Tackling Teacher Shortages: What We Know About California’s Teacher Workforce Investments

Like many states across the nation, California is facing persistent teacher shortages. School districts continue to find it difficult to fill vacancies with fully credentialed teachers, especially math, science, special education, and bilingual education teachers. Teacher shortages impact student learning as districts resort to relying on a revolving door of underprepared teachers and substitute teachers, increasing class sizes, and cutting course offerings altogether. Students of color and students from low-income backgrounds bear the brunt of these consequences, as teacher shortages are most severe in schools serving more of these students.

To tackle teacher shortages, especially in high-need schools, California has invested more than $1 billion to strengthen the teacher workforce. Much of this funding has been allocated since 2021 and began to be implemented in 2022 or 2023. These investments were specifically designed to increase teacher supply in shortage areas, make teacher preparation more affordable and accessible, and incentivize well-prepared and accomplished teachers to teach in high-need schools. Three of California’s largest investments in the teacher workforce are the Teacher Residency Grant Program ($672 million), Golden State Teacher Grant Program ($521 million), and National Board Certified Teacher Incentive Program ($250 million). In the initial years of administering these grants, state agencies have focused on establishing implementation processes and raising awareness about these programs. Data from the state’s early investments show that these programs are gaining traction. owever, they are funded through one-time allocations that are nearing expiration. This raises two questions: (1) To what extent are these investments supporting muchneeded teacher workforce development strategies, and (2) Are they still needed in the current context?

This report addresses these research questions by analyzing the California Department of Education Teaching Assignment Monitoring Outcomes data from 2020–21 to 2022–23 to gain a timely understanding of teacher shortages in the state. To understand the uptake and impact of California’s major teacher workforce investments, we examined data from state agencies and conducted interviews with teacher preparation programs, district leaders, and grant recipients.

Overall, we find early signs of improvement in the teacher workforce, even as teacher shortages in several fields remain a serious challenge. Beginning in 2020, California saw an uptick in the number of candidates completing teacher preparation programs, although this number dipped in 2022. The state investments have led to large increases in the number of teachers prepared through residency programs, which research shows is a high-retention pathway that effectively prepares teachers for the classroom. Financial supports through the Golden State Teacher Grant, which cover basic living expenses and tuition, have been critical for sustaining teacher candidates who commit to teaching in a high-need school through their preparation. Finally, the number of teachers pursuing National Board Certification—which research shows is linked to teacher effectiveness—more than tripled after the subsidy and incentive program became available in 2022, a trend mirrored in high-need schools. 

Importantly, data from the state’s early investments show that these programs are just now being fully implemented, and they are having an impact in a large number of communities. The impact of these investments will be fully realized and understood in the coming years as funded preparation programs ramp up, teaching candidates complete their programs and enter the workforce, and data become available to trace these developments.

Key Findings

California has seen a modest increase in newly prepared teachers. The number of candidates completing traditional teacher preparation programs increased by about 10% between 2019 and 2020. 2021 saw another sizable 14% increase in completers. These completer increases came after initial state investments in teacher residencies and the Golden State Teacher Grant went into effect. The COVID-19 pandemic also impacted teacher workforce trends during this time. Additional years of data will shed light on the extent to which the state sees continued increases in teacher preparation completions in line with its continued investment in the teacher workforce.

California teacher shortages continue. While the number of teacher preparation program completers has increased, in 2022 California graduated only half as many new teachers through a traditional preservice preparation program as it did at its peak in 2004. Additionally, substandard credentials and permits tripled between 2013 and 2023, making up more than half of all new California teaching credentials issued in 2023.

Teacher shortages disproportionately impact students in high-need schools. In 2022–23, the most recent year with available data, 83% of teacher full-time equivalents (FTEs) in priority schools were fully credentialed with clear or preliminary credentials for their teaching positions. In comparison, 87% of teacher FTEs were fully credentialed in non-priority schools. The state’s highest-need schools were nearly three times as likely to fill teaching positions with interns and teachers on emergency-style permits or waivers, compared to the lowest-need schools.

The Teacher Residency Grant Program has supported a large number of teacher residents. Between 2020 and 2023, the Teacher Residency Grant Program supported nearly 1,400 residents. In total, teacher residency programs graduated nearly 5,000 residents between 2021 and 2024. In 2021 alone, residents accounted for about 10% of newly prepared California teachers. The majority of residents were people of color, and many pursued credentials in severe shortage areas. Of the residents enrolled through 2023, around 40% enrolled in special education, 34% enrolled in STEM fields, and 27% were pursuing a bilingual authorization.

The Golden State Teacher Grant, which is projected to have funds exhausted by 2025, made teaching possible for recipients who commit to teaching in high-need schools. Grant recipients reported that the scholarship made the teaching profession a more financially feasible option and that they otherwise would not have been able to pursue teaching. One teacher recalled only having $5 in his bank account and wondering if he should drop out of his preparation program: “I would not have continued my teaching career whatsoever without the Golden State Grant.” Additionally, several grant recipients noted that they planned to remain teaching in a high-need school for longer to meet their service requirements.

The National Board Certified Teacher (NBCT) Incentive Program has motivated many more teachers in high-need schools to pursue certification, including teachers of color. An important goal of this program is to increase the supply of highly accomplished and effective teachers in high-need schools. NBCTs can also serve as mentors to support early-career teachers. The number of candidates pursuing certification more than tripled after the incentive program began in 2022, with a significant increase in the number of teachers of color pursuing National Board Certification. This trend is mirrored in high-need schools, where the number of teachers pursuing Board certification jumped fourfold from 415 in 2020–21 to 1,764 in 2022–23.

Policy Recommendations

Over the past few years, the state of California has made serious efforts to address long-standing teacher shortages, with a concerted focus on strengthening the teacher workforce in the highest-need schools. Through investments in the Teacher Residency Grant Program, Golden State Teacher Grant, and National Board Incentive Program, the state has planted seeds that are beginning to sprout. The state will need to continue to tend to those early investments to reap their full potential. Recommendations are:

• Ensure continued funding for Golden State Teacher Grants. GSTG funds are quickly being spent down and are likely to be exhausted before they expire in 2026. The contributions to individual candidates have been reduced from $20,000 to $10,000. The state should commit funds to the GSTG so that the program can continue to build a strong pipeline into teaching.
   
• Plan for strategic sustainability for teacher residencies that have been launched and for continued expansion. State funding can go toward establishing additional residency programs, continuing to support residency stipends and expenses for existing residency programs, and conducting research on supporting the expansion and sustainability of residency programs.
   
• Support ongoing funding, continued uptake, and impact studies of the National Board Incentive Program. This program is in the early years of implementation and has the potential to reach many more teachers with continued investment, support for uptake, and studies on the effect of the program in priority schools.
   
• Gather and report additional data on all of the state workforce programs to understand their use and impact. Currently, data on the state’s teacher workforce investments are limited. Increased data collection and reporting on these programs are imperative for policymakers’ ability to understand the characteristics of teachers who are participating in these programs, how successfully participants are completing them, and the extent to which teachers are filling much-needed roles in the state.

Tackling Teacher Shortages: What We Know About California's Teacher Workforce Investments by Desiree Carver-Thomas, Melanie Leung-Gagné, and Danielle Jeannite is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.

This research was supported by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Core operating support for LPI is provided by the Carnegie Corporation of New York, Heising-Simons Foundation, William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, Raikes Foundation, Sandler Foundation, Skyline Foundation, and MacKenzie Scott. We are grateful to them for their generous support. The ideas voiced here are those of the authors and not those of our funders.