Teachers are critical to student learning, but adequately staffing classrooms has been challenging in many parts of the country. Even though teacher shortages are being reported across the U.S., teacher shortages are poorly understood. Determining and addressing teacher shortages is difficult due to the lack of data. Neither the federal government…

With the rapid increase of English Learners (ELs) in K-12 schools, school districts are struggling to find ways to meet the needs for EL teachers. One approach to address the shortage is to build teacher capacity by collaborating with higher education institutions where English as a Second Language (ESL) teacher preparation programs are offered.…

This article describes the collaborative efforts of various state and national agencies working together to recruit and retain agriculture teachers in the states of Kentucky, South Carolina, and Ohio. We contrast multiple measures of recruitment and retention in these states with those from the comparator states of Arkansas, West Virginia, and…

This dissertation consists of three papers. In each, I use applied econometric methods and economic theory to study the American teacher workforce. The first paper evaluates a novel policy to address teacher shortages by promoting experienced school staff to be teachers of record. Controlling for demographics and baseline scores, I find that…

The purpose of this post-positivist, mixed methods study was to accurately quantify the teacher staffing trends in public education, especially for rural schooling and to learn how these trends impacted school districts specifically using Wisconsin schools as a case study. In the early 2000's, school districts throughout the nation experienced…

Upcoming changes in the teacher labor supply will have an impact on nations that provide government-based education for their youth. Faced with a significant global shortfall of educators, most countries have taken steps to incentivize teaching as a profession and ensure that qualified teachers are available to students in all locations --…

Agricultural education, like many other disciplines, is experiencing a shortage of school-based agricultural education (SBAE) teachers. We examined the perceptions of Pennsylvania SBAE teachers regarding extended contracts as they have been identified as a possible tool to improve recruitment and retention. The purpose of the study was to sample…

This qualitative phenomenological study addressed the underrepresentation of Black males in education by exploring the professional and lived experiences of Black male educators in urban North Carolina schools. The study utilized Critical Race Theory (CRT) to contextualize the lived experiences and persistent struggles of Black male educators and…

Although teacher recruitment and retention are widespread challenges in education, rural and urban counties in Nevada often feel particularly challenged. Within the research conducted, a common theme was uncovered as to why this challenge may be the case. Consistently and unprompted, inservice and preservice teachers mention their perceptions of…

In 2021, the Oklahoma School Librarians (OKSL) won the ABC-CLIO Leadership Grant. The OKSL division of the Oklahoma Library Association has always been a small division, but as budget shortfalls and teacher shortages ramped up in the early 2010s, as the author states, they reached a crisis point. According to the author, they were losing school…

Across the United States, many districts find themselves short on bilingual teachers. More than half of the states face a shortage of such teachers, with shortages most acute in states that provide bilingual education to the greatest numbers of English learners. Bilingual and dual-language education have proven to have a positive effect on the…

The national teacher shortage seems to be a never-ending crisis in our country. This shortage is even more alarming for teachers of color. While more than half of the students in the United States are non-white, less than 25 percent of their teachers are people of color (U.S. Department of Education, 2016; Lindsay, Blom, & Tilsley, 2017).…

Grow Your Own Programs (GYO) have gained increasing popularity with the impact of shortages of quality teaching candidates in many school districts, particularly in urban areas. To address the lack of quality teaching candidates, school districts and states have responded creatively to recruit the best teachers for their schools. To explore some…

The United States is experiencing a teacher shortage crisis that is even more pronounced in rural communities. Teachers may be driven away from the profession if they feel inadequately trained or under-supported to address students' mental health needs. As such, an important teacher retention strategy is to ensure schools have enough mental health…

STEM education equips students with critical thinking, problem-solving, and innovation skills necessary for success. This Spotlight will help readers analyze research-backed strategies to bolster the STEM teacher pipeline; learn how teachers can build student confidence and motivation in STEM; discover how hands-on learning can increase engagement…