DATA: Severe Teacher Shortage Awaits as PA Schools Welcome Back Students
Report Authors Available for Interviews
Harrisburg, PA - As students across Pennsylvania begin a new school year, many areas suffer from severe teacher shortages. A highly qualified, adequately staffed, and diverse teacher workforce is essential for any thriving educational system, workforce, and economy. But Pennsylvania's teacher shortage has reached crisis levels. According to a report co-authored by Dr. Edward J. Fuller, an Associate Professor at Penn State University and Laura Boyce, Pennsylvania Executive Director of Teach Plus and a leader with #PANeedsTeachers, the supply of teachers has plummeted by two-thirds over the past decade, and the state now issues more emergency permits – granted to underprepared teachers when schools cannot find qualified teachers – than it issues regular teaching certificates to fully qualified teachers. When we include teacher attrition, a conservative estimate suggests that we need 15,000 additional teachers to fill vacant positions, replace teachers on emergency permits, and replace teachers who left the teaching profession.
The Severity of the Teacher Shortage Crisis in Pennsylvania aims to provide a geographic picture of the supply and demand for teachers across Pennsylvania and other measures of the strength of our educator workforce.
"Schools throughout Pennsylvania are welcoming students, but for many students, that means that they're entering a school without enough well-qualified teachers," said Laura Boyce, Pennsylvania Executive Director of Teach Plus and a leader with #PANeedsTeachers. "We have made progress in the last few years with the creation and funding of the student teacher stipend, but we must focus our efforts on recruiting and retaining more teachers so we can rebuild our teacher pipeline and reverse teacher attrition so every student can have a well-qualified teacher leading their classroom."
Overall, the teacher shortage is "extremely severe" in 19% of Pennsylvania counties. These counties include Philadelphia in southeastern Pennsylvania; Mifflin, Dauphin, Juniata, and Union in central Pennsylvania; Warren, Forest, and McKean in northern Pennsylvania; Erie in northwestern Pennsylvania; and Somerset, Blair, Fulton, and Franklin in south-central Pennsylvania. The overall shortage is "severe" in 43% of counties, which are primarily located in southeastern, central, eastern, northeastern, and south-central Pennsylvania. The shortage is "moderate" in 34% of Pennsylvania counties, primarily in Western Pennsylvania. Finally, the teacher shortage is relatively "mild" (though not nonexistent) in only two counties in Pennsylvania: Butler and Wyoming.
"The scope and depth of the teacher shortage in Pennsylvania is troubling," said Dr. Edward J. Fuller, an Associate Professor at Penn State University. "Twenty percent of Pennsylvania counties have an extremely severe teacher shortage, impacting thousands of students. Across all measures, Pennsylvania needs to prioritize getting well-qualified teachers into our schools so we no longer have school years to start without the teachers leading our classes."
Due to its severity, the teacher shortage crisis affects most Pennsylvania districts but doesn't affect them all equally. The report includes county-level data to better understand the regional variations in educator staffing challenges.
This study relies only on data from school districts. It does not include intermediate units, career and technical centers, and charter schools. Including charter schools would make many measures for urban areas, particularly teacher qualifications and attrition, even worse.
#PANeedsTeachers, a statewide coalition led by Teach Plus and the National Center on Education and the Economy (NCEE), has been leading efforts to alleviate the teacher shortage crisis. In 2022, they held a summit that brought together educators, experts, and advocates, exploring the roots of the teacher shortage crisis and possible solutions. Following the summit, #PANeedsTeachers released a report on Pennsylvania's teacher shortage, #PANeedsTeachers: Addressing Pennsylvania's Teacher Shortage Crisis Through Systemic Solutions, guided by the summit's discussion and findings. #PANeedsTeachers has also developed tools to track the severity of teacher shortages by county and state senate districts. #PANeedsTeachers also developed the Solutions Playbook - a collection of over a dozen local solutions in place across the commonwealth addressing educator shortages.
About Teach Plus and NCEE
Teach Plus: The mission of Teach Plus is to empower excellent, experienced, and diverse teachers to take leadership over key policy and practice issues that affect their students' success. Since 2009, Teach Plus has developed thousands of teacher leaders across the country to exercise their leadership in shaping education policy and improving teaching and learning, to create an education system driven by access and excellence for all. For more information, www.teachplus.org
NCEE: Since 1988, The National Center on Education and the Economy (NCEE) has been researching the world's best-performing education systems to give states and districts the tools they need to become world class. NCEE has been a leader in U.S. education from policy to practice, producing reports that have led to landmark national legislation, supporting states in redesigning their education systems, and providing rigorous, proven support to more education leaders than any other organization. NCEE's dedicated, diverse, and experienced staff are working with teachers, school leaders, district leadership teams, and state policymakers to create the highest-performing, most equitable systems of education in the world. For more information, visit www.ncee.org.
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