Recruitment and retention challenges are once again leading to teacher shortages in California and across the nation. Especially in urban and rural school districts, low salaries and poor working conditions often contribute to the difficulties of recruiting and keeping teachers, as can the challenges of the work itself. Newly emerging teacher…

This brief summarizes a 2019 study of educator supply, demand, and quality in North Carolina conducted by the Learning Policy Institute in collaboration with the Education Policy Initiative at Carolina and WestEd. That study supported the state's ongoing efforts to meet the standard set in the North Carolina Supreme Court's decision in…

For more than a year, the Learning Policy Institute (LPI) conducted research in New Mexico, including interviews, site visits, document review, and new analyses of data provided by the New Mexico Public Education Department (NMPED). The purpose of the study was to provide New Mexico leaders a research perspective on the challenges facing education…

Recruiting and retaining talented individuals into the teaching workforce, especially in schools in underserved urban and rural communities, is challenging when college graduates face more lucrative professional alternatives and often carry significant student debt. Two promising approaches to attracting and keeping teachers in the profession are…

In "Leandro v. the State of North Carolina" ("Leandro"), the Supreme Court of North Carolina found that children have a right to qualified teachers and principals who can prepare students for college and careers and meet the needs of those placed at risk. Providing such high-quality educators for each child demands an adequate…

A highly competent teacher workforce is a necessary foundation for improving children's educational outcomes, especially for those who rely most on schools for their success. Yet in the United States, shortages in the teaching force have been growing across the country, reaching crisis proportions in some teaching fields--such as mathematics,…

One of the most pressing issues facing policymakers is how to staff classrooms with a stable teaching force responsive to complex student needs and the growing demands of the knowledge economy. Recurrent teacher shortages are a function of both declines in entrants to teaching and high rates of teacher attrition, especially in low-income schools.…

Across the country, districts and schools are struggling to meet the growing demand for qualified teachers. Indeed, there are some subjects--such as mathematics, science, and special education--in which nearly every state is experiencing a teacher shortage. As a result, states often turn to underqualified teachers to fill the vacuum, a problematic…