Another bright spot in the Illinois school report card is that the state is making a lot of headway in overcoming the national teacher shortage. More than 25-hundred full time teachers were added during the last school year, including 500 black and Hispanic teachers. But State Schools Superintendent Carmen Ayala says there is more work to do.
“We still do have teacher shortages and they are concentrated in hard to staff, underfunded, and chronically struggling schools, and in Special Education.”
Ayala says there’s also a dire need for substitute teachers in Illinois. The number of teachers staying on the job is the highest it’s been since retention rates started being reported back in 2014.
***Courtesy of the Illinois Department of Central Management Services***