Does Training Teachers Locally Affect Teacher Shortages? Evidence from Regional Public Universities

• In Event: Sustaining the Teacher Labor Force

Abstract

Regional public universities train a large fraction of future teachers in the United States. We aim to investigate whether and to what extent regional universities reduce teacher shortages in nearby K-12 schools. To find the causal effect, we use the historical assignment of normal schools and insane asylums, an identification strategy we have used to identify the impact of regional universities on other outcomes (Howard, Weinstein, and Yang 2024; Howard and Weinstein 2025). Normal schools were originally designed to train teachers and have evolved into regional universities that continue to train many teachers. Insane asylums were assigned locations based on similar criteria as normal schools but have no expected effect on teacher shortages today, except through being a state institution. Counties assigned these institutions look very similar except for the type of institution, allowing us to interpret differences as the causal effect of the university. Consistent with regional public universities raising local supply of teachers, we find that student-teacher ratios are lower in normal school counties, teachers earn lower wages, and there is a smaller fraction of teachers with emergency credentials. Further, when looking at teachers' college majors, we see they are reflective of the degree composition at the universities in normal school counties. In normal school counties, teachers are more likely to be education majors, more likely to be subject-area education majors (and less likely to be general education majors), and less likely to major in the subject disciplines themselves. For example, secondary school teachers in normal school counties are more likely to be education and STEM teacher education majors, but less likely to be STEM or Humanities (including English and History) majors. In addition, special education teachers are more likely to have majored in special needs education in normal school counties than in asylum counties. These results are consistent with shortages of STEM teacher education and special education majors, that are less severe in normal school counties because they are produced there and there are geographic frictions in the labor market.

Author

• Russell Weinstein, University of Illinois
  Presenting Author