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The current staffing crisis in public schools is taking center stage in communities throughout the country. Long-standing teacher shortages, combined with COVID-19-related absences, are stretching schools to the breaking point. Policymakers need to act quickly and strategically to address the mounting crisis and build for the long-term. Research provides a clear roadmap to guide their efforts.
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Like the movie “Groundhog Day,” the President’s 2018 education budget proposal feels like déjà vu all over again. Last year, we published a blog post that addressed the President’s proposed cuts to the Every Student Succeeds Act. Fortunately, the Congress that developed the Act and passed it in a strongly bipartisan vote in 2015 protected its key features. This year, in the President’s new budget proposal, however, those cuts are back.
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The National Writing Project’s College, Career, and Community Writers Program demonstrates the power of effective professional development. Through this program, experienced teachers share their knowledge, and the collective program knowledge and resources with new program participants, providing the type of leadership opportunity that research shows can be critical to the growth and satisfaction of veteran educators.
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Around the country, school districts are struggling to attract and retain high-quality teachers. This blog, the latest in our series on Solving Teacher Shortages, discusses the effectiveness of service scholarships and forgivable loans at recruiting excellent educators. These programs can attract more diverse teacher candidates and—because they tend to recruit a more stable workforce—can reduce recruitment and training costs associated with turnover.
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CTE helps prepare young people for success in both postsecondary education and a range of high-wage, high-skill careers and is a critical engine for our economy. Right now, however, our nation is facing a serious shortage of CTE teachers that undermines quality and limits course access. This blog details how reauthorization of the Carl D. Perkins Career and Technical Education Act creates a vehicle to address shortages and strengthen CTE offerings.
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Forty-eight states and the District of Columbia reported having shortages of special education teachers in the 2016–17 school year. As a result, school districts have filled those vacancies with underprepared teachers. Strategic investments in evidence-based programs can alleviate this perennial shortage. This blog highlights programs and state-level strategies to attract, prepare, and retain enough special education teachers to meet school and district needs.
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As school districts around the country struggle to find enough qualified teachers to staff their classrooms, state policymakers are considering a range of budget and policy proposals to address immediate teacher shortages and build a sustainable, high-quality, and more diverse teacher workforce. This blog explores how states are tackling teacher shortages with targeted investments and evidence-based strategies.
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Amidst news reports of teacher shortages throughout California, a small number of districts issued so-called March 15 notices to teachers, signaling a potential layoff in the next school year. How can we have layoffs in times of shortages? This blog, by LPI Executive Director Patrick Shields and Senior Writer Roberta Furger, puts the layoff news in perspective.
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President Trump’s “skinny budget” proposal, calls for wide-ranging cuts in the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), including the complete elimination of funding for Title II, Part A, the Supporting Effective Instruction State Grants program. Eliminating this section of the law, which supports educator learning and development, undermines the ability of states and districts to achieve ESSA’s ambitious goals for our schools and students.
