Last spring, state officials published data indicating some worrying signs regarding the future of Ohio’s teacher workforce. While Ohio lawmakers took advantage of the biennial state budget to enact several policies aimed at addressing these issues, there’s still plenty of work to be done.
Over the next several weeks, we’ll examine a plethora of potential ideas—many of which we’ve previously proposed in policy briefs and other analyses—as to how Ohio lawmakers can finish the job and effectively bolster the teacher workforce. First, we’ll start with the importance of gathering accurate data on teacher shortages.
Teacher shortages have been making headlines for years based on anecdotal reports from district and school administrators. According to research by the Center for American Progress, enrollment in teacher preparation programs nationally fell by more than one-third from 2010 to 2018, with Ohio posting a decline of nearly 50 percent. Ohio was one of nine states where the drop totaled more than 10,000 prospective teachers. State data released last year indicates that the number of newly licensed teachers has gradually declined since 2014.
To make matters even more complicated, teacher shortages vary from place to place and between grades and subject areas. Using teacher vacancy data from Tennessee, a paper published by Brown University’s Annenberg Institute for School Reform found that staffing issues are “highly localized.” That means it’s possible for teacher shortages and surpluses to exist simultaneously, and explains why some districts and schools are struggling to staff classrooms while others aren’t.
For Ohio, pinpointing the depth and breadth of shortages and where, exactly, they exist is crucial. State leaders can’t craft effective solutions unless they understand the full size and scope of the problem. That means understanding both teacher supply and demand. It’s not enough to know that the number of newly licensed teachers has declined or that attrition rates have gone up. We must also understand the specific teaching needs that schools have.
Unfortunately, Ohio doesn’t collect data on teacher demand. We don’t know the number of teaching positions that go unfilled each year, which leaves state leaders guessing as to how big of a hole they need to fill. There’s also no way of knowing how long it takes districts to fill open positions, what the candidate pool looks like, or whether schools have opted to just stop offering certain classes (like French or a career-technical education course) because they couldn’t find a teacher.
These are all details that must be taken into account when shaping policy because they require varying solutions. For example, if districts report high demand for math teachers but weak demand for history teachers, then it would be wise to beef up math teacher recruitment but unwise to commit resources to recruiting history teachers. Similarly, if the vast majority of districts report high demand for special education teachers, blanket teacher recruitment efforts likely aren’t going to cut it.
To put it another way, although Ohio leaders deserve kudos for trying to address teacher shortages, their efforts are too reliant on guesswork if we don’t have data on teacher demand. Even if state leaders blindly manage to hit a few targets, we won’t actually know they’ve been hit. Without accurate and annually updated data on demand, we have no way of knowing whether the policies and initiatives Ohio implements have actually succeeded in bolstering the teacher workforce.
With all this in mind, we offer two recommendations.
First, lawmakers should add a provision to state law directing the Ohio Department of Education and Workforce (DEW) to collect data about teacher demand and vacancies. Specifically, they could collect information from districts regarding the number of vacancies by school, grade level, and subject area; how long it takes to fill vacancies; the number of applicants for each vacancy; the number of vacancies filled by long-term substitutes; and any courses or subjects that were eliminated due to hiring difficulties or extended vacancies. Requiring the department to collect these data will make it easier to understand teacher shortages and will help ensure that policy solutions will be timely and effective.
Second, DEW should make teacher data more easily accessible to the public. One way to do so would be to create a distinct state dashboard that tracks both teacher supply and demand. ExcelinEd published a model policy for such a dashboard last year that Ohio lawmakers could incorporate into state law. Another option is to take a page out of North Carolina’s book and compile and publish an annual report about the state of the teaching profession. Both options would give state leaders the ability to track trends over time and pinpoint potential problem areas to head off future teacher shortages.
Obviously, data collection itself won’t solve labor shortages. But detailed information about teacher supply and demand will empower lawmakers to craft better, more effective policies. To help themselves down the road—and to ensure that Ohio schools have what they need—lawmakers need to move quickly to ensure they have quality information with which to make teacher policy changes.
