Is there a shortage of special education teachers in America's public schools? If so, why? And how can policymakers fix it? The first question sounds like an easy one. Yes, there is a shortage of special education teachers. In 2023-24, more than half of districts and 80 percent of states reported such a shortage. If you doubt the self-reported data, a simple back-of-the-envelope calculation will lead you to the same conclusion. About 46,000 special education teachers leave public schools every year, while teacher preparation programs are training fewer than 30,000 new ones to replace them. Even if districts can supplement those new trainees with teachers who are re-entering the profession, that still makes for a very tight labor market. These numbers might lead policymakers to conclude that special education shortages are largely a supply problem, but that is not so. Over time, the number of people working in special education roles has risen rapidly, but the demand for them has risen even faster. The author estimates that demand-side growth can account for about two-thirds of the gap between school districts' annual hiring needs and the number of new special education teachers being produced. Supply-side solutions are not likely to close this gap on their own. Before diving deeper into the data and discussing possible solutions, it's worth noting that this disconnect is not a new phenomenon. In fact, when Bellwether Education Partners looked at which school subjects states reported as staff shortage areas from 1998--2018, it found that most states reported an insufficient number of special education teachers in most of those years. Over this 21-year period, only four states identified special education as a shortage less than half the time. Nine states--Florida, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Nebraska, Texas, and Wisconsin--reported a special education staffing shortage every year for 20 years straight. In other words, something long-term and persistent is at work. This teacher shortage negatively affects students. Due in part to the supply-demand disconnect, students with disabilities are more likely to be assigned to novice teachers who are less effective at fostering learning and raising student achievement. To solve these problems, policymakers will need to grapple with the complex realities of the special-education labor market. That starts by understanding the demand side of the equation.