The Learning Policy Institute explores trends in California’s teacher workforce supply in a new brief, “California’s Teacher Shortages: Trends in Supply, Demand, and Turnover.” Using data from the California Department of Education (CDE) and the state Commission on Teacher Credentialing (CTC), researchers determined that turnover is highest among beginning teachers, those on emergency permits, teachers of color and special education teachers.
“Despite declining enrollment, teacher demand remains high, driven by persistent turnover, increasing student needs, and efforts to lower class sizes,” the brief states.
Shortage indicators
The brief traces the current teacher shortage back to 2015, “when funding began to increase with California’s new Local Control Funding Formula (LCFF), stimulating a demand for teachers while there was inadequate supply.”
Key indicators of a shortage as cited in the brief are the number of substandard credentials and temporary and emergency permits, which by law can only be issued if a fully credentialed teacher cannot be found for a position. The number of such credentials has more than tripled since 2012–13, according to the brief, and the fastest-growing category is emergency-style permits that are “issued to individuals with little or no pedagogical training or demonstrated subject matter expertise in the courses they teach.”
In the 2024–25 school year, nearly 8,000 emergency permits were issued. “Among new teachers entering the California public education system that year, more than one third entered on an emergency-style permit: 32 percent of Multiple Subject teachers, 27 percent of Single Subject teachers, and 51 percent of Education Specialist teachers,” according to the brief.
Researchers found that underprepared teachers are concentrated in schools serving the highest-need populations, including those from low-income families, English learners, foster youth and Black students. The state’s highest-need schools (those in the top decile by unduplicated pupil count percentage) were more than twice as likely to fill teaching positions with interns and teachers on emergency-style permits or waivers than the lowest-need schools (11 percent versus 4 percent), according to the brief.
The brief also identified the subject areas in which underprepared teachers are placed most often: math, science, foreign languages, art, career technical education (CTE) and computer science.
“Prior research has found that teachers with little preservice preparation are less effective than fully prepared teachers and are far more likely to leave the profession,” the brief states. “A large-scale study in California found that, holding school and community factors constant, districts with smaller shares of teachers with substandard credentials and permits were associated with significant increases in student achievement, especially for Black and Latine students. When there are not enough fully credentialed teachers to meet demand, districts may also rely on long-term substitute teachers and cancel or combine courses, further limiting students’ learning opportunities.”
Researchers cite that the number of teacher preparation program completers in California experienced a 60 percent decrease between the 2004–05 school year and 2013–14, from 26,624 graduates to just 10,409. While the number of program completers has been gradually increasing since then, program completion still “remains roughly 50 percent below the level of two decades ago.”
The brief also includes detailed information about patterns of teacher turnover, barriers to recruiting and retaining teachers and investments the state has made in building the teacher workforce.
Policy considerations
The brief makes the following recommendations for California policymakers:
- Stabilize and sustain the teacher pipeline by broadening access to high-quality preparation programs through stable, ongoing funding; incentivizing teacher education at state public universities; and modernizing the teacher credentialing system, including reviewing and amending CTE credentialing requirements and exploring microcredentials.
- Support teacher retention by enabling competitive salaries through adequate and stable funding distributed through the LCFF; addressing the acute shortage of special education teachers through modes like dual credentialing and strengthening technical assistance offerings; and supporting principal preparation and stability.
- Strengthen data to inform policy by implementing regular statewide surveys of teacher and school leader working conditions; studying the rapid growth of online teacher preparation; and developing a systematic approach to collecting, linking and analyzing data across state agencies to enable more effective long-term tracking of state investments and overall teacher workforce trends.
