Massachusetts Teacher Shortage: Where It’s Worst, Pay, and Diversity

The Massachusetts teacher shortage is real, uneven, and concentrated: about 8,360 teachers did not return to classrooms for a recent school year, roughly 10% of the state’s nearly 80,000-strong workforce, and the holes are deepest in special education, English as a second language, STEM, and foreign languages.¹² Urban Gateway Cities and small rural districts feel it most, and the state has responded with looser licensure rules, apprenticeship pilots, and a new diversity law, though a 22.5% pay gap and a collapsed training pipeline continue to work against every fix.³

Subjects and Districts Hit Hardest

The Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education and national data point to the same difficult-to-staff fields year after year: special education, ESL, STEM, and foreign languages.²⁴ By March 2024, 52% of public schools anticipated needing to fill special education roles, up from 47% two years earlier.⁵

Boston shows what that looks like in practice. Teacher vacancies in the state’s largest district more than tripled between August 2019 and August 2022, when Boston Public Schools counted over 220 unfilled positions a week before classes started.⁶ Physics, chemistry, and vocational education were flagged as especially hard to fill.⁷ Demand is projected to grow across all grade levels statewide, with the sharpest squeeze in districts serving large numbers of low-income students and English learners.²

How Many Teachers Are Leaving

The state’s 90% retention rate is better than the 84% national average, but it sits below pre-pandemic levels.¹ Retention varies sharply by district. DESE figures for 2026 show Newton at about 91% and Chelsea at about 81%.⁸

Why do they leave? DESE survey data points to career changes, leadership issues, and school culture, with 40% of respondents naming school culture as the leading factor. The Massachusetts Teachers Association has added low wages, student loan debt, stressful classrooms, safety concerns, high-stakes testing, and poor work-life balance to the list.¹ National research from the Learning Policy Institute finds turnover is disproportionately high among early-career teachers, uncertified teachers, and those in ESL, foreign languages, and special education, and higher still in city schools and charter schools.⁹

Why Fewer People Are Becoming Teachers

The other half of the problem is that fewer people are training to replace those who leave. Enrollment in Massachusetts teacher preparation programs fell 34.6% between the 2017–18 and 2021–22 school years, compared with a 0.6% national drop over the same period.¹⁰ The longer-term national decline has exceeded 30% over the past decade.⁴

That gap has forced schools to lean on people without full credentials. During 2021–22, 56.6% of Massachusetts school vacancies were reported unfilled or difficult to fill, above the 46.9% national average, and about 6% of positions were held by underqualified teachers, versus 3.7% nationally.¹⁰ During the pandemic, the state issued emergency teaching licenses to nearly 20,000 unique individuals between 2020 and November 2023, roughly 15,000 of whom had never held a teaching license before. Engagement with the formal licensure pipeline among later cohorts of emergency-licensed teachers dropped by roughly 40% compared with the earliest cohort.¹¹ DESE stopped issuing new emergency licenses in November 2023, though existing holders can receive extensions through June 30, 2027.¹²

The Pay Gap Behind the Shortage

Massachusetts public school teachers earn 22.5% less per week than comparably educated professionals, according to the Economic Policy Institute, a gap that exceeds the national average and ranks among the larger penalties in the country. Nationally, the penalty hit a record 26.9% in 2024, so teachers earned about 73 cents for every dollar earned by similar professionals.³

In raw dollars, Massachusetts looks well paid. The average teacher salary for 2023–24 was $92,076, ninth-highest in the country and well above the $72,030 national average.¹³ Those averages hide huge variation. DESE data for that year shows Boston averaging $133,127, Holyoke $78,553, Lawrence $84,516, and some charter schools paying averages in the high $50,000s to low $60,000s.¹⁴ The average starting salary statewide was $52,616, in a state where housing costs run well above the national norm.

Pay is tightly linked to who stays. The Learning Policy Institute finds that every $1,000 increase in salary reduces the probability of teacher turnover by about 0.34 percentage points, and that financial stressors like multiple jobs or student debt are major drivers of attrition.⁹

Urban, Rural, and Suburban Pressures

Where you are in Massachusetts changes what the shortage looks like. Urban Gateway Cities such as Boston, Springfield, and Holyoke carry some of the state’s highest turnover, and before the Teach Western Mass initiative launched in 2016, high-need schools in Holyoke and Springfield were losing roughly a third of their teachers every year. Relatively low pay and lingering post-pandemic strain continue to make Gateway City staffing difficult.¹⁵

Rural districts face a different squeeze. A 2022 report by the Rural Schools Commission found that districts with 1,300 students or fewer run per-pupil costs 16.7% above the state average because of “extreme diseconomies of scale.” Between 2012 and 2020, rural districts lost 13.9% of their enrollment while the state overall lost 0.5%, and that decline has pushed rural schools to cut AP courses, arts programs, world languages, and positions like reading coaches and librarians.¹⁶

Suburban districts generally have fared better, but many classified as “Minimum Aid Districts” under the state funding formula have not seen the full benefit of recent reforms. As of spring 2025, districts including South Hadley, Belchertown, and Northampton were facing budget deficits that threatened dozens of student-facing positions.¹⁷

The Teacher Diversity Gap

Teachers of color make up just 8.5% of the Massachusetts teaching workforce.¹⁸ A study by The Education Trust found that almost three-quarters of schools have no Black teachers and almost two-thirds have no Latino teachers, meaning over 25,000 Black students and nearly 60,000 Latino students attend schools without a single teacher who shares their racial background.¹⁹

Attrition compounds the problem. During 2016–17, 24% of African American teachers and 17% of Latinx teachers left their districts, compared with 13% of white teachers.¹⁸ The state has set a goal of reaching 25% educator diversity by 2030.²⁰ A 2026 MassINC analysis found that structural barriers remain “largely intact,” even where local programs such as Teach Western Mass have shown success.¹⁵

What the State Is Doing

Massachusetts has moved on several fronts. In May 2025, the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education voted unanimously to make alternative assessments to the Massachusetts Tests for Educator Licensure (MTEL) permanent, after a pilot that had run since 2020 with 26 alternative tests available.²⁰²¹ A multiyear evaluation by the National Center for Analysis of Longitudinal Data in Education Research found candidates using alternative assessments performed similarly to those taking the traditional MTEL and represented a more diverse group. As of June 2026, the MTEL is no longer required for English communications, though subject-matter tests remain, and all classroom teachers still need a master’s degree for full licensure.²²

Max Page, president of the Massachusetts Teachers Association, said the MTEL had long acted as a barrier for candidates of color, and that the current changes do not lower overall standards. Critics counter that licensure changes alone are insufficient without a broader, state-funded plan to diversify the workforce and improve salary sustainability.²²

In November 2024, the legislature enacted the Educator Diversity Act as part of a broader economic development bill (H.5100). The law directs DESE to establish guidelines for increasing racial and ethnic diversity among teachers, administrators, and staff. Every district must create a plan for recruiting and retaining diverse educators, appoint a diversity officer or team, and provide regular diversity and anti-bias training for all employees, including school committee members. The law also created pilot programs for teacher apprenticeships and alternative certification, required educator preparation programs to plan for more diverse graduates, and directed DESE to promote existing scholarships and loan forgiveness programs.²³ DESE is also developing an alternative certification process that would allow a waiver of one required test based on relevant education or experience.²⁰

In March 2026, the Healey administration announced $1.7 million in grants to seven school districts to launch the state’s first Registered Teacher Apprenticeship Programs. The programs offer a tuition-free pathway to an initial teaching license, pairing paid on-the-job training with coursework. The first cohort covers 27 apprentices in high-need fields including special education, early childhood, ESL, and STEM, with grants going to Everett, Lowell, Lynn, Martha’s Vineyard, Randolph, Salem, and Waltham.²⁴ DESE under Commissioner Pedro Martinez has also rolled out “Future Teacher Signing Day” events, an Aspiring Principal Fellowship, new induction and mentoring resources, and, in May 2026, another alternative licensure pathway.²⁵

Funding That Isn’t Keeping Up

The Student Opportunity Act of 2019 was designed to boost Chapter 70 education aid by $1.5 billion, with targeted increases for districts serving low-income students, English learners, and students with disabilities. It has helped in places: State Senator Jake Oliveira noted that Springfield, Chicopee, and Holyoke have used the funding to expand services, including universal Pre-K in Springfield.¹⁷ In New Bedford, the superintendent reported hiring paraprofessionals, behaviorists, and health aides for students with disabilities.²⁶

Inflation has eaten into those gains. The 4.5% inflation cap on aid increases has not kept pace with actual school cost growth, which has reached 8% in some years. The Massachusetts Budget and Policy Center estimated that lifting the cap would have unlocked an additional $465 million statewide.²⁶ Multiple legislators have said the current funding formula is “not working for a majority of our school districts,” with school budgets technically growing but failing to keep up with wages, inflation, and special education costs.¹⁷ In many districts, that translates to larger class sizes and unfilled positions even when money exists on paper.

What It Means for Students

When teaching positions go unfilled, students absorb the consequences. Nationally, the Learning Policy Institute estimates more than 6 million students are affected by shortages, with roughly 1 in 8 teaching positions either vacant or held by someone without full certification.²⁷ Schools respond by increasing class sizes, cutting course offerings (especially in specialized subjects), and leaning on long-term substitutes or underqualified teachers. About 25% of affected schools have cut course offerings, and nearly 30% have enlarged class sizes, by national estimates.⁴

DESE data for 2025–26 shows some Massachusetts charter schools with less than half their teaching staff licensed. Libertas Academy Charter in Springfield reported 45.3% of its teachers as licensed. Commonwealth charter schools are not required by state law to employ licensed teachers, but the low rates track the staffing challenge.²⁸ Students with disabilities are especially exposed. A 2025 U.S. Commission on Civil Rights report found that special education staff shortages impair the ability to properly implement Individualized Education Programs and deliver required accommodations.⁵

Whether alternative licensure, apprenticeship pilots, diversity mandates, and funding reforms can reverse a 34.6% collapse in the training pipeline and close a 22.5% pay penalty remains unsettled, and the answer will show up over years in classrooms across the state.

1
NBC Boston. Massachusetts Teacher Retention
2
Merrimack College Online. Is There a Teacher Shortage in Massachusetts?
3
Economic Policy Institute. The Teacher Pay Penalty Reached a Record High in 2024
4
Forbes. Teacher Funding Cut as National Shortage Reaches Breaking Point
5
U.S. Commission on Civil Rights. Teacher Shortages: Impacts on the Civil Rights of Students
6
Boston.com. Boston Public Schools Still Has Over 200 Open Teaching Positions
7
NBC Boston. Teacher Vacancies Up in Boston This Year
8
Massachusetts DESE. Staffing Retention Rates
9
Learning Policy Institute. Teacher Turnover in the United States
10
American International College Online. Teacher Retention
11
ScienceDirect. Emergency Licensed Teachers in Massachusetts
12
Massachusetts DESE. Emergency Licensure
13
National Education Association. Educator Pay and Student Spending: How Does Your State Rank
14
Massachusetts DESE. Teacher Salaries Report
15
MassINC. A Quality, Diverse Teacher Workforce Is the Foundation of a Strong Gateway City
16
Franklin Regional Council of Governments. Rural Schools Commission Report
17
WAMC. As Towns Grapple With Potential School Cuts, Mass. Lawmakers Call for Funding Formula Change
18
Massachusetts Education Equity Partnership. Increasing Educator Diversity
19
The Education Trust. Understanding the Shortage of Teachers of Color in Massachusetts
20
Massachusetts Executive Office of Education. Massachusetts Establishes Alternative Tests for Educator Licensure
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Massachusetts AFT. Massachusetts Establishes Alternative Pathways to Educator Licensure
22
Western Mass News. Mass. Aims to Lessen Requirements to Get Teachers in Classrooms
23
Massachusetts AFT. Economic Development Bill Makes Great Strides for Educator Diversity
24
Massachusetts Executive Office of Education. Healey-Driscoll Administration Awards $1.7 Million in Teacher Apprenticeship Grants
25
Massachusetts DESE. Commissioner Updates
26
New Bedford Light. How Does the Student Opportunity Act Work?
27
Learning Policy Institute. 2025 Update: Latest National Scan Shows Teacher Shortages Persist
28
Massachusetts DESE. Teacher Data Report