A researcher says there is no single national teacher labor market. For district leaders, that means the most useful hiring data is local, sorted by subject, and often already sitting in HR.
In an Education Week interview published October 8, researcher Tuan Nguyen of the University of Missouri discussed his new book, Ending Teacher Shortages, written with Christopher Redding of the University of Florida. Their tracking project found at least 56,000 teaching vacancies unfilled after the 2025-26 school year began and at least 350,000 underqualified educators, a group that includes teachers on provisional or emergency credentials and certified teachers working outside their field. Enrollment in teacher-certification programs has flatlined in most states.
The sentence district leaders should hold on to is simpler. Nguyen said the common mistake is assuming a singular national teacher labor market. Surpluses in one subject or area can coexist with shortages in STEM or special education, even within the same state or district, and a credential in one state often does not transfer to another.
If your district has a shortage, it is probably a shortage of something specific. The first job is to say exactly what.
Segment Before You Spend
A district-wide vacancy count is a headline. A table is a plan. Break open positions out by subject, grade band, and school. Separate fully certified hires from those on provisional, emergency, or out-of-field assignments. Add a column for how long each position stayed open. Within an hour, most HR teams can see which five or six roles account for most of the pain.
That table also reveals where the district is fine. Strong applicant pools in some areas are a resource, since they may supply candidates willing to move into a hard to staff area with the right support.
Track the Source of Every Hire
The next column is where each hire came from: a job board, a preparation program, a referral, a substitute pool, or a staffing agency. Add cost, and the district can see the cost per hire by channel. Many districts pay for several platforms at once, such as Frontline Education, SchoolSpring, EDJOIN, K12JobSpot, HigherEdJobs, or PowerSchool, through subscriptions, per-posting fees, or bundled software. Some of those channels produce hires. Others produce invoices.
Once the numbers are on the table, cutting overlap is easy to justify. Moving postings that do not produce hires to a free option releases money that can be put toward mentoring, stipends, or protected planning time.
Know Your STEM Competition
Nguyen offered two linked reasons STEM shortages persist. Pay is one: many districts’ salaries are too low to attract people with STEM skills, who can earn $60,000 to $70,000 in starting industry jobs. The other is prestige, which he said has declined since the 1960s and 1970s. A district cannot fix the second, but it can look hard at the first. Compare the posted salary for a physics or computer science teacher with what local employers offer, and decide whether a stipend, a faster salary step, or a clearer career ladder could close the gap.
Treat Temp Staffing as a Bridge
Nguyen called hiring through temp agencies a stopgap, noting that many of those teachers leave at the end of the year. That does not mean never use them. It means plan for them as a bridge, with a conversion path. If a long-term substitute or agency teacher is doing well, the district should have a way to offer a contract, support certification, and keep the person.
A bridge is useful only if it leads somewhere.
Keep a Quality Floor
He also cautioned against lowering entry standards. Alternative routes that require little training have produced teachers who are less effective and leave quickly, with Texas as his main example. The lesson is not to avoid alternative pathways but to pair them with a mentor, a manageable assignment, and early check-ins. A new teacher who feels supported in October is a teacher who returns in August.
Use Your Own Bench
Substitutes and paraprofessionals are the most underused source of future teachers in many districts. They know the buildings, the students, and the community. A district can invite them into a pathway with a mentor, a tuition plan, or a partnership with a nearby college. Strong substitute teacher jobs and paraprofessional roles become a pipeline when they have a visible next step. Retention matters here too. Learning Policy Institute research estimates that replacing a single teacher costs between $12,000 and $25,000, so each teacher who stays is money returned to the budget.
Put It on One Page
The final step is communication. A one-page summary for the board, showing vacancies by subject, time to fill, source of hire, and cost per hire, turns a vague complaint into an agenda. It also makes the case for targeted investment far better than a general statement that there is a shortage. Updating it monthly during hiring season keeps leaders focused on the roles that matter and shows whether new tactics are working.
For a fuller look at the interview and the steps districts can take, read K12 Talent’s analysis of the national teacher labor market. Districts that want to post teacher jobs free can start here.
About the Author: Charlie Isham is the Founder and CEO of K12 Data, Inc., which operates K12 Data, College Leads, and K12 Talent. He has spent more than 15 years building education data infrastructure and has watched how schools, colleges, and the companies that serve them buy for over a decade. He is based in Encinitas, California.
