Our commonwealth faces many issues — but perhaps none are harder to solve than a shortage of teachers.

As a 2022 study by Brown University’s Annenberg Center noted, teacher shortages are poorly understood because there is little federal and state data compiled on the subject. That makes it difficult to find trends in teacher shortages and for policy makers to craft possible solutions to help.

For example, it does little good to increase participation in general teacher programs if all of the new teachers want to teach first-grade while the shortage is actually for Spanish or special education teachers. Or, it makes little sense to offer incentives to teachers to enter the field if they all end up working in charter schools or school districts that offer higher pay than poorer rural or inner city schools.

Until one understands the shortage it is nearly impossible to craft the right solution. That’s a challenge state policy makers should tackle quickly.

Is there a local solution to the teacher shortage?

Perhaps.

We know there are far too few applications compared to open positions, including two Spanish teachers and a biology teacher. The use of emergency certification designations can help, but that is a band-aid unless the person granted emergency certification decides to make a career out of teaching — which means meeting a requirement to progress toward attaining teaching certification. The school district had 60 teachers using emergency designations as of March, and it’s unknown how many of those 60 teachers are making the required progress toward their certification. Not having some of those emergency designation teachers available could leave an even bigger hole in the district’s workforce.

One solution is the decrease the number of teachers needed by restructuring schools. That’s a tall order, as we have seen with the emotional rhetoric over school restructuring over the past few months. But what good is having a community school if there are no teachers to staff it?