Much has been written since even before the COVID-19 pandemic about a “teacher shortage” in Connecticut and across the United States.
From the perspectives of the superintendents and principals responsible for staffing schools, and of the families whose children are assigned to classes with unreasonably high numbers of students, or are taught either by educators working under emergency credentials or by successions of substitute teachers, the growing number of teaching vacancies certainly feels like a shortage.
What has too often gone overlooked in media accounts and policy discussions, however, is that in Connecticut alone there exist over 10,000 women and men who choose not to work under the active certifications that they hold.
The “teacher shortage” is far more akin to a famine than to a drought, as it stems largely (though unintentionally) from policy and budgetary choices that have been made over the decades by elected officials. While this distinction no doubt feels academic to administrators, teachers, students, and families, it is nevertheless crucial for all of us to recognize if we are to work toward the enactment of policies and crafting of budgets that not only fill existing teaching vacancies in schools but genuinely improve long-term outcomes for all children and adolescents in our state and nation. Equally crucial is that we reject policy solutions that, by attending to short-term staffing needs (e.g., lowering standards for entry into the profession), actually worsen circumstances for young people, families, and educators.
A pair of researchers from the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas and Cornell University recently released a study of Texas’ quarter-century of relaxing teacher training requirements. They found, “On the one hand, the policy changes increased the supply of certified teachers, which reduced schools’ reliance on uncertified teachers. On the other hand, the new policy led to the growth of a large for-profit sector, which produced teachers with lower value-added than those from standard and other alternative programs.” . Such lowering of the standards for entry into teaching is not an option that should be considered for a moment in Connecticut – particularly as our state ranks so low (by some measures, 49th) in racial educational equality.
The research literature makes plain that the “teacher shortage” is fueled not by significantly lower numbers of individuals entering the field but by rapidly growing numbers of educators electing to leave it. Such turnover and attrition are particularly acute in districts serving high numbers of students from families earning low incomes and/or from minoritized backgrounds. Inadequately resourced districts cannot compensate their teachers at the same rates as well-resourced districts can. Consequently, they face persistent turnover that compromises their ability to improve outcomes for students or to sustain the improvements that they do achieve.
Nationwide, according to Farahmandpour and Voelkel (2025), “Teacher attrition is higher than in other careers including pharmacists, engineers, nurses, architects and police officers.” This is no doubt in part because the “pay gap” between teaching and other professions requiring college degrees has never been higher in the United States. Sylvia Allegretto explains, “On average, teachers earned 73.1 cents for every dollar relative to the earnings of other similar professionals in 2024 – much less than the 93.9 cents earned in 1996.” The average teacher pay penalty in Connecticut in 2024 was -24.3%. Factoring in the more generous fringe benefits that teachers typically enjoy relative to those in other professions does not cancel out the wage penalty; it only lessens it from a wage gap of -26.9% to an overall compensation gap of -17.1%.
Data from the Connecticut State Department of Education reveal that 3,031 new educator certificates were issued in our state in 2022/2023, with another 3,011 issued in 2023/2024 – figures that exceed the annual average of 2,835 for the last eight years overall. Of those newly certified educators, only 2,359 were subsequently employed in 2022/2023, and 2,110 in 2023/2024 – figures on par with the annual average of 2,117 for the last eight years.
Why have only three-fourths of newly certified educators sought and gained employment under their hard-earned credentials? To answer this question, we must look to the conditions under which – and the compensation at which – educators in Connecticut work, particularly in districts serving large concentrations of students with significant needs. Appreciating these circumstances will also help us better understand the still more pressing problem of attrition among educators in Connecticut.
Thirty-six of Connecticut’s 169 public school districts are considered “Alliance Districts.” Despite serving 44.4% of the state’s public school students, disproportionately large concentrations of whom present with high needs (e.g., family financial insecurity, food insecurity, housing insecurity, social-emotional concerns, learning challenges – all of which require significant resources to address), Alliance Districts account for only 41.7% of per pupil expenditures and 41.3% of the state’s currently practicing public school educators.
The average per pupil expenditure in Connecticut is $22,054. The average in Alliance Districts is $20,714; the average in non-Alliance districts, $23,122. In New Haven, where I live, just making up the $683 difference between the state average and the district’s current expenditure for each of its 18,817 pupils would amount to $12,852,011 in additional resources to materially improve what the district’s educators could do with and for the students and families whom they serve. (In Bridgeport, that figure would be $62,708,904; in Danbury, $59,230,024; in New Britain, $21,611,814; in Waterbury, $33,571,488.)
Gov. Ned Lamont and the Connecticut General Assembly should take two actions to keep teaching a profession worthy of those who choose to enter it and remain in it – and of the students and families whom those educators serve:
1. In the immediate term, these officials should amend the statute under which the Connecticut Educator Preparation and Certification Board was created, extending by at least one year the date on which many of the regulations governing educator preparation and certification will be repealed; expanding the membership of that body to include appropriate representation from the entities most familiar with and impacted by the existing regulations (i.e., educator preparation providers and school administrators); and codifying a formal role for expert staff members from the Connecticut State Department of Education to play in the work of the CEPCB.
The writing or revising of regulations pertaining to the schooling of our state’s children and adolescents, and to the preparation and certification of those who engage in that work, is far too important to be rushed; it requires careful thought and extensive consideration.
2. In the medium term, these officials should do all that they can to ensure that school districts’ funding is commensurate with the needs of the children and adolescents whom the educators in those districts serve, so that those professionals have the resources and support that they need to help students thrive academically, socially, and emotionally, and are compensated at rates reflective of the appropriately high standards that they must meet in order to be certified as teachers.
This will require that the governor and legislators work to increase revenues, and that they revisit the fiscal guardrails that have so often prevented them from doing so, but Connecticut’s children deserve nothing less than elected officials’ full commitment to their success.
Christopher Trombly Ph.D. is an Associate Professor of Educational Leadership and Policy Studies at Southern Connecticut State University.