74% of schools had trouble filling teacher vacancies this school year

However, the percentage saying they didn’t experience challenges filling vacant teaching and non-teaching roles rose, according to NCES data.

Published Oct. 17, 2024

Naaz Modan Senior Reporter

Education Dive

A recent survey conducted by the U.S. Department of Education’s National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) found that 74% of public schools in the United States faced challenges in filling one or more vacant teaching positions for the 2024-25 school year. This figure, while still high, reflects a slight improvement compared to previous years, with 79% of schools reporting difficulty during the 2023-24 school year and 80% during the 2022-23 school year. This suggests that while staffing challenges persist, some progress has been made.

Key factors contributing to these hiring difficulties include a lack of qualified candidates and too few applicants. However, fewer schools reported issues with salary and benefits, indicating that while compensation remains a concern, it is not as prominent as it once was. The most challenging positions to fill continue to be in special education, general elementary teaching, and English language arts, with special education being particularly difficult for many districts.

Interestingly, the percentage of schools that did not face any hiring challenges increased, with 14% of schools reporting no difficulty in hiring teaching staff, up from 9% the previous year. Similarly, 17% of schools reported no challenges in hiring non-teaching staff, up from 10% last year. This may suggest that while overall hiring difficulties remain, some schools are finding ways to address the issue or are less impacted than others.

Staffing shortages were exacerbated during the COVID-19 pandemic, which led to early retirements, burnout, and increased dissatisfaction among educators. The pandemic exposed long-standing issues in the education system, including challenging working conditions and a perceived lack of support for teachers. Although the percentage of schools feeling understaffed decreased slightly in 2023, with 45% reporting feeling understaffed (down from 53% in the 2022-23 school year), staffing issues remain a concern.

Efforts to address these staffing shortages have been criticized as inadequate. In 2022, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) called out the U.S. Department of Education for failing to develop a comprehensive strategy to support teacher recruitment and retention. While the department laid out plans to strengthen the teacher pipeline and support professional development, the GAO noted that these efforts lacked clear timelines and performance metrics to gauge their effectiveness.

In summary, while schools are seeing some improvements in their ability to fill teaching and non-teaching positions, significant challenges remain. The data suggests that systemic issues, particularly in special education, continue to hinder efforts to ensure schools are adequately staffed. Moving forward, more comprehensive and targeted strategies may be needed to address the root causes of teacher shortages and to build a stronger, more sustainable workforce in education.

Original Article

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Prepared with the assistance of AI software

OpenAI. (2024). ChatGPT (4) [Large language model]. https://chat.openai.com