Motoko Rich of the New York Times reports:

Across the country, districts are struggling with shortages of teachers, particularly in math, science and special education — a result of the layoffs of the recession years combined with an improving economy in which fewer people are training to be teachers.

So do we really have a shortage of teachers today, compared to historical levels? How big were the recession layoffs in historical context? I offer an updated chart below of the % change, since 1970, in the number of teachers and students, as well as the change in the cost per graduate of a public school K‑12 education.

As the chart reveals, the recession layoffs were tiny when compared to the massive growth in our teaching workforce since 1970. To this day, we employ over 150% as many teachers as we did in 1970, to teach only 109% as many students. In other words, the number of teachers has grown 5 times faster than enrollment. That does not mean that there couldn’t be a small portion of districts in the U.S. that really need to hire teachers, but it does mean that there is no “national teacher shortage” compared to historical levels of employement. To anyone who claims otherwise, we can only ask: a shortage compared to what?