Renewing the commitment for specialized middle grades teacher preparation and licensure

Abstract

There is a nation-wide teacher shortage. While this statement might seem obvious to many, perhaps even an understatement to the many challenging and traumatizing things taking place within education (see Hurd et al., 2021, Hurd, 2022), it is a statement worth exploring. According to the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) (2022) the teacher shortage facing schools is real. It is worse in certain areas and for certain groups, such as in western states and for rural, urban, and highpoverty communities with Black and Brown students. However, the U.S. GAO found that “in every [U.S.] region, shortages were between 8–17% points higher than five years earlier” (p. 15). U.S. GAO also found that the teacher shortage has been made worse during the COVID-19 pandemic and has been exacerbated by two key issues: teacher recruitment and retention challenges. These challenges exist due to a negative perception of the teaching profession and a perceived lack of support for current teachers. Of course, there are many efforts and initiatives to solve the teacher shortage crisis in the United States, just as there are goals to have high-quality teachers. But the goals of high-quality teacher recruitment and retention are in fact interrelated. These are a twofold goal that some states may struggle with meeting, keeping in mind the aims within both of these goals. Despite current research and the struggles facing schools to recruit and retain teachers, there are some organizations that still question whether or not there truly is a teacher shortage. For example, the National Council on Teacher Quality (2018) argued the “largely anecdotal, not based on data” teacher-shortage-narrative is really a decades-old struggle, misguided by limited policy papers and localized economic conditions of just a few states (p. 1). They further stated that the widespread deficit of teachers nationally is a perception due in part to state agencies that misalign teacher vacancy data against district hiring statistics. Their main point is that way too many teachers (in fact, 50%) leave the profession before they actually begin to teach, thus inflating statistics (p. 4). However, the NCTQ report is based on statistical data of national agencies dating back to before 2016 and has yet to be retracted or updated. In fact, much of the world has changed since then, with a global pandemic, stock market strife, and global inflation. Regardless of one’s orientation on the teachershortage-narrative, there is no denying that some schools are struggling to recruit and retain teachers, for various reasons. There is no denying that many schools are also having serious issues with recruiting substitute teachers. Some states, for example, are turning to unconventional ways to fill classrooms with teachers in order to meet the demand and to have an adult in front of children. The following list includes just a few efforts occurring nationally to address the teacher shortage: