It’s 9:05 a.m. at Hendley Elementary School in southeast Washington, D.C. when Isabel Chae meets her first tutee of the day. The American University student pulls the first grader, who she describes as “so bubbly, so bright,” out of his classroom and the youngster asks to get a drink of water. 

He sprints backward down the hallway to the fountain. “Please walk,” Chae calls from behind, unfazed by the boy’s surplus energy.

“I’m like, ‘OK, great. You seem like you’re in a frame of mind where you just want to be extra engaged with the lesson.’ ” 

The college sophomore then appoints the student “Mr. Page-Turner” and makes sure to pause regularly during her read-aloud to let him decode words. During the writing portion of their lesson, she challenges him to print each word in a different color.

She’s honed these strategies over two semesters and a summer of work as a participant in American University’s program, a partnership between the college and DC Public Schools that seeks to boost below-grade-level readers. The 59 tutees who currently work with her and her peers progress about 25% faster in reading than the national average, according to pre- and post-tests administered by the university.

It’s a model experts say has the potential to help millions of K-12 students recoup learning lost during COVID. Researchers point to tutoring, either one-on-one or in small groups, as among the methods for academic recovery. But school leaders looking to roll out such programs have often been by educator shortages and pandemic fatigue.

Recruiting university students who, like Chae, are considering careers in education could “unlock” a huge new pool of human capital for the efforts, said Kevin Huffman, CEO of , a nonprofit organization working to scale tutoring nationwide.

“There are more than half a million people at any given time who are studying to become a teacher in this country and very few of them tutor,” he said. At the same time, “you’ve got districts that need people and it just feels like a match that needs to be made.”

A win-win

Accelerate has distributed $10 million in grants to 31 tutoring initiatives across the country this school year, including $750,000 to a nonprofit working to bring teacher candidates into high-needs schools as tutors. American University’s Future Teacher Tutors initiative is one of the 22 programs in the group’s network, which altogether account for 900 tutors serving approximately 2,500 students across 13 states.

The model is simultaneously a way to “meet the very real needs of students and families [and] an opportunity to strengthen the way we prepare future teachers,” said Patrick Steck, policy advisor at Deans for Impact.

David Murray, program manager for the tutoring initiative at American, agrees that bringing pre-service teachers into local classrooms has yielded a “synergy” that has “been super beneficial, both for the tutors and the students.” 

Normally, students in the school’s college of education would not gain classroom experience until their junior or senior year. But after a recent change, a course typically taken by underclassmen now requires tutoring as a service learning requirement. The majority of students in the Future Teacher Tutors program, which employed 21 undergrads this fall, come from that course, said Ocheze Joseph, director of education undergraduate programs.

“We decided that at American we wanted to … begin to engage our students in hands-on experiences working with students as early as their freshman and sophomore years,” the administrator explained. “The earlier that they are working with children, getting acclimated to the classroom environment, the stronger their confidence grows.”

To Chae, the idea of working as a lead teacher fresh out of college without the in-depth experiences she’s gained as a tutor seems “terrifying.” Now, having spent so much time working with students, she has realistic expectations. It will still be “somewhat terrifying,” she said, “but I know what I’m in for.”

All tutors earn over $20 per hour for their work and the program gives a stipend for transportation via Uber or Lyft, helping undergrads access K-12 campuses that are on the opposite side of the city. American University foots the bill thanks to literacy grants it received from the Office of the State Superintendent of Education via the agency’s partnership and from the Benedict Silverman Foundation, who also provides the used by the tutors.

Most tutors work about four hours per week, but Chae works as many as 12, spending all day at Hendley Elementary on Tuesdays and Fridays. All told, the college sophomore feels she’s “paid very well” and is “given a lot of support.” She and her peers engage in regular training sessions to hone their tutoring skills and meet weekly with a program coordinator. 

Scale and sustainability

Still, the program at American University only reaches a tiny fraction of the D.C. students in need of tutoring, a difficulty that’s plagued similar initiatives in other districts and states as well.

Youth nationwide saw historic backslides in reading and math during the pandemic, with some of the most severe losses for students living in poverty. Researchers say academic recovery efforts have not yet matched the scale of missed learning.

“The puzzle is how you take [tutoring interventions] to a large scale,” Huffman said.

He thinks that’s where Deans for Impact can step in, figuring out how to replicate initiatives like the one at American. The 22 tutoring initiatives already in the organization’s network exist within a universe of roughly 2,100 educator preparation programs nationwide. It’s the “most obvious, glaring hole in the human capital pipeline for tutors,” said the Accelerate CEO.

“People who already want to become teachers, they should all be tutoring students as part of that work. … It would reach millions of kids,” he said.

It’s a vision that Steck, at Deans for Impact, sees as especially urgent on the heels of the pandemic, but also necessary for the long term. Though many districts are now funding learning recovery efforts with federal stimulus dollars, his organization is seeking to lift up financially sustainable models that can operate even after relief funds dry up in 2024.

A central question is: “How do we make high-quality tutoring something that doesn’t just exist in the context of COVID relief efforts … but something that is a standard part of how we support students and communities?” he said.

At Hendley Elementary, Chae sees the benefits in real time for her six tutees.

One of the first graders she works with began the year not knowing all the letters of the alphabet. She would tune out of her literacy lessons because she was frustrated. Now, the girl “lights up” when it’s time for tutoring and persists even when she has difficulty sounding out the words — a trait Chae knows can spell gains far into the future.

“She will sit there and plug away at it. … And I’m like, ‘You’re super close.’ And she consistently gives that little extra bit of effort just to get the word, which is fantastic to see.”

Disclosure: The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation provides financial support to Deans for Impact, Accelerate and �鶹��Ʒ. The Overdeck Family Foundation provides financial support to Accelerate and �鶹��Ʒ. The Carnegie Corporation of New York, the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, Charles and Lynn Schusterman Family Philanthropies and the Joyce Foundation provide financial support to Deans for Impact and �鶹��Ʒ.

Nearly all districts concerned about a looming fiscal cliff are taking measures to prepare for it, likely to hit when federal pandemic relief aid ends in 2023, according to Rand’s . 

The findings, from a survey of 291 district leaders polled this spring, suggest school officials may not be using relief aid exclusively for salary bumps or full-time teachers because it is not sustainable. 

While districts are hiring staff well beyond pre-pandemic numbers, the positions expanding the most are substitutes, paraprofessionals and tutors — with a quarter surveyed saying they are “avoiding certain staff hires to prevent later layoffs,” the report stated, alluding to full-time teachers.

Many are also using the funds to roll out short-term tutoring and summer programs for students’ academic recovery, or make one-time investments in school infrastructure. 

About a sixth of districts are adding to “rainy day funds” and hiring non-teaching personnel on yearly contracts for “flexibility.”

Researchers also believe the hiring boom is the key factor fueling higher vacancy numbers in the field — not a “big quit” of qualified educators. 

Districts that employed, for example, 100 teachers in 2019, are now seeking 120 new hires to meet students’ increased academic and mental health needs. 

“You could imagine that it might be easier on districts to scale up and scale down their number of substitutes than their number of classroom teachers,” said Melissa Kay Diliberti, an assistant policy researcher at Rand. 

Districts also received a range of funds dependent on their student population — creating a widely varying picture of pandemic-era hiring from district to district, even within state lines.

Large, urban school districts serving mostly students of color are trying to hire more staff, said Diliberti. “These are the schools that probably got the most extra money and that are therefore able to do the most expansion.”

Seven critical findings from Rand’s report: 

1. Nearly 80% of districts have already hired staff beyond pre-pandemic levels

Most of America’s districts are still trying to expand — 94% of large districts, for example, are expanding non-teaching staff, like bus drivers, counselors, paraprofessionals and tutors. And on average 77% of districts have now hired on more teachers and/or substitutes than in 2019. 

Districts’ huge increases in staffing are straining education labor markets, not an exodus from the field, the Rand report states. 

“The stories that have tried to tell this, you know, ‘slew of teachers have been leaving the profession and that’s what’s causing the teacher shortage’ is not quite true,” Diliberti said, adding that there’s still cause for concern about educators’ low morale. “Even if they’re not actually leaving the profession, teachers who are unhappy at work aren’t good for students, right?” 

2. About half of district leaders predict a looming “fiscal cliff”; 87% of those concerned have taken steps to prepare 

More superintendents and district leaders are concerned about an impending fiscal cliff this year than in Spring 2021. And about half of leaders are concerned, across all school types: urban to rural, whether serving majority students or color or majority white students. 

“It’s not necessarily inevitable — districts are aware of the possibility of a fiscal cliff and they can take action like in the coming years to try to prevent it,” Diliberti said. 

Strategic one-time or short term investments, such as investing in school infrastructure, launching summer learning programs or hiring in yearly contracts, “will allow them to more easily reduce the load of staff if and when in the future they don’t have the money to keep them at their current levels,” she added.

3. Substitutes, paraprofessionals, and tutors are the jobs that have expanded the most since the pandemic began

The positions have a direct connection to the pandemic’s strain on schools. Substitutes were districts’ lifeline when faced with numerous full-time teachers in quarantine, while paraprofessionals and tutors “address the unfinished instruction from several years of pandemic-related disruptions to schooling.” 

Bus drivers are also in high demand; about a third of districts have not yet increased their number but are trying. Rand’s report notes a possible reason for the shortage of drivers could be the extensive qualifications and concerns about working in group settings during the pandemic. 

4. Low-poverty districts are more likely than high-poverty districts to have expanded staff above pre-pandemic levels 

Notably, 68% of high-poverty districts have already increased their teaching force beyond pre-pandemic numbers. In comparison, 84% of low-poverty districts have expanded ranks. 

Researchers think the gap could be due in part to a historical trend: higher-poverty schools are harder to staff. Experienced educators are with better working conditions and better pay.

“Teacher labor markets [are] not one thing. Some districts … even before the pandemic started, struggled to hire teachers — in particular, high poverty schools, and sometimes schools in rural areas,” Diliberti explained. “It’s always harder for districts to staff those positions and to staff teachers at the secondary level, especially in math and science.”

5. 17% of districts anticipate ‘large’ teacher shortages next year

While a majority of leaders expect small labor gaps to impact schools next year, large shortages are concerning urban and high poverty leaders the most. 

Suburban and low-poverty district leaders do not anticipate any large shortages. 

On the whole, large principal shortages do not seem to be on leaders’ radar. 

6. Findings suggest a current national substitute shortage 

Over half of districts have expanded substitute teaching staff beyond 2019 levels, and 76% are still trying to expand in anticipation of the fiscal cliff and to meet pandemic-related staffing shortages. 

“In some ways I don’t feel like this substitute teacher shortage is as new or as sexy of a story as a teacher shortage because it’s kind of always been a problem…I think that’s one of the reasons it’s gotten minimized,” Diliberti said. 

Sixty percent of districts increased pay or benefits for substitutes. The average daily rate is 6% higher than in 2019 — now about $122 per day versus $115 per day pre-pandemic. Urban districts have and continue to pay the most: $146 per day in the latest school year, about $30 higher than rural districts. 

7. 90% of districts changed operations because of shortages at some point during the 2021-22 school year 

While some changes were short-term, like asking admin to sub for teachers in quarantine, researchers say the figure is an indicator that even this latest pandemic school year was not at all business as usual. Nearly all American districts had to adapt to major challenges. 

“Operational issues are really just taxing us at every level… As an example, [there were] three different schools on three different days that I had to close because I had too many call-offs and not enough staff to replace them, or substitutes to replace them,” one superintendent told Rand.

Mapping the vacancies nationally, a recently published and crafted by three education researchers offers the latest, though incomplete, snapshot of reported teacher shortages. 

The data suggest the pandemic has exacerbated shortages in specific teaching areas and some states that have faced persistent and well-documented shortages for years, creating a patchwork of different education realities in the United States that vary from district to district and across state lines. 

Of the nine where vacancy rates are highest, Mississippi faced the highest vacancy rates, with 68 missing teachers per 10,000 students for the 2021-22 school year. In contrast, Utah’s vacancy rate was less than 1 per  10,000 students. The report does not yet compare these rates over time, because of differences in state data reporting and urgency to understand the most up-to-date vacancies.  

The report also identified another critical issue: Currently there are 163,650 “underqualified” educators — about 5% of the force nationally  — teaching without certification or outside of their subject area.  More state-level data is available for this group, showing the number of “underqualified” teachers  in some states exceeds 20,000, which has risen in the last several years.

“There are substantial vacant teacher positions in the United States. And for some states, this is much higher than for other states…. It’s just a question of how severe it is,” said Tuan Nguyen, lead author on the working paper and education researcher at Kansas State University. “The pandemic has just exacerbated the situation that was already starting to build up…just made it worse for some states.”

Nationally, an estimated 36,504 full-time teacher positions are unfilled, with the number potentially as high as 52,800, the report found.  

The vacancy estimates from Nguyen and co-authors Chanh Lam and Paul Bruno are significantly lower than the 300,000 reported by the National Education Association and (the higher estimate includes non-teaching staff such as bus drivers and school counselors). They join a host of academics attempting to make sense of shortages in the absence of , which would put vacancies, which vary school to school and district to district, into context. 

Published with the Annenberg Institute for Education Reform at Brown University, the report raises concerns about teacher education program pipelines; staffing historically hard-to-staff positions in rural areas, STEM and special education; and the lack of accurate data. 

Their work marks the first time vacancy numbers have been documented for all 50 states and Washington, D.C. as reports flow in about districts shifting to , or calling in the and to teach. 

“A lot of the things that they’re doing right now seem to be a little, quick band-aid to stop the bleeding. But it’s not going to solve this long term issue, particularly for states that have persistent shortages like Kansas, Florida and Mississippi,” Nguyen told the 74.

The highest raw numbers of open teaching positions are concentrated in the south and lower Atlantic, where about 22,000 positions are open, triple the picture in midwestern states. Alabama, which had over 3,000 vacancies in 2021-22, sits in stark contrast to Illinois, where 1,703 positions were left unfilled. 

Florida, Georgia, and Mississippi also experienced high raw number of vacancies in the 2021-22 school year, each missing at least 3,000 teachers. 

Nguyen described vacancies and staffing challenges as “ubiquitous,” but constituting a huge range. Beyond the nine states facing highest vacancy rates, another 19 have modest shortages, between 0 and 12 vacant positions per 10,000 students.  Nine others face moderate shortages, missing between 12 and 15 educators comparatively. 13 states did not share complete data and could not be compared, the researchers found.

Estimates are conservative. Not all districts provided vacancy data to their state agency. And while some states include “underqualified” teachers in their definitions of vacancy, Nguyen and coauthors only considered unfilled positions in their final tally, relying on state and federal education data along with news stories. 

Factors driving vacancies

Thousands of open posts does not mean that teachers left the classroom in droves during the pandemic, researchers at Rand, Kansas State University and Brown University told �鶹��Ʒ. 

Rather, three trends are unfolding simultaneously: teacher preparation programs face declining enrollment; respect for and interest in teaching has plummeted; and most districts beyond pre-pandemic numbers with federal relief aid. 

“It’s only in this year two, and really, in year three [of the pandemic] that we’ve seen an uptick in turnover, but nothing like a mass exodus, the attrition that we were concerned about,” Nguyen said.  “The teacher supply pipeline seems to be stagnating or decreasing over time. Over the last 10 years or so there has been a substantial .”

Concerns about public disrespect, low wages and legislation restricting classroom content may help explain some of the pipeline challenges and high vacancies particularly in southern states, Nguyen hypothesized.

“There’s also been increased attention to what it means to be a teacher…particularly about what teachers can or cannot teach in the state; whether or not social emotional learning is an important issue that we need to teach; how teachers may not teach anything about racism in America,” Nguyen said.

“It’s like, hey, there are these multitude of factors that are overlapping each other,” he said, “and they seem to be concentrated in the South.”