Recruitment & Retention What the Research Says

What School Staffing Shortages Look Like Now

By Sarah D. Sparks — September 27, 2022 3 min read
Image of staffing shortages.
  • Save to favorites
  • Print

A majority of schools report starting the 2022-23 school year off short-staffed, with openings for teachers as well as custodians, bus drivers and other critical school employees.

In a nationally representative federal survey released today, 60 percent of principals surveyed said they are struggling to fill nonteaching positions, while 48 percent reported hiring teachers has been a challenge. For both teaching and nonteaching openings, more than 6 in 10 school leaders said their biggest challenge has been finding enough candidates to apply, much less fully qualified ones.

In its ongoing Pulse survey, which has been tracking school experiences since the pandemic, the National Center for Education Statistics has repeatedly surveyed about 900 K-12 schools, most recently Aug. 9-23. While NCES did not have a baseline of exact pre-pandemic staffing levels, Chris Chapman, an NCES statistician, said, “essentially, 10 percent of principals were saying, ‘Hey, we were already understaffed, irrespective of COVID.’”

While policymakers may focus on the dearth of overall applicants, experts said the variety of staffing shortages means school and district leaders will need to undertake more targeted solutions than simply to increase recruitment across the board.

For example, the two most in-demand teaching areas are for special education and math. In the NCES data, at least three quarters of schools with open positions in special education and mathematics instruction reported they are finding it difficult to find candidates who are fully certified to teach in those areas.

But “there’s pretty good evidence that the source of challenge in those two areas [of special education and math] is different,” said Dan Goldhaber, a research director with the American Institutes of Research and the University of Washington. While he did not participate in the Pulse survey, Goldhaber found similar evidence of rising demand for special education and STEM teachers in a forthcoming study of school district job postings in Washington.

“In special education, there are lots of people that are getting special education training, but special education teachers leave special education classrooms at higher rates than we see teachers leave other classrooms. So the challenge is more associated with a teacher attrition problem,” Goldhaber said. “Whereas with STEM, the teacher attrition of [science, technology, engineering and math] teachers looks pretty comparable to general teacher attrition, but there are relatively fewer teacher candidates that are getting endorsed in STEM areas.”

Similarly, the Washington state study, previewed at the Society for Research on Educational Effectiveness conference on Saturday, found while elementary teaching shortages have gotten more attention from policymakers, high schools had more teacher vacancies.

“Everything that we are seeing in terms of job postings shows that the staffing challenge is not equal across geographies, across subject areas, and across all schools and school systems that serve different kinds of students,” Goldhaber said. “It is much more challenging to hire in schools and school systems serving high-poverty [students] and students of color, and it’s much more challenging in some specialty areas, like special education, English-language learners, and STEM.”

The outlook isn’t quite as dire as it was last year, however. Going into this summer, NCES found schools had on average more than three open staff positions. It won’t be clear until October how many of those positions schools filled. By the survey in late August, principals reported that hiring for English/language arts, math, and special education teachers turned out to be slightly less challenging this fall than they had expected at the beginning of the summer, but finding social studies teachers was more difficult than predicted.

Related Tags:

Events

This content is provided by our sponsor. It is not written by and does not necessarily reflect the views of Education Week's editorial staff.
Sponsor
Reading & Literacy Webinar
The Future of the Science of Reading
Join us for a discussion on the future of the Science of Reading and how to support every student’s path to literacy.
Content provided by HMH
This content is provided by our sponsor. It is not written by and does not necessarily reflect the views of Education Week's editorial staff.
Sponsor
College & Workforce Readiness Webinar
From Classrooms to Careers: How Schools and Districts Can Prepare Students for a Changing Workforce
Real careers start in school. Learn how Alton High built student-centered, job-aligned pathways.
Content provided by TNTP
Mathematics K-12 Essentials Forum Helping Students Succeed in Math

EdWeek Top School Jobs

Teacher Jobs
Search over ten thousand teaching jobs nationwide — elementary, middle, high school and more.
View Jobs
Principal Jobs
Find hundreds of jobs for principals, assistant principals, and other school leadership roles.
View Jobs
Administrator Jobs
Over a thousand district-level jobs: superintendents, directors, more.
View Jobs
Support Staff Jobs
Search thousands of jobs, from paraprofessionals to counselors and more.
View Jobs

Read Next

Recruitment & Retention One State’s Educator-Recruitment Campaign Has a Secret Weapon: Its Own Teachers
Georgia wants to change the public's view of teaching.
7 min read
Georgia Southern University College of Education Associate Dean Dr. Yasar Bodur takes photos as Aaliyah Smith signs a Certificate of Commitment on stage during the first ever Teach in the Peach Statewide Educator Signing Day at the College Football Hall of Fame in Atlanta on May 6, 2025.
Future teachers gather at tables to hear speakers during the "Teach in the Peach" statewide educator signing day at the College Football Hall of Fame in Atlanta on May 6. It's one of several measures the state has rolled out to recognize its teachers—and attract new ones.
David Walter Banks for Education Week
Recruitment & Retention Will Fired Federal Workers Consider Teaching? Some Schools May Soon Find Out
Thousands of federal employees face unemployment. Some states and districts see an opportunity to recruit skilled workers to the classroom.
6 min read
Surreal illustation of intersecting arrows and stairs.
Eoneren / E+
Recruitment & Retention What the Research Says Teacher Shortages Are Improving—With Two Big Exceptions
New job posting data suggests staffing support needs to be targeted at particular areas.
4 min read
Image of innovative solutions around staffing.
Laura Baker/Education Week and Andrii Yalanskyi/iStock/Getty
Recruitment & Retention Districts Can't Pay Teachers Promised Incentives After Trump Admin. Cuts Funding
Grants meant for teacher and school leader development in high-need schools were abruptly cut by the Trump administration. Districts are looking for other options.
8 min read
Master teachers Krysta McGrew and Justin Stewart work with their peers during a 5K cluster meeting at Ford Elementary School in Laurens, S.C., on March 10, 2025.
Master teachers Krysta McGrew and Justin Stewart work with their peers at Ford Elementary School in Laurens, S.C., on March 10, 2025. The Laurens district is among those who lost federal grant funding meant to provide performance-based financial incentives to teachers.
Bryant Kirk White for Education Week