CHICAGO – 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.

At a launch event on Oct. 12 at the City Club of Chicago featuring key policy leaders in education, Advance Illinois has released its latest in-depth report on one of the most significant challenges facing Illinois public schools: finding more qualified, well-prepared, and diverse teachers and leaders to guide students in every school.

 The new report is titled The State of Our Educator Pipeline 2023: Strengths, Opportunities, and the Early Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic and is the follow-up to the group’s 2022 report The State We’re In, an early examination of the impact of the pandemic on Illinois’ education system.

 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.

Advance Illinois, celebrating its 15th anniversary this fall, has become a leading, bi-partisan education policy and advocacy organization whose work is respected by policymakers and whose input is sought for solutions to the policy challenges facing educators and the students they serve. The group’s other important work includes examinations of early childhood education, higher education, school funding equity, and engaged families to support students. 

The Oct. 12 event featured Advance Illinois President Robin Steans moderating a discussion among State Representative Carol Ammons, 2023 Illinois Teacher of the Year Briana Morales, and Illinois State Board of Education Chief of Staff Kimako Patterson on the report’s findings. Streamed video of the event is available at the City Club of Chicago website: https://www.cityclub-chicago.org/. Advance Illinois plans two more local discussions of the report results, in Joliet and Collinsville, in November. 

The Advance Illinois team said the latest research should help policymakers both to recognize the progress being made to address shortages and increase diversity and highlight where more work is needed.

“Our core mission is to help all students receive a high-quality, equitable education that puts them in the best possible position to succeed,” Advance Illinois President Robin Steans said. “We are encouraged that the significant attention and tireless work to increase and shore up the educator pipeline is bearing fruit. But we also see critical areas where we must make more progress, and we must ensure the progress we made is not undone when federal pandemic funding rolls back next year. We hope this report will serve as a guide for how far we have come and the work that must happen now.” 

ILLINOIS’ EDUCATOR WORKFORCE HAS BEEN LARGELY STABLE THROUGH COVID-19 PANDEMIC

It’s no secret that the COVID-19 pandemic has had a significant and likely long-lasting effect on Illinois’ education system. Over the last three years, many have speculated about the role of the pandemic in shaping our educator workforce – with some raising alarms. This latest Advance Illinois report shows that contrary to these concerns, the educator workforce has been relatively stable through the first two full school years since the start of the pandemic (school year 2020-2021 and 2021-2022):

• In total, the number of teachers, assistant principals and paraprofessional in Illinois schools grew by nearly 7,000 educators between 2018 and 2022, now reaching highs not seen since 2009.

• Teacher and principal supply continued trends of growth through the first years of the pandemic, though the former remains below historic levels.

• COVID-19 created historic disruptions in the classroom, but educators at all levels persevered. In the first two years of pandemic education, as staffing levels stayed steady and even rose in some areas

That said, the picture is not all good news. The report also highlights that COVID-19 has had an alarming and measurable negative impact on school climate, and teacher attendance hit a low point in the 2021-2022 school year.

 EDUCATOR SHORTAGES PERSIST, BUT THEIR LOCATION AND CAUSES ARE NUANCED

Data challenges make it difficult to draw firm conclusions about the impact of the pandemic on educator shortages. But challenges certainly persist, with districts facing more acute shortages in certain positions, subject areas, and regions. While issues vary from place to place, some challenges include:

• The number of candidates earning credentials in special education lags behind demand, and special education teachers post a higher-than-average attrition rate. Despite a considerable number of current teachers who are credentialed in special education, these positions make up a significant portion (one third) of all unfilled positions.

• Limited new supply of candidates earning full credentials in bilingual education, and a high reliance on provisionally licensed teachers (educators who are teaching but have not yet completed a teacher preparation program).

• A small set of schools that have difficulty attracting and retaining principals and assistant principals, and many more that experience high rates of principal turnover.

• Declining supply of new paraprofessionals that does not meet demand.

• A shortage of substitutes that makes it more difficult for schools to compensate for unfilled positions.

The report highlights that underlying these challenges is the reality that they are not experienced evenly around the state – that Black and Latinx students, students from low-income households, English Learners, students with IEPs, and rural and urban students bear the brunt of teacher shortages and teacher turnover.

TEACHER AND PRINCIPAL DIVERSITY IS IMPROVING, BUT THERE’S MORE PROGRESS TO BE MADE

Teacher and leader diversity makes a measurable difference for students—and Illinois has been taking steps to increase racial/ethnic diversity in the mostly-white teaching profession. The report’s authors highlight where progress is promising, and where some of the biggest gaps still exist:

• The teacher workforce in Illinois has become slightly more diverse over the last decade – but needs to move faster to lessen gaps between student and teacher diversity.

• Meaningful gains have been made improving diversity in teacher preparation programs and among newly-hired teachers (and Illinois stands out in the region)—but diversity in these areas still lags behind where it should be.

• Racial/ethnic disparities in teacher retention contribute to losses in diversity later in the pipeline.

• Encouragingly, principals in Illinois are more diverse than teachers – with the principal pipeline getting more diverse at certain steps. But though there have been some gains in diversity in principal preparation programs and among assistant principals, principal diversity has been relatively stable over time.

In addition to various pandemic-related short-term policy changes, the report highlights several places where the state has taken steps to address some of these challenges by temporarily creating more flexible licensure options, offering significant investments in grants in shortage areas, and piloting new programs to address diversity across the teacher and principal pipelines. Often these changes are temporary, and investments are short-term (frequently funded by federal stimulus dollars).

“Providing our students a quality education is arguably the most important job there is,” Steans said. “We hope that insights from this report spur advocates, community leaders, along with lawmakers and elected officials to advance more supportive policy actions and further investments in strategies that will ultimately pay off in dividends for our students. Their future depends on it.”

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ABOUT ADVANCE ILLINOIS

Advance Illinois is an independent policy and advocacy organization working toward a healthy public education system that enables all students to achieve success in college, career, and civic life.