A teacher shortage means open classroom jobs that schools cannot fill. In October 2022, 45 percent of U.S. public schools reported one or more vacant teaching positions, according to the federal School Pulse Panel, and vacancies tend to cluster in low-income schools and hard-to-staff subjects. The causes reach past pay, and the fixes remain partly unproven.
The strain was broad that year. In June 2022, 88 percent of public schools called teacher and staff burnout a concern, per the same panel. The magazine’s education news coverage keeps track of the research behind those numbers.
Open posts feed a second worry: lost class time. Students who miss instruction can slide, and what research says about learning loss recovery shows how slow the climb back runs. Shortages and recovery sit at two ends of one problem.
How big is the shortage?
The School Pulse Panel, a monthly federal survey of public schools, offers the clearest count. In October 2022, 45 percent reported one or more vacant teaching positions, and 53 percent said in August they felt understaffed entering the 2022–23 year. Schools expected to fill an average of three vacancies each that year.
Why do teachers leave?
A 2026 Wikipedia overview of retention research lists low salary, student behavior issues, weak support from school leadership, and no voice in decisions among the most cited push factors. Attrition is thought to run higher in low-income schools and in high-need subjects such as math, science, and special education. That is where openings pile up first.
The field itself is young. The same overview notes that retention research grew out of a perceived shortage in the education labor market in the 1990s, so the questions are newer than the problem. Its authors also draw a clean line: a shortage can grow from fewer teachers entering or more teachers leaving, and both dials move with pay. For related coverage, see Bilingual education benefits — Bilingual education: what the research shows, and what it doesn't.
What does burnout do to the supply?
A 2023 systematic review in the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health examined 38 studies drawn from an initial pool of 3,766 articles. It links heavy stress to burnout and names professional relationships, self-efficacy, and organizational support as major factors in how teachers fare at work. The authors connect wellbeing with teaching quality, and student wellbeing in turn.
Workload sits near the center of that review. The studies it collected describe demanding days that generate excessive load and press on work-life balance, which erodes morale and job satisfaction. Burnout is the endpoint those papers flag most often, and it is the endpoint principals reported at scale in 2022.
What might ease the shortage?
Two dials matter. The 2026 overview puts it plainly: a shortage can come from fewer new teachers entering or more current teachers leaving, and supply tracks pay. Levers aimed at entry, such as pay and training pipelines, work the first dial. The 2023 review stresses a second dial: collaboration among parents, colleagues, and leadership teams, plus adequate organizational support, as critical to a workplace teachers can survive.
No single fix carries strong proof across settings. Bonuses may lift entry; conditions may cut exits; the two interact. The honest summary is a portfolio, tested locally, rather than one grand policy.
Where the evidence comes from
The School Pulse Panel counts open posts as schools report them, not as an independent audit. The same panel found 62 percent of schools worried in June 2022 about filling vacant staff positions, a reminder that the strain covered support roles too. The 2023 review synthesizes 38 peer-reviewed studies, most of them observational, which limits causal claims. The retention overview is a living summary rather than a single test. None of these sources can rank which policy fix works best; trials on hiring and pay are rare.
Conclusion
The shortage is real and countable: 45 percent of schools carried open teaching posts in October 2022, and burnout sat behind much of the churn. The evidence pins low pay, weak support, and hard conditions as push factors. Fixes split between new supply and better retention, and the two interact. Monthly counts will move with the school year, so any single figure is a snapshot. Careful local trials remain the surest path forward.
