NJ teacher workforce stable, but pipeline still thin, report finds

New Jersey’s teacher workforce remained roughly level in the 2023-2024 school year, but retirements remained elevated above prepandemic levels, according to a Rutgers University report released last week.

Though the number of teachers in New Jersey remained stable, shifting trends in the number of students seeking to become educators risk creating future problems, said Stephanie Walsh, assistant director of Rutgers University’s Heldrich Center, which authored the report.

“New Jersey’s overall teacher workforce looks steady on the surface, but rising exits and shortages in key subjects signal potential challenges when we look at the more granular level,” Walsh said.

Increasing departures and a thinning pipeline have been key concerns for New Jersey lawmakers seeking to address the state’s long-standing teacher shortage.

Lawmakers have passed legislation easing testing requirements for teaching certificates and allowing retired educators to temporarily return to the workforce without disrupting their pensions.

New Jersey had 117,483 teachers in the 2023-2024 school year, the report says, up slightly from the 117,043 recorded in the prior school year. But the state saw sizable decreases in some subject areas, including ones that have faced perennial shortages over the 10 years examined by the study.

World language and math teachers saw the greatest declines over the decade.

The number of world language teachers declined to 3,747 in the 2023-2024 school year, down from 4,166 a decade earlier, a roughly 10 percent drop. The number of math teachers fell by 9 percent over the same period, dropping from 6,313 to 5,753.

The report raises concerns about New Jersey’s stable of computer science teachers, noting that statewide, there were more than 480 students for every computer science teacher. The report projects that ratio would fall to about 452-to-1 in the coming school years.

“The data show that without action, critical areas like multilingual learning and computer science may face widening gaps,” Walsh said.

The number of new teachers remained well below prepandemic levels, when the state was already seeing fewer and fewer would-be educators seek certification.

In the 2023-2024 school year, the state issued 9,598 new provisional teaching certificates, down from 20,584 in the 2016-2017 school year.

Retirements and other permanent exits from the profession fell to 1,029, down from 1,210 the prior school year. In 2016-2017, the earliest year for which teacher exit data was available, 701 educators permanently left the workforce.

That meant the state was getting just nine new teachers for every one leaving the profession, down from 29 in the 2016-2017 school year.

“While this rate remains well above a one-to-one replacement rate, there is a concerning downward trend,” the report says.

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