Editorial Remarks: The Teacher Shortage and Rapidly Increasing Virtual Schools

The first warnings of a potential teacher shortage in the United States occurred in the mid-1980s. According to a Rand Corporation Report (Darling-Hammond, 1984; Antonucci, 2016) titled A Coming Crisis in Teaching, the main causes of an impending teacher shortage were poor working conditions, low pay, lack of decision-making input, and a prevalence of standardized testing. Of the impending teacher shortage, Linda Darling-Hammond (1984) wrote: “Unless major changes are made in the structure of the teaching profession, so that teaching becomes an attractive career alternative for talented individuals, we will in a very few years face widespread shortages of qualified teachers” (p. vi). Darling-Hammond’s report cautioned that the least academically qualified people could become the teaching force for future generations of American schoolchildren. The predicted teaching shortage of the late 1980s, however, was averted because of a growing teaching force and consistent student enrollment (Antonucci, 2016) resulting in a lower overall pupil-teacher ratio (Ingersoll & Merrill, 2013).