Entry and Exit of Baltimore City Teachers before and after COVID

In 2022, after increasing pressures from the COVID pandemic and a shifting political climate, the nation's largest teachers' union warned that over half of teachers were considering exiting the teaching profession. More recent national and local work suggests that such evidence in the media is often not supported by administrative data and that reports of a teacher exodus are often exaggerated or incorrect. There is no public data on teacher vacancies in Maryland, so in this study the supply of teachers in Baltimore City Public Schools (City Schools) was examined, with a particular focus on sources of potential teacher shortages that emerged during the COVID-19 era. Data for this study was provided by the Maryland Longitudinal Data System Center (MLDSC), an independent state agency that supports research on education and workforce outcomes in Maryland. Through descriptive evidence on teacher entry and exit from 2016 to 2022, it was shown that teacher retention rates in City Schools actually improved over pre-COVID levels. However, the post-COVID period also saw an increase in the number of new teachers hired with temporary teaching certificates. This suggests that City Schools faces new challenges to recruit and develop the next generation of teachers for Baltimore students.