Three of four public schools still struggle to find teachers, government reports

Public schools across the nation are still struggling to hire enough teachers, government researchers report.

The average public school had six teaching vacancies as of August, reports the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), a branch of the U.S. Department of Education. Only 79% of those were filled before classes began, leaving one-and-a-quarter jobs empty per school.

With over 97,000 public schools nationwide, that amounts to nearly 122,000 unfilled positions.

However, NCES touted the numbers as a slight improvement from prior years.

“Entering the 2024-25 school year, the data show a decrease in the percentage of public schools reporting difficulty filling one or more vacant teaching positions compared to the previous year, dropping from 79 percent to 74 – but there is still room for improvement,” said Peggy Carr, commissioner of NCES.

Most public schools (62%) reported both too few candidates in the market and too few qualified candidates (64%).  

Elementary and middle schools both had difficulty finding special education teachers (74%), while high schools couldn’t find enough ESL or bilingual educators (69%).  

One major factor in the teacher shortage may be the growing bloat in school administration: A 20-year study found the student and teacher population grew at about the same rate – 7.6% and 8.7%, respectively – while the number of school administrators skyrocketed by 87.6%.

Since many administrators start their careers as teachers, it follows that increasing the number of administrator positions would decrease the number of available classroom teachers.