Examining the Factors That Play a Role in the Teacher Shortage Crisis: Key Findings from EPI's 'Perfect Storm in the Teacher Labor Market' Series

The teacher shortage in the United States is an increasingly recognized but still poorly understood crisis. Much attention has focused on the size of the shortage (about 110,000 teachers in the 2017-2018 school year, by one estimate), its monetary costs, and the negative effects of the shortage on students, teachers, and the public education system at large. But the multiple complex and interdependent causes have received less scrutiny. In 2019, we authored a series of five EPI reports examining the full magnitude of the teacher shortage and the working conditions and other factors that contribute to the shortage. A sixth report on policy recommendations, "A Policy Agenda to Address the Teacher Shortage in U.S. Public Schools," [see ED611178] is being released simultaneously with this summary report. This summary report presents key findings from the first five studies in the series and outlines the policy agenda presented in the sixth report. At the end of this summary report are the infographic fact sheets that were released with the reports. [For the first five reports, see ED598211, ED598209, ED598208, ED598207, and ED598210, respectively.]