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Report shows teacher shortage ’showed signs of stability and even improvement,’ but other problems worsen

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Illinois

* The full report is here. From Advance Illinois…

Illinois’ much-publicized teacher shortage crisis actually showed signs of stability and even improvement during the exceptionally challenging COVID-19 pandemic period, a new report from education policy expert Advance Illinois has found. Still, despite encouraging progress, there is much work ahead to ensure there are high-quality, diverse educators in Illinois classrooms and some concerning trends to overcome, the report finds. […]

The new report found:

• Illinois has more teachers, support staff, and school leaders working in classrooms today than it has in over a decade, calculated both in general and per student
• The supply of new teachers and principals has gradually increased in recent years, while supply of new paraprofessionals, one of the state’s largest shortage areas, has declined
• More educators have stayed in their jobs and in their schools, even during the difficult first two years of the pandemic and given significant challenges with school climate. Whether these gains hold remains to be seen when data from the 2022-2023 school year is made available.
• Last year, just over half of districts had no teacher vacancies. That said, schools continued to face challenges staffing certain positions—with some of the most severe challenges including paraprofessional positions, special education teaching positions, and bilingual teaching positions.
• Despite research indicating that teacher diversity benefits all students, racial disparities at every stage of Illinois’ educator pipeline—from recruitment and supply to retention— persist.
• While the diversity of candidates going into teaching in Illinois is increasing (and Illinois has much greater diversity in its teacher preparation programs than neighboring states), overall diversity of our teacher workforce continues to lag student diversity by significant margins.
• Illinois invested many of its federal stimulus (ESSER) dollars for programs to help strengthen and diversify the workforce. As federal funds expire, Illinois will need to continue to make critical investments in the pipeline, ultimately for the sake of students.

The report notes that the state did lower the age requirement for some paraprofessionals and now allows for short-term (3 years) approval before fulfilling the licensing requirement, so that may help. But the supply had dropped and demand soared before the changes were implemented in July of 2022.

posted by Rich Miller
Thursday, Oct 12, 23 @ 12:15 pm

Comments

Re-establish Tier 1.

Comment by DuPage Thursday, Oct 12, 23 @ 2:31 pm
==Re-establish Tier 1.==

College kids are not making career decisions based on retirement packages they may or may not receive 35 years from now. For the ones that are, there are 49 other states without Tier 2 in which they are welcome to teach.

==More educators have stayed in their jobs and in their schools==

Not surprising. Review any JOLTS report during good times or bad and education has the lowest turnover of any profession.

Comment by City Zen Thursday, Oct 12, 23 @ 2:57 pm
=College kids are not making career decisions based on retirement packages they may or may not receive 35 years from now.=

I am gonna have to disagree with you on that one. It is a factor. But, I do this for a living so I might have a bit more insight on the topic.

In rural Illinois, I am not feeling any improvement in the teaching pool. We are certainly hurting quality with some of the changes.

Comment by JS Mill Thursday, Oct 12, 23 @ 3:22 pm
==I am gonna have to disagree with you on that one. It is a factor.==

49 other states. When Illinois becomes an outlier in the teacher staffing statistics, which they are most certainly not currently, let me know.

For the ones that stay, portability is a much bigger factor as most won’t reach full vesting, regardless of tier.

Comment by City Zen Thursday, Oct 12, 23 @ 3:36 pm
=For the ones that stay, portability is a much bigger factor as most won’t reach full vesting, regardless of tier.=

You base this on what extensive experience? I ask because I have never heard anyone mention portability. Ever. Most people do not even understand how “portability” with education pensions, especially Illinois works. Tier 1 can vest in 5 years, Tier 2 is 10.

Comment by JS Mill Thursday, Oct 12, 23 @ 4:58 pm
Without divulging too much, I am heavily involved in this issue at the state level. I would urge anyone interested in this issue to read this report. It includes stats that both confirm and dispute conventional wisdom.
City Zen is correct that there has been no mass exodus, as it sometimes gets reported or bandied about. Education tends to be a stable profession, especially in mid-and late-career, as teachers work toward a good pension.
CZ may also be right in stating that kids don’t usually think about retirement (although now it’s 45 years away, not 35) when they get into the profession.
However, once someone has been on the job a few years, they question now more than ever if they want to do it for the long haul so we’re seeing early career teachers leave.
JS Mill is right in talking about his district, which I believe he has previously described as rural. The report shows how wealthy suburban districts seldom have a shortage but rural and urban districts often do.
As far as what DuPage said, tier 2 is looming larger and larger, as a larger percentage of our workforce is in that category. On the one hand are early career teachers who are leaving and on the other is that districts will have a large percentage of their teachers at the top of their salary scale for 25 years and this will be financially unsustainable.
Finally, the shortage is extremely skewed toward specific areas, such as special and bilingual education. Most news articles bury this but it should be at the forefront.
Illinois is getting on the right track in most aspects but there is no single solution to the issue. The report shows signs of improvement but it takes a multi-pronged approach to address the needs of hard-to-staff schools.

Comment by Proud Papa Bear Thursday, Oct 12, 23 @ 6:19 pm
I’m pleased to see that there is more stability, but do fear our rural district will not be able to replace 4 math and science teachers capable of teaching AP and dual credit level classes in the next 5 years. We’re also worried about getting and keeping teachers for the foreign language requirement that starts in 28-29. Short term
stability is great but the long term still has challenges.

Comment by Merle Webb’s Jumpshot Thursday, Oct 12, 23 @ 8:41 pm