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Across the country, states and districts have ramped up efforts this summer to recruit new teachers, as they work to avoid vacancies at the start of the new school year.

Data around the size of the teaching profession is only current up through 2011, according to the National Center for Education Statistics, but estimates suggest that by 2018, there will be more teachers than ever before.

In a new story for 澳门跑狗论坛, I wrote about teacher shortages in spots across the nation and how districts and states are responding in some cases. The gist is that, while there are many instances of teacher shortages nationwide, the number of teachers per student has remained relatively constant.

Current estimates show that there are about 100,000 fewer public school teachers than there were in 2008, at the onset of the Great Recession. Since there are , per the U.S. Census Bureau, that number works out to just about seven teachers per district. (Not that districts across the board lost seven teachers each, obviously. New York City, for instance, between 2007 and 2012, although it gained about 2,500 special education teachers.) Teacher-prep enrollment numbers are also down over the past several years.

At the same time, though, a soon-to-be-record-high teaching population and teacher shortages are not mutually exclusive. So let鈥檚 break down what the term 鈥渢eacher shortage鈥� actually refers to.

Subject-Area Shortages

The U.S. Department of Education has information running back over two decades on in each state by subject. That list does not reflect whether states are actually hiring such teachers, so much as denote that they would like to.

From that federal data, four trends are most visible:

• Special education teachers do the Lord鈥檚 work: Almost every state has long needed and continues to need special education teachers of all stripes. For a position that is coveted, though, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that the is almost indistinguishable from non-special education teachers鈥�. I don鈥檛 think that鈥檚 how supply and demand is meant to work.
• Science and math teachers are widely needed: While many states have long sought to have more math and science teachers, there鈥檚 an uptick in the middle of the last decade. Part of that is likely the increased accountability for math proficiency under the No Child Left Behind Act, and some might have been inspired by the boom in STEM careers. (The shortage list doesn鈥檛 always differentiate by scientific fields.) Government officials, from President Obama on down, have been .
• What subjects have too many teachers? If there are so many members of the teaching profession, but shortage areas remain, then it鈥檚 reasonable to believe some subjects have too many teachers. The likely culprits: English and early childhood. Relatively few states listed English or humanities as shortage areas in 2014-15. And a January 2013 澳门跑狗论坛 analysis found that many states oversupply elementary teachers.
• Don鈥檛 get certified in New York: New York reported no shortages in core subject areas last year, though like many states, it does need bilingual educators. The Empire State , with somewhere under 30 percent of new teachers being able to find jobs.

(Teacher opinion blogger Peter Greene has done yeoman鈥檚 work highlighting from every state and the District of Columbia, while adding some color commentary, if you鈥檙e interested.)

Demographic Shortages

The teaching profession . It is, specifically, 82 percent white. High school teachers , at 70 percent. There are a lot of reasons why the teaching profession . Some may be due to . Some may also be due to the systemic discrimination within the U.S. education system, including and discipline. In the words of Christina Berchini, writing in 澳门跑狗论坛 Teacher in April:

This is the kind of discussion that generally invokes protest from a segment of white teachers, who would point out that they are just as qualified and capable of teaching students of color. might even point to the population of Asian-American and Pacific-Islander students, who are very unlikely to ever have a teacher of their own ethnicity, yet still excel in school.

But proficiency is not the chief issue. (And that 鈥渕odel minority鈥� business can be a harmful and erroneous stereotype.) 鈥淯ltimately, parents are going to respect anybody who they think cares for their kids,鈥� Andres Antonio Alonso, a professor at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, in April. 鈥淏ut if there are no people who somehow mirror the parents and the kids, then I think there could be a problem.鈥�

Or, as a group of four researchers and educators in July:

Sometimes, the lack of teachers of color can be a self-perpetuating cycle. With , teachers of color may struggle without an in-school lifeline who understands having the added weight of being, say, 鈥渢he one black teacher.鈥� Donald G. Nicolas, a 5th grade teacher in Florida, wrote about this for 澳门跑狗论坛 in February 2014:

And the benefits aren鈥檛 just about students of color learning from teachers of color: White students also need teachers of color, as Melinda D. Anderson :

For districts facing dire vacancy issues, demographic diversity might not be a primary thought. But the two go hand in hand: Imagine if the segments of the population who haven鈥檛 been supported or encouraged to enter the teaching profession felt different.

Another demographic issue: The teaching profession is about three-quarters women in the public sector. There are , as Motoko Rich writes in The New York Times, but increasing the number of men can present other problems:

What Other Issues Are at Work in Shortage Stories?

If you graduated with a degree in computer science, would you rather join in San Francisco, or teach for a low-paying, rural South Dakota school? Well done to who have chosen the latter. Even the best-paying states are unlikely to compete with the promise of tech startup money.

For the who can abide a low salary, the other working conditions in a state can be a sticking point. The Independence, Mo., school district has started openly advertising its teaching vacancies across its state border with Kansas, where teacher unrest has led Kansas, under Republican Gov. Sam Brownback, this year by over $44 million. Arizona is of a state trying to work around education funding issues.

Finally, there鈥檚 the public perception of the teaching profession itself. Some recent surveys have found teachers , and many teachers . Experts say that kind of public negativity can hurt pursuit of a teaching career.

鈥淭he everyday teacher who鈥檚 doing a good job, who the parents like, the kids like鈥攖hat doesn鈥檛 go viral,鈥� said Karen Gallagher, dean of the University of Southern California鈥檚 Rossier School of Education, in an interview.

Then again, teachers have been telling students for decades, yet there鈥檚 about to be a record number of educators. Maybe students haven鈥檛 been listening. Teenagers!

What Does This All Mean?

While there are many stories about local teacher shortages, the case for a national crisis isn鈥檛 so easy to make. The labor force for teaching is too regional, really, too much of a patchwork approach to certification, licensure, and working conditions, to gauge what drives shortages in any given district. But just because the cause of such vacancies might be hard to pin down doesn鈥檛 mean there aren鈥檛 obvious issues that, if addressed, could improve the outlook for districts in need.

Updates include the addition of pieces by Melinda D. Anderson and Motoko Rich.

More on the factors behind teacher shortages:

• Districts Facing Teacher Shortages Look for Lifelines
• Steep Drops Seen in Teacher-Prep Enrollment Numbers