Across Florida, school districts and universities are partnering on potential solutions to the state’s pervasive teacher shortage — among the worst in the nation.
In Miami, Orlando and Bradenton, taxpayer dollars are supporting paid internships, full-ride scholarships for master’s degrees and free college courses, in hopes of incentivizing students to become teachers, specifically in the highest need areas: elementary grades, special education and STEM subjects.
"It’s moving the needle, but only a very, very small amount relative to the number of vacancies you have.”
~Tuan Nguyen, a researcher from Kansas State University
In Role Call, a monthslong statewide reporting project, WLRN visited classrooms around the state, interviewed prospective and early-career teachers, consulted local and national experts and conducted a survey of more than 100 education majors at public colleges throughout Florida. What we found is that these programs are successful or promising — but too small to solve the shortage.
“They are providing more teachers into the workforce, but the number of teachers they’re providing is fairly small, relative to the size of the teacher labor market in Florida," said Tuan Nguyen, a researcher from Kansas State University. "It’s moving the needle, but only a very, very small amount relative to the number of vacancies you have.”
As of January, there were more than 4,000 advertised instructional vacancies across the state, according to the Florida Education Association, a statewide teachers' union. That is an improvement over the prior year, when vacancies exceeded 5,200. For context, there are about 185,000 teachers in Florida.
Those who do become teachers are leaving the profession sooner, according to a study conducted by the University of Florida. Even before the pandemic, 40% of Florida’s new teachers left the classroom within their first five years in the profession, state records show. This is 15% to 20% above the national average, depending on the year.
And even though starting salaries are up, enrollment in college and university education programs is down. Interest in the profession is dwindling.
Every classroom that's missing a qualified teacher has a negative impact on students and schools, said FEA president Andrew Spar.
“[School districts] solve the problem by hiring long-term substitutes and temporary teachers to fill these positions, but they’re not professionally trained to deliver the instruction — and students suffer," he said.
Through our research, WLRN learned more about some potential policy changes that could narrow the gap:
- Requiring college students who are studying education to spend more time in classrooms working under the guidance of mentor teachers.
- Paying student teachers or interns for their work in schools.
- Placing more emphasis on classroom management in training programs, especially for alternatively certified teachers who might have subject area expertise but lack teaching experience.
- Increasing teacher pay, not only to recruit new teachers but also to retain experienced teachers.
- Leveraging community ties to entice prospective teachers, such as placing them for clinical experiences in schools they or their family members attended.
- Designing marketing campaigns that destigmatize teaching or change the often negative narrative surrounding it.
- Exposing kids to the field of teaching and education from a young age.
- Encouraging middle and high school students to get experiences working with younger children.
- Recruiting more men into the profession.
Universities, school districts partner on solutions
Taxpayer dollars are funding efforts to address the shortage, in the form of incentive programs at universities and school districts across Florida.
The University of South Florida Sarasota-Manatee is partnering with the School District of Manatee County on an internship program that requires college students to spend more time working under the guidance of mentor teachers before they have their own classrooms. A key feature of the program: it pays $15 an hour.
Thomas Burt was part of the first paid internship cohort last year, and now he teaches third grade in Bradenton. At least eight out of 10 interns from the 2023 cohort are now working in Manatee schools.
He noted that his classmates who did internships in Hillsborough and Pinellas counties weren't paid for their student teaching experiences.
"That is something that’s really unique about Manatee County," he said. "And I’m proud that they provide that for their full-time interns, because it is a lot of work."
The Sarasota County school district also pays interns, and Pasco County provides a small stipend.
When Burt began teaching, he had earned a bachelor's degree in communications studies and a temporary teaching certificate, but he did not have classroom experience. He went back for his master's from USF to gain the pedagogical and behavior management skills he felt he needed to be successful.
"Immersing myself into that environment and into that profession — it was definitely a wake-up call, where you know this is definitely something you’re passionate about and it’s your calling, but you also need to do your part of professional development and know that you’re doing the job the right way," he said.
Cheryl Ellerbrock, dean of education for USF's Sarasota-Manatee campus, said clinical experiences are key.
"If you want to train teachers for the profession and then also have them stay, they need to understand the realities of their work environment," she said.
In Orlando, the University of Central Florida’s Project Bridges aims to address the shortage of special education teachers by offering master’s degrees paid for by the U.S. Department of Education. The U.S. DOE spends $115 million annually on programs like these across the country and has been investing in them since 2006.
The catch: scholarship recipients must pay back their loan through service. For every year of education, they must teach in special education for two years.
Haley Thrift, who teaches students with disabilities at a K-8 charter school in Orlando, said earning her master’s in Exceptional Student Education through Project Bridges leveled up her teaching skills.
“It changed my life for the better and it changed my life in this field," she said. "It’s made a huge impact on my students and the way that I teach, so it’s definitely worthwhile.”
Thrift said the most valuable part of the program was learning to collaborate.
"It can be a big team” serving students with special needs, she explained, including "the students’ parents, therapists, speech pathologists, physical therapists and occupational therapists.”
Since UCF’s Project Bridges' first iteration in 2015, a total of 56 ESE teachers have graduated with a master’s degree. Federal data show more than 90% of recent scholarship recipients are working in their field until they’ve met their service obligation. That's either two or four years later, depending on the student.
Unfortunately, the U.S. DOE does not collect data beyond the two- or four-year service obligation, so it's unclear if these educators are continuing to teach special education after that time period.
Nguyen, the researcher from Kansas State University, said long-term data is needed to measure effectiveness of the program.
"In terms of keeping track of, 'Hey, how much money do we spend, how long do they stay in the profession, where is the need the greatest?' We have to be able to know these things in order to come up with solutions," he said.
Projections show that for the upcoming school year, there will be more than 2,500 vacancies for ESE teachers in Florida.
In South Florida, Florida International University is working with the Miami-Dade and Broward school districts on a program designed to produce more math and science teachers.
FIU is one of 55 universities across the country that employs the national UTeach model, developed at the University of Texas at Austin. The FIUTeach program offers students the opportunity to earn a STEM degree and a teacher certification.
FIUTeach recruits students, in part, by making presentations in STEM classes, in hopes of enticing science, math and engineering majors to take a free teaching course that places them in middle and high school classrooms.
According to the university, the majority of FIUTeach graduates stay and teach in Miami-Dade County Public Schools.
Cynthia Garza spent the spring semester teaching Algebra 1 to freshmen at a Miami high school. She recently earned a bachelor’s in mathematics, with a focus in math education, as part of FIUTeach. Her mentor teacher, Jose Pavon, was also a graduate of the program.
"I like the way FIU focuses on the subject itself," Garza said. "It’s a lot more math classes than you would take if you were to just get a math education degree. … I do think this program helps teachers a lot."
Juan Sanchez, another recent FIUTeach graduate, taught Algebra this spring at his alma mater, Cypress Bay High School in Weston.
“When you see students that hate math or they just don’t want to come to school, they don’t want to wake up early," he said, "but they come and put in the work, they understand, they learn and they have fun in the classroom, it’s just wonderful.”
This story is part of Role Call, a WLRN project produced with support from the Education Writers Association.
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