America faces more than just a teacher shortage鈥攊t has a teacher credential crisis, and it’s time to discuss a commonsense solution.
The national estimates for the 2025-2026 school year indicate a shortage of 55,000 K鈥12 teaching positions. Even more alarming, a June 2005 study revealed that 48 states and D.C. employed nearly 365,000 teachers who were not fully certified for their assigned roles.
This is not just a temporary issue鈥攊t represents a systemic failure (2025, Learning Policy Institute). Across the country, school districts are increasingly staffing classrooms with adults who do not hold full professional certification in the subjects they teach. They are hired with emergency permits, provisional licenses, long-term substitutes, or intern credentials.
Waivers are issued to allow someone to remain in the classroom even without the required state credentials. This isn鈥檛 a red-state or a blue-state issue. It鈥檚 a governance problem:
- In Texas, about one-third of newly hired teachers in recent years have entered classrooms without full standard certification.
- In California, tens of thousands of educators work under intern or emergency credentials, especially in math, science, and special education.
- In Arizona, emergency certifications have increased as districts face challenges in recruiting fully qualified candidates.
- In Florida, expanded alternative pathways now enable individuals without traditional qualifications to take on classroom roles.
- In Oklahoma and Nevada, emergency and provisional credentials have occasionally accounted for a significant share of new hires.
Even traditionally stable markets like Illinois and New York are experiencing shortages in high-need subject areas.
Who’s talking about the teacher pipeline?
And yet, attend a typical school board meeting, and you will hear debates about curriculum language, library books, restroom policies, or athletic policies. It is uncommon to hear a one- to five-year forecast on strategies to improve the teacher workforce.
The following questions must be addressed now and in the future:
- What percentage of our teachers are fully credentialed for the subjects they teach?
- How many classrooms are staffed by emergency or provisional license holders?
- How many long-term substitutes have been there for more than 30 days?
- What is our projected shortage in math, science, bilingual education, or special education five years from now?
- What percentage of our newly hired teachers leave within one to three years?
If a board cannot answer these questions, it is time to create a strategic plan to address these concerns.
Research boards cannot ignore
Economist Eric Hanushek and others have consistently shown that teacher effectiveness is the most important in-school factor influencing student achievement. While teacher certification alone doesn’t guarantee excellence, relying too much on underprepared or out-of-field teachers causes instructional instability鈥攅specially in rural and high-poverty schools.
When wealthy communities have fully credentialed teachers, while rural and disadvantaged schools depend on waivers and substitutes, inequity becomes more than just a theory. It is embedded in the system.
This isn鈥檛 an attack on individuals working with emergency licenses; many are dedicated professionals doing their best under challenging conditions. It exposes a flaw in systems that treat emergency staffing as standard policy rather than a rare exception.
The PTA Question
Parent-teacher associations raise funds for schools, organize volunteers, and celebrate educators. These activities are all important.
PTAs believe that teachers are the foundation of student success, and research confirms this. One key area PTAs now need to support is legislation that enables community colleges to train teachers.
Teacher pipelines have decreased by at least 50% compared to 10 years ago. Many teacher-training programs at universities and four-year colleges have closed in various states.
Others are on notice, such as in Indiana, that if they do not meet a specific target for teacher majors and graduates, they will be required to shut down their programs.
Boards did not cause all these issues. The real crisis is that insufficient governance is failing to build the next generation with the urgency this moment requires. Until that improves, every other debate in education stems from the same quiet failure.
Who’s ready to lead?
Where will the necessary 鈥榳orkforce鈥 come from in the near future? The universities, which have experienced a 50% decline in the number of teachers trained over the past decade, cannot do what community colleges do鈥攑repare students, young and old, to become teachers.
Community colleges are also best positioned to train people for the workforce fields now prioritized under the new Department of Education and Department of Labor efforts to improve the workforce for now and the future.
Are K-12 school boards and their parent-teacher organizations ready to lead now?
* The U.S. Departments of Education and Labor are progressing toward a new partnership to establish an integrated federal education and workforce system. This collaboration will see Labor assuming a larger role in managing adult education and family literacy programs under Title II of the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act, as well as career and technical education programs funded by the Carl D. Perkins Career and Technical Education Act. The programs will continue to be overseen by ED.
Sources
- Hanushek, E. et al. (2015). Economist Eric Hanushek and others have consistently demonstrated that teacher effectiveness is the most critical in-school factor affecting student achievement. Retrieved February 24, 2026, at https://www.bing.com/search?q=hanushek%20et%20al.%202015%20%20Economist%20Eric%20Hanushek
- Teaching Positions Left Vacant or Filled by Teachers Without Full Certification (2025, Aug. 5). Learning Policy Institute. Retrieved February 23, 2026, at Learning Policy Institute: State Teacher Shortages 2025 Update 鈥 Ed Prep Matters | AACTE
- Medlin, P. (2026, Jan. 26). Teachers say staffing shortages at West Middle School in Rockford are the worst they’ve ever seen. WNIJ News, Northern Public Radio. Retrieved January 30, 2026, at https://www.northernpublicradio.org/wnij-news/2026-01-26/teachers-say-staffing-shortages-at-west-middle-school-in-rockford-are-the-worst-theyve-ever-seen?utm_campaign
