Teacher shortages: where the numbers stand and what may ease them

A teacher shortage means open classroom jobs that schools cannot fill. In October 2022, 45 percent of U.S. public schools reported one or more vacant teaching positions, according to the federal School Pulse Panel, and vacancies tend to cluster in low-income schools and hard-to-staff subjects. The causes reach past pay, and the fixes remain partly unproven. The strain was broad that year. In June 2022, 88 percent of public schools called teacher and staff burnout a concern, per the same panel. The magazine’s education news coverage keeps track of the research behind those numbers. Open posts feed a second worry: lost class time. Students who miss instruction can slide, and what research says about learning loss recovery shows how slow the climb back runs. Shortages and recovery sit at two ends of one problem. How big is the shortage? The School Pulse Panel, a monthly federal survey of public schools, offers the clearest count.

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