Ending Teacher Shortages

Stable schools depend on retaining teachers, because when educators stay, students succeed. Teacher shortages dominate headlines, yet the problem is often misunderstood. Unfilled positions, underprepared teachers, and high turnover are treated as symptoms of a single national crisis, when in fact shortages vary widely by region, school, and subject. Ending Teacher Shortages reframes the issue and offers a clearer path forward. Tuan D. Nguyen and Christopher Redding show that shortages persist not only because too few people want to teach, but because too many teachers leave. Using national and state-level evidence, the book explains how working conditions, compensation, preparation, and support shape teacher retention—and why schools serving historically marginalized students bear the greatest burden of instability. The authors synthesize decades of research alongside new analyses of post-pandemic data to show how shortages emerge at different points in the teacher pipeline. They examine recruitment, preparation, hiring, mentoring and induction, compensation, and workplace conditions, identifying which policy levers matter most in specific contexts. Rather than promoting one-size-fits-all solutions, the book emphasizes local diagnosis and targeted actions. Ending Teacher Shortages provides an accessible, research-grounded guide to stabilizing the teacher workforce. It argues that lasting change depends on building schools where teachers want to stay—and where students can rely on experienced, supported educators year after year.