No news to you, but here we are, facing an employee shortage in our schools. Bus drivers, custodians. School administrators and teachers. Let’s look at the numbers:

• in the 1970-1971 school year, colleges and universities in the United States issued 176,307 diplomas in education, representing 21% of all diplomas conferred that year.

• In the 2019-2020 school year (most recent year data was available) only 85,057 students graduated in the US in education, representing a mere 4% of the over two million diplomas earned that year.

• Nationally, the number of public school teachers who began the 22-23 school year was slightly over 3.1 million. In Georgia, we began the 21-22 school year with 119,492 teachers for 1,686,318 students. Over seven thousand of those teachers retired at the end of the year and another 3,500+ left for other fields or other states. They were replaced for the most part… and by ever-increasing numbers of alternatively certified candidates.

• Access to teacher candidates varies geographically and frequently rural areas with high poverty have uneven access to qualified candidates.

Use the data as it should be used… to inform action. Don’t merely accept that we have fewer teachers available. Develop strategies to bring quality instructors to the children and adolescents of your school and system. While you hit the ground running on returning to school after the break, let’s offer you a glance towards next year. NOW is the time to be busy about hiring for next year. To that point, we offer you three words for 2023 to help you in your focus on the employee shortage.

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(Sources: United States Department of Education. National Center for Education Statistics,

Georgia Department of Education; TRS Georgia