A Policy Agenda to Address the Teacher Shortage in U.S. Public Schools: The Sixth and Final Report in the 'Perfect Storm in the Teacher Labor Market' Series

The teacher shortage in the nation's public schools--particularly in high-poverty schools--is a crisis for the teaching profession and a serious problem for the entire education system. The Economic Policy Institute's (EPI's) teacher shortage policy agenda plots a course to return teaching to a profession in which teachers are compensated on par with their college-educated peers, operate in environments where they can teach effectively, get the training they need early in their careers and the professional development they need throughout their work lives, have their professional judgment incorporated, and have the opportunity to use the expertise they attain to help shape what goes on in their classrooms and their schools. This policy agenda has two components: a set of four foundational recommendations for how to understand the context and approach the problem in a way that will actually solve it, followed by specific policies that, if implemented together, could go a long way toward solving the teacher shortage crisis. This policy agenda builds on an in-depth analysis of the size, scope, and drivers of the teacher shortage, as detailed in the first five reports in the EPI's "Perfect Storm in the Teacher Labor Market" series. The agenda addresses the factors identified in the series as well as other specific or underlying factors such as lack of a properly resourced system, the lack of a diverse teaching workforce, student loan debt payments burdening teachers, and the uneven effectiveness of initiatives for teachers-in-training. The authors review the analysis, present the principles underlying the agenda, and then present the specific agenda items, which fall into two categories: (1) Overarching principles for how to approach the teacher shortage problem; and (2) Specific proposals in the policy agenda to address the teacher shortage.