Despite widespread concern that the pandemic exacerbated existing shortages of teachers, a new study of Illinois public schools indicates that the need for other certificated staff, such as teacher’s aides and social workers, may have been a far greater problem for some schools.

Paul Bruno, assistant professor of  Education Policy, Organization & Leadership at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, compared data on actual unfilled vacancies for teachers, administrators, and certificated staff in all Illinois primary and secondary public schools in fall 2022. At that time, the rate of unfilled vacancies for certificated staff was 5.6%, more than double those of teachers at 2.6% and significantly higher than those of administrators at 0.9%.

In looking at the vacancy rates aggregated to the county level, Bruno found that 60 of Illinois’ 102 counties reported teacher vacancies below 2%, and nine counties reported none.

“I don’t see much evidence of a terrible teacher shortage in general,” Bruno said. “But I’m very worried about shortages in specific positions or schools affecting specific groups of students, and our solutions should be targeted at those specific problems.”

The findings, published in the journal Education Finance and Policy, provide a clearer picture of the labor shortages in Illinois public schools ― and the study explores the potential impact on students’ learning experience.

“Although there’s been little research on shortages of nonteaching staff, there are reasons to believe students and schools are significantly affected by them,” Bruno said.

The variations in unfilled vacancies for the three positions studied often occurred in ways that exacerbated inequities, Bruno said. He found significant disparities among schools within the same districts; by differing urbanicity ― i.e., whether schools were in cities, suburbs, towns, rural or remote rural areas; and by the grade levels they served. However, the most significant disparities were associated with student demographics, such as greater proportions of racial minority students, English language learners, and children living in poverty.

Bruno measured pandemic-era staffing shortage levels using data on unfilled full-time equivalent certificated positions that were reported each fall to the Illinois State Board of Education beginning in October 2017.

First, he measured shortages as a percentage of the combined sums of filled and unfilled jobs in each category, such as administrators.

But because labor markets are not equally competitive ― some schools may be operating under budgetary constraints or collective bargaining agreements that limit their hiring ability, for example ― Bruno also used an alternative measure ― the number of unfilled positions per 10,000 enrolled students.

School districts in counties along the Illinois borders experienced higher rates of vacancies in all three job categories compared with counties in the state’s interior. Since Bruno found little correlation between any one of the three types of positions and the other two, he hypothesized that each of them may have different labor markets.

The data indicated that teacher vacancies were highest in remote rural districts, averaging 5%, and in elementary school districts at 2.6%. Teacher vacancies were lowest in high school districts at 0.4%.

Conversely, he found that shortages of nonteaching staff were more severe in cities, averaging 4.5% ― more than double the rates of those in towns or nonremote rural districts.

Despite these regional variations, when Bruno controlled for student demographics, the differences in teacher shortage rates grew and gained statistical significance ― and, in turn, the severity of teacher shortages in nonremote rural districts increased.

“That these differences persisted even when comparing districts within the same county and those serving similar student populations points to the likely importance of urbanicity-specific factors, particularly for the most remote school districts,” Bruno said. “If student characteristics are associated with working conditions that matter to teachers, it may indicate that rural school districts face distinctive recruitment and retention challenges that are partially counterbalanced by attractive working conditions.”

Bruno found that adding student characteristics to the model substantially explained the differences in the vacancy rates for certificated staff between school districts of different urban cities. He hypothesized that rural districts may be less likely to enroll students that have needs such as disabilities or limited English proficiency that motivate the hiring of these staff, or these districts may have financial or other constraints that curtail these services.

Student characteristics accounted for 30% of the differences in teacher shortages between elementary and high school districts and almost all of the differences in the shortage rates for certificated staff.

“Again, this may indicate that there are more desirable working conditions or lower levels of student support are needed in high school districts, possibly because higher need students have dropped out or transitioned out of these programs,” he said.

In exploring patterns of inequities by student demographics, the author found that at the school level, the average Black student experiences a teacher vacancy rate that is 3.6 times higher than that experienced by a white student. At the school district level, that rate is 2.5 times higher for Black students, Bruno found.

The disparity is even greater for the average Native American student, who attends a school where there are 21.4 more unfilled staff positions per 10,000 students, and at the district level, there are 14.2 more of these vacancies compared with the average white student.

These systemic differences raise concerns that the negative impact of staffing shortages disproportionately affect students who are Black, Native American, and Hispanic, as well as those who are living in poverty and non-English speakers, Bruno said.