Despite billions in increased funding over the past decade, California still faces a teacher shortage, especially in schools serving low-income and high-need students, a new Public Policy Institute of California (PPIC) report finds.
The report finds that instructional spending per student has increased by nearly $2,000, or 42%, since 2012–13. However, other areas of school budgets, including benefits and non-instructional costs, have grown even faster. As a result, spending on instructional salaries has declined as a share of overall expenditures, dropping from 40% to 33%. Teachers remain the largest single staffing category, accounting for roughly 80% of district personnel costs, but increased funding has not fully addressed staffing challenges.
The brief highlights persistent disparities across schools. Roughly one in four students attends a school where at least 20% of teachers are not fully credentialed or are teaching subjects outside their qualifications. Math and science courses are particularly affected: fewer than half of middle and high school math teachers and under 41% of science teachers are correctly assigned and credentialed in schools with staffing challenges, compared with 60% in other subjects. Two-thirds of students in these schools are low-income.
“Targeted funding increases may not be enough to support teacher staffing in high-need districts,” the report notes. While districts with more high-need students have received additional funding through the Local Control Funding Formula (LCFF), these increases have had limited effect on teacher staffing quality or class sizes.
The authors recommend policies that focus on schools that are persistently hard to staff, particularly those serving low-income students. “Efforts to address teacher staffing challenges should focus on specific schools that are persistently hard to staff,” the report states. Tailored interventions could better support recruitment and retention, especially in math and science.
The report also points to salaries as a key factor in retaining teachers. Inflation-adjusted starting pay has not improved since the early 2000s, and many teachers remain at the lower end of the pay scale. Increasing starting salaries could help strengthen recruitment and retention, though budget trade-offs remain.
