The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has added more stress to an already high-stress profession: American public school teacher. The authors of this report share the results of a new survey of nearly 1,000 former public school teachers and reveal how important stress has been--even more so than pay--to teachers' decisions to leave the…

To help states retain teachers and recruit the next generation into the profession, this brief examines teacher compensation policies in states and how adjustments could help reverse teacher shortage trends. The report looks at teacher compensation packages as a whole, including data on salary, health insurance, retirement and other benefits. It…

Nearly half of U.S. schools are facing COVID-related staff shortages that threaten the efforts to shape programming and invest in resources to solve students' unfinished learning. Without enough teachers and support staff, students won't receive rigorous instruction, won't have access to targeted intensive tutoring to address their unfinished…

In this paper, I document evidence that intergovernmental incentives inherent in public sector defined benefit pension systems distort the amount and timing of income for public school teachers. This intergovernmental incentive stems from the fact that, in many states, local school districts are responsible for setting the compensation that…

Teacher shortages that most severely affect schools serving the least advantaged children have been part of the California education landscape for the last half decade. This brief describes how key teacher supply and demand factors vary across the state, and it provides potential policy solutions to mitigate ongoing shortages. The brief also…

When California students returned to school in fall 2019, hundreds of thousands returned to classrooms staffed by substitutes and teachers who were not fully prepared to teach. In recent years, California has experienced widespread shortages of elementary and secondary teachers as districts and schools seek to restore class sizes and course…

Teacher compensation is driven largely by teacher longevity. While it's true that wages in many fields generally increase with experience, what differs in teaching is the degree to which pay is linked to seniority. And compared to other professions, teaching has more heavily back-loaded pay -- meaning a disproportionate share of earnings comes…

With the U.S. facing a national teacher shortage that is projected to grow substantially in the coming years, school systems across the country are grappling with the challenge of building and maintaining a high-quality teacher workforce for all students. While school leaders and policymakers might be tempted to solve shortages by focusing solely…

Without changes in current policies, U.S. teacher shortages are projected to grow in the coming years. Teacher turnover is an important source of these shortages. About 8% of teachers leave the profession each year, two-thirds of them for reasons other than retirement. Another 8% shift to different schools each year. In addition to aggravating…

Barriers to the cross-state mobility of the teacher workforce can have undesirable effects on the teacher workforce and student outcomes. While a large literature addresses issues related to within-state mobility, very little is known about patterns of cross-state mobility. This paper addresses that research gap. We describe features of Oregon's…

Recent media reports of teacher shortages across the country are confirmed by the analysis of several national datasets reported in this brief. Shortages are particularly severe in special education, mathematics, science, and bilingual/English learner education, and in locations with lower wages and poorer working conditions. Shortages are…

Widespread media reports of local teacher shortages have become a hot topic in education since the summer of 2015. To date, there has not yet been a detailed national analysis of the sources and extent of teacher shortages, or a prognosis for the future. This report details the outcomes of such a study, which analyzes evidence of teacher…

This paper examines the pattern of incentives for work versus retirement in five state teacher pension systems. We do this by examining the annual accrual of pension wealth from an additional year of work over a teacher's career. Accrual of wealth is highly nonlinear and heavily loaded at arbitrary years that would normally be considered…

To learn more about the early career patterns of beginning teachers, the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) of the Institute of Education Sciences within the U.S. Department of Education undertook the Beginning Teacher Longitudinal Study (BTLS). The ultimate purpose of this report is to develop a strategy for the longitudinal analysis…

Montana is experiencing three types of teacher shortages, each requiring different intervention strategies. These situations include shortages in specific subject areas, most notably in music, special education, and foreign languages, followed closely by guidance and library; many job openings, caused by rapid enrollment growth, a large number of…