Erickson 1

Emma Erickson

Mrs. Kitamura

English 1010

6 December 2022

The Teacher Shortage; is it real, and what’s causing it?

In recent discussions of the American teacher shortage, a controversial issue has been

whether or not the teacher shortage is real, and if it is, what is causing it? Many different factors

could play into this possible teacher shortage. There are teachers all across the country who are

unhappy with their jobs and want to quit tomorrow, but there are also teachers all across the

country who wake up every morning excited to go to school and teach their students. How can

one tell if this teacher shortage is real or fake?

On the one hand, some argue that the teacher shortage must be a real problem since

certain areas of the country are struggling to fill the vacant gaps in their school district. Others

would directly disagree with this since not everywhere in the country is struggling. Only certain

areas are facing this hardship of trying to keep teachers in classrooms. According to another

view, there couldn’t possibly be a teacher shortage because there aren’t enough students per

teacher in many parts of the country. There are school districts all over the United States that are

having to let go of teachers because they are seeing considerable decreases in student enrollment.

On the other hand, however, others argue that there aren’t even enough young people

interested in becoming a teacher to help offset the effects of the teacher shortage. They think that

since teacher numbers are progressively decreasing and not enough people are becoming

teachers, there will just be a downward spiral of never having enough teachers.
 Erickson 2

In this paper, I will be reviewing literature that will offer more understanding of the

teacher shortage here in the United States. Several factors raise concerns about the shortage; the

major concerns I will be examining are teacher population, teacher satisfaction, and the loss of

students in classrooms.

teacher population, teacher satisfaction, and the loss of students in classrooms are maror

concerns for the foe the ever decreasing teacher population

There are three major concerns with the teacher shortage. They are, a decreasing teacher

population, teacher’s increasing dissatisfaction in their jobs, and a loss of students in classrooms.

Teacher Population

The teacher shortage is something that is talked about often. Everyone has a varying

opinion on what is causing this shortage or if there even is a shortage. One topic that is

mentioned is the fact that it isn’t a teacher shortage but rather a problem hiring new teachers and

keeping the teachers already there. Other authors are under the impression that the shortage is

real and something incredibly serious, while another author points out how complicated the

situation has gotten. Whatever the issue is, there is so much more underneath it that the public

doesn’t see, making this issue much more complicated than it appears.

Another view in this conversation is that there isn’t a teacher shortage in America, but

rather a problem hiring new teachers and holding onto the ones that are already in the field.

Sharon Lurye and Rebecca Griesbach are authors for the National Post, and they co-wrote the

article, “Teacher shortages are real, but not for the reason you heard,” which discusses how there

is a teacher shortage, but that shortage isn’t the right word. Griesbach and Lurye talk specifically
 Erickson 3

about how things have changed in the teaching profession since 2019 when COVID came

around. They write, “For starters, the pandemic kicked off the largest drop in education

employment ever.” Since COVID-19, America has experienced a significant drop in the number

of teachers who are actually still teaching. Peter Greene, a Senior Contributor at Forbes and

former teacher, is the author of the article “There Is No Teacher Shortage. So Why Is Everyone

Talking About It?” Greene looked at different studies and numbers of teachers and writes what

he found, “Pennsylvania issued over 16,000 teaching certificates in 2012-13; last year the state

issued under 6,000.” These numbers seem to prove what everyone is worried about; something is

happening with teachers coming into the field of education.

There is another perspective in this argument that the waters are too muddy to understand

what is happening with the mass number of teacher vacancies across the country. Derek

Thompson is a writer for The Atlantic and the author of the article “There Is No National

Teacher Shortage.” He argues that something is happening with the teaching profession, but it

isn’t a shortage. Thompson writes, “When I spoke with education researchers and writers to

figure out what was really going on, a more complex narrative emerged.” The teacher shortage

isn’t a black-or-white, yes or no conversation. It’s more of looking at the numbers and seeing

what this country can do to help keep teachers in classrooms. Thompson continues his narrative,

pointing out statistics that show the truth about teaching and writing this towards the end of his

article, “A more generous explanation is that the teacher-staffing story is pretty damn confusing.”

He goes on to explain that the teaching shortage looks different in each state, each county, and

even each school district. One district can be struggling to find math teachers, while another is on

the lookout for special education teachers, while yet another school district isn’t struggling at all.
 Erickson 4

The teacher shortage isn’t surface level like it may seem; there is so much more to it than meets

the eye.

The teacher shortage may be real or not, but one thing is for sure; it’s no longer an

all-or-nothing issue. Some school districts are thriving, while others are struggling to find

teachers for core classes, let alone electives. The debate has too many factors to be

two-dimensional. This conversation is important to understand the debate on teacher shortages as

a whole.

Teacher Satisfaction

It’s not a secret that many teachers are unhappy with their job for many reasons. May it

be money, lack of control of their classrooms, or too big or small of class sizes, there is a lot of

unrest among teachers in America. Teachers are leaving the field left and right because they are

unhappy or unsettled as a teacher. There are many reasons behind this.

It is true that teachers are leaving because they are unhappy in one way or another.

Richard Ingersoll, one of this view’s leading proponents, writes “Is There Really a Teacher

Shortage?” for the University of Pennsylvania, relying on statistics from the National Schools

and Studies Survey, along with the Teacher Followup Survey, to prove his point. He writes about

the dissatisfaction among teachers, saying,

“Of those who depart because of job dissatisfaction, most link their turnover to low

salaries, lack of support from the school administration, student discipline problems, poor

student motivation, and lack of teacher influence over decision making. In general,

similar kinds of dissatisfaction lie behind both teacher migration and teacher attrition.”

Teacher migration is when a teacher leaves one school or district to teach at another

school or district. Teacher attrition is when a teacher leaves the profession entirely. Ingersoll is
 Erickson 5

pointing out in his article that because of the unrest and unhappiness in their profession, many

teachers are leaving their job.

There is also the common idea that teaching environments have gotten worse over the

years, especially since the pandemic in 2020. Thompson writes,

“Exhausted, underpaid, and stressed out, America’s teachers seem to be in a state of

psychological and financial crisis. By some estimates, public-school teachers are the most

“burned out” workers in America. The pandemic made things worse; some surveys show

a big increase in the share of teachers who say they want to quit.”

This is showing that while teachers have been in a poor state for a while now, the

pandemic made it so much worse. Teachers want to quit now more than ever, and some of them

do quit, contributing to this ongoing teacher shortage. When teachers quit, it added to the already

rather large attrition numbers in the country. Some teachers don’t quit; instead, they get offered

another teaching job with better pay and more benefits and migrate to that school district instead

of staying where they are currently placed.

Part of the problem isn’t even that teachers want to quit; it’s that it’s harder than ever to

hire teachers. Greene writes, “There’s a teacher recruitment and retention problem. There’s a

‘making the job attractive enough to draw in the people we want’ problem.” While teachers are

quitting left and right, it’s also hard to bring in new teachers. When new educators consider the

prospect of becoming a teacher, they often see how hard and challenging it is and don’t want to

have to deal with all of the things that current teachers are dissatisfied with. Teachers are under

so much pressure from parents, students, administrators, and the country; to be the best they can

be for their students. Matthew A. Kraft and Melissa Arnold Lyon partnered with each other and

with Annenberg Brown University to write the article “The Rise and Fall of the Teaching
 Erickson 6

Profession: Prestige, Interest, Preparation, and Satisfaction over the Last Half Century.” Kraft

and Lyon use more than a dozen national surveys and studies on teachers to shed light on the

teacher shortage. At one point, they write, “Teachers are at once heroes and villains, saints and

scapegoats.” Because teachers are so many things, all at one time, it often leads to them feeling

dissatisfied with their job and wanting to quit. It isn’t easy being a good guy and a bad guy at the

same time, and that has taken a toll on the teachers in America.

Teacher satisfaction is at an all-time low. The pandemic has made it worse, but there was

so much going on in the world of education, even before COVID-19. Because some teachers feel

underappreciated in their job, it makes them more inclined to leave the teaching field,

contributing to the idea that there is a teacher shortage.

Loss of Students in Classrooms

There is another big reason that the teacher shortage appears to be something it isn’t, and

that is the fact that there are fewer students enrolled in public schools (in certain areas). Because

there are fewer students enrolled, the classes are smaller, and there is less need for more teachers.

One author cares about this part of the conversation in particular. Larry said, author of

“The Enduring Teacher Shortage Myth” writes a compelling paper on the different reasons the

teacher shortage is a myth. Sand writes,

“While teachers may not be leaving their schools, students certainly are… total public

school enrollment for pre-K through 12th grade dripped 3% from 50.8 million to 49.4

million students. (The number of public school teachers during the same time period

dropped by just 1,881 or 0.06%).”

This data right here (from a report from the National Center for Education Statistics)

shows that students are leaving the public school system more than the teachers are, which
 Erickson 7

makes the teacher shortage appear worse on the surface. Sand continues to use statistics to prove

his point, writing, “charter school enrollment grew 7%.” Since the pandemic, students are

leaving the public school system for charter schools, private schools, and homeschooling.

Homeschooling has doubled since twenty-twenty (Sand), leading to fewer students enrolled in

public schools. The way things are looking right now, public school enrollment is in a decline,

and it doesn’t seem to be stopping.

Enrollment is declining so rapidly that public schools don’t know how to keep up, and the

less enrollment in a school, the more the teacher shortage looks like a bigger problem. Thompson

writes, “NCES anticipates that by 2030, fewer kindergarteners will be enrolled in public school

than in any year since 1998.” Since nineteen ninety-eight public schools haven’t seen numbers

this low, but they are certainly coming back around. Thompson goes on to add, “enrollment has

plummeted so quickly that in some school districts that it’s thrown the school funding into

chaos… In New York City, K-12 enrollment dropped nearly 10 percent since COVID, and

officials are expecting 30,000 fewer students this fall than last.” Not only are schools having to

battle a funding nightmare from losing students, but they are projected to continue to lose more

and more students.

Not only does this enrollment loss affect teachers in the public school system, but it also

affects education as a whole. Because of a loss of students in schools, fewer students see the need

for teachers, leading to fewer students who want to become a teacher. Since there are fewer

students interested in becoming a teacher, education school enrollment is plummeting. Ingersoll

writes, “Most work considering trends in teacher preparation focuses on recent declines in

enrollment.” The enrollment rates are declining, meaning there isn’t a need for more teachers in

the areas where students are leaving the public school system. Ingersoll adds to this by saying,
 Erickson 8

“A Center for American Progress whitepaper also uses Title II data on a number of students

enrolling in and completing teacher preparation programs and finds a 33% decline in enrollment

and a 28% decline in students completing preparation programs from 2010 to 2018.” There are

fewer and fewer students completing the necessary programs required to become a teacher. Since

there is a decline in students completing this course, it only makes sense that there would appear

to be a decline in teachers as a result.

The decline of students in public schools leads to the teacher shortage looking more and

more real as time goes on. Since there are fewer kids in public schools, there isn’t a need for as

many teachers. This isn’t true for all areas, some areas have an influx of students, and not enough

teachers, once again adding to the belief that the teacher shortage is real. But not only are there

fewer students in public schools but there are also fewer students enrolled in preparation

programs that set one on the path to becoming a teacher. Since there are fewer students in these

classes, fewer teachers are being sent out into the teaching profession.

Conclusion

In sum, the issue is whether or not the teacher shortage is real. Or, if it isn’t real, what is

going on in the teaching profession that looks like chaos from the outside? Looking at statistics

and data, some areas seem to be thriving and need more teachers to support the astronomical

amount of students, while other areas have to let go of teachers because there aren’t enough

students for each teacher. Not only that but since the pandemic, there are more and more teachers

quitting their jobs because of dissatisfaction with their jobs. That could be in the pay, having no

support from their administrators, having difficulty keeping their students in line, or other things

that no one knows about. What one can infer is that many teachers aren’t happy in their jobs
 Erickson 9

anymore, and because of that, they are leaving - for good. This adds to the current chaos of the

teacher shortage.

The literature seems to be indicating that the teacher shortage is real; there is just more to

it than meets the eye. The shortage is so much more than right and wrong; that shortage might

not even be a good name for what is happening. As many of the authors pointed out, once one

starts diving into the statistics and complications of the teacher shortage, it is so much more

complicated than it appears to be on the surface. Being so complicated on the outside means that

more and more research is needed to figure out what the problem in the school system is, and

how to combat it. If the problems aren’t figured out, they will continue to get worse, unless

something changes for teachers.

This conversation is important since this topic is so controversial and there are so many

moving pieces to it. Knowing a little bit can go a long way, and in a conversation like this where

there are so many different parts to it, knowing a little bit about all the different parts is super

helpful. Researching and knowing more about teacher attrition, dissatisfaction, and the lower rate

of students in schools makes it easier to know where to start in a discussion. It’s helpful as a

nation to see where our teachers and students need help. Knowing how to help the teachers and

school districts of America can help improve our school systems from the root of the problem.

Further Inquiry

What hasn’t played a role in the literature is the role of men versus women in teaching.

Education (pre-K through 12th) is a mostly female-dominated field, and while many men teach,

it’s not nearly as common as it is for a woman to become a teacher. Currently, women make up

around 70% of the nation's teachers, while men make up the remaining 30%. This isn’t a big
 Erickson 10

deal, there are many job fields where it is male-dominated, but it is interesting to see such a

difference in the numbers of men teaching versus women teaching.

It is important to have this part of the conversation because it is important to know the

difference between women and men regarding the teacher shortage. The conversation needs to

see if the percentage of women leaving the field due to dissatisfaction in their job is higher than

men, or if it’s the other way around and men are the ones leaving more than women. This would

be interesting to see in the grand scheme of the education world. It would be interesting when in

the process of hiring new teachers. If women are more likely to leave the profession, would they

be less likely to be hired over a male teacher? And vice versa, if men were more likely to leave

the teaching profession than women would they be less likely to get the job than a woman? This

is all important in the conversation of the teacher shortage.

 Erickson 11

Works Cited

Greene, Peter. “There Is No Teacher Shortage. So Why Is Everyone Talking About It?” Forbes,

9, Aug. 2022,

https://www.forbes.com/sites/petergreene/2022/08/09/there-is-no-teacher-shortage-so-wh

y-is-everyone-talking-about-it/?sh=3d387f231fbe

Ingersoll, Richard. “Is There Really a Teacher Shortage? - University of Pennsylvania.” Is There

Really a Teacher Shortage? , University of Pennsylvania, 1 Sept. 2003,

https://repository.upenn.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1133&context=gse_pubs

Kraft, Matthew A, and Melissa Arnold Lyon. “The Rise and Fall of the Teaching Profession:

Prestige, Interest, Preparation, and Satisfaction over the Last Half Century.” Annenberg

Brown University , Nov. 2022.

Thompson, Derek. “There Is No National Teacher Shortage.” The Atlantic, 12 Septemeber. 2022,

https://www.theatlantic.com/newsletters/archive/2022/08/national-teacher-shortage-turno

ver-student-enrollment/671214/

Sand, Larry. “The Enduring Teacher Shortage Myth.” California Policy Center, June 24, 2022,

https://californiapolicycenter.org/the-enduring-teacher-shortage-myth/

Sharon Lurye and Rebecca Griesbach, The Associated Press. “Teacher shortages are real, but not

for the reason you heard.” National Post, 12 Sept. 2022,

https://nationalpost.com/pmn/life-pmn/teacher-shortages-are-real-but-not-for-the-reason-

you-heard
Erickson 12