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teaching has lost its appeal as a profession, with many countries facing mass
teacher retirements (Euronews, 2022) or career changes (Rock, 2023; Turner,
2023). Even before COVID-19, teachers reported stress and lack of support
from the school or district as their leading reasons for leaving teaching in a
U.S. public school (Rock, 2023; Schmitt & deCourcy, 2022).
• Recruitment: Over the last decade, postsecondary teacher-preparation
programs in the United States have struggled to recruit and retain education
majors; college students in decreasing numbers choose education as a career
(deCourcy, 2023) because teachers’ salaries in many locations have not kept
pace with a rise in U.S. college tuition (Turner & Cohen, 2023). Salaries for
teachers have not remained competitive with other professions that require a
college degree (Schmitt & deCourcy, 2022).

Teacher Shortage Solutions
To address these staffing shortages, states and individual school districts are
pursuing a variety of solutions, including increased class size, long-term substitute
teachers, and emergency certification for teachers without prior experience or with
out-of-state or overseas certification (Pettypiece, 2023). To recruit candidates, states
such as California and New Mexico also have eliminated, at least in the short term,
basic skills or subject matter tests as certification requirements, accepting instead
a portfolio demonstrating teaching competencies or a college transcript showing
acceptable grades in specified courses. Alabama also
lowered its cutoff scores for teacher-certification
Salaries for teachers have examinations. Districts in rural Texas and other states
in the western United States have adopted a 4-day week
not remained competitive as an incentive to teacher applicants (Rock, 2023).

with other professions that One district in Mesa, Arizona, has piloted a team-
teaching model that allows a group of four teachers—a
require a college degree. mixture of veteran educators and teachers in training for
mathematics, science, history, and English—to work in
concert to meet the needs of 135 high school freshmen in
one giant classroom (Morton, 2022). Hawaii addressed
its shortage of special education teachers with a pay
increase of $10,000 (Rock, 2023), while other states such as Tennessee and Maryland
have raised teacher salaries across the board to attract more teachers (Stanford,
2023).
Postsecondary institutions are also addressing the teacher shortage issue. In
Washington, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Nevada, and New Mexico, 2-year
community colleges are beginning to offer baccalaureate degrees in K–12 education,
while Texas and Wyoming offer similar degrees in early childhood education. With
their convenience and lower cost, such degree programs offered in a community
college setting attract a diversity of students to teaching (Retka, 2022). Some states
are also working with colleges and universities to address specific shortages. The
Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education is approving
new-teacher training programs only if they relate to fields with a reported shortage.
The Colorado Department of Higher Education is partnering with its postsecondary
teacher-preparation institutions to target shortages, primarily in rural areas, through
$10,000 stipends to teacher candidates who work in such high-need communities for
one year. Other postsecondary institutions, such as the University of South Carolina,

8 The Delta Kappa Gamma Bulletin: International Journal for Professional Educators