns,  GAO suggested that U.S. Education Secretary Miguel Cardona direct the Federal Student Aid agency, the Office of Elementary and Secondary Education and the Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services to collect and share resources. 

The report echoes concerns over the teacher shortage from education leaders who have repeatedly noted a lack of concrete, consistent data to track the recruitment and retention of teachers — whether at the state or federal level. 

But efforts are slowly being made to collect this data in some areas. On Sept. 30, California Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a state law encouraging districts to administer an exit survey within 15 days of a teacher’s resignation beginning in the 2023-24 school year. The state legislature will then use the data, which is to be publicly available on an annual basis, to consider statewide investments for teacher retention and recruitment efforts.

Besides national surveys looking to gauge the scope of teacher shortages conducted by the Education Department’s National Center for Education Statistics, there really isn’t a lot of other nationwide — let alone state — data available on the matter. But there are some states and research firms looking to change that, as seen by efforts in Missouri and emerging research by the Annenberg Institute at Brown University and others. 

In the summer, the Education Department shared its five strategies “to supporting and elevating the teaching profession.” They are:

• Investing in a diverse teacher pipeline.
• Supporting teachers in earning an initial or additional certification for high-demand areas.
• Helping teachers pay off student loans.
• Providing teachers and students with resources needed to succeed.
• Creating opportunities for teacher advancement and leadership.

GAO said data that measures performance and the milestones for these efforts are needed to better position the department to help districts and state leaders know if solutions to address the teacher shortage are working. 

The NCES surveys continue to show district leaders are concerned about staffing shortages, as a September survey found 53% of public school leaders reported feeling their schools were understaffed heading into the 2022-23 school year. 

The latest GAO report also found, in its analysis of research published from 2011 to 2021, that the same issues repeatedly appeared in recruitment and retention challenges: a negative perception of the teaching profession and lack of support for current teachers. 

Additionally, GAO said common barriers to recruitment include the high cost of becoming a teacher and differing state licensure requirements. At the same time, retention challenges remained in both school workplace culture and low teacher compensation.