Objective

To determine whether the State Education Department is effectively overseeing certain teacher shortage grants to ensure the State maintains a sufficient teacher workforce. The audit covered the period from July 2019 through August 2025.

About the Program

New York State is expected to need 180,000 new teachers in the next decade, and there may not be enough educators to fill those roles. Like many states, New York reports persistent teacher shortages, with large urban and rural districts reporting severe shortages in many subject areas.

Teacher shortages may lead to larger classroom sizes, resulting in a more disruptive environment due to the increased number of students to manage, decreased student participation in group discussion, and teachers being less able to identify student strengths and weaknesses. Overall, the teacher shortage crisis threatens educational opportunities and the ability for students to reach their full potential.

SED has stated that it made a multipronged effort to address teacher shortages in New York State. Our audit focused on four grant programs designed to address teacher shortages:

• Teachers of Tomorrow and Teachers of Tomorrow: Science, Mathematics, Bilingual Education, and English as a New Language: Established to assist school districts experiencing a teacher shortage or subject area shortage (especially low-performing schools) with recruitment, retention, and certification activities to increase the supply of qualified teachers.
• Teachers Opportunity Corps II: Established to support and help recruit, retain, and train economically disadvantaged or historically underrepresented participants as certified public school teachers to better address the needs of at-risk students.
• Mentor Teacher Internship Program: Established to enable experienced teachers (mentors) in a district or BOCES to provide guidance and support to beginning teachers (interns) in their first and/or second year of teaching.
• Teacher Diversity Pipeline Pilot: Established to assist teacher aides and teaching assistants to attain the necessary education and professional training to obtain teacher certification.

Key Findings

SED needs to improve its oversight, communication, and monitoring efforts to increase teacher shortage grant program utilization and outcomes, as follows:

• SED did not award all money allocated to the grant programs, and grantees did not spend all money awarded to them. Of the $191 million allocated to the four grants in our scope period, only $155 million was awarded to grantees, and about $118.9 million of the allocated amount (62%) was actually spent.
• Only a small percentage of eligible school districts have been applying for the teacher shortage grants. For example, for the 2022–26 cycle of the Teachers of Tomorrow grant, only 27 of the 609 eligible school districts (4%) applied.
• We conducted a survey of 692 school districts (excluding New York City), and of the 244 respondents, 210 (86%) said they had not participated in the grant programs we reviewed. Of these 210 non-participants, 190 school districts (90%) said they were not aware of the grant programs, and 164 stated they would like to know more about them. Considering these grant programs have existed for multiple years, including two programs (Teachers of Tomorrow and Mentor Teacher Internship Program) that are over 20 years old, it is surprising that so few school districts were aware of them.
• SED could improve the monitoring of the grant programs’ effectiveness to determine if the programs are achieving desired outcomes and meeting their intended goals. This information could be used by decision-makers to more effectively use grant funds for recruitment, retention, and certification activities necessary to increase the supply of qualified teachers.

Key Recommendations

• Develop and implement enhanced controls and monitoring practices for teacher shortage grants administered by SED, including grant spending and school district participation.
• Improve communication with school districts, including the frequency and type of outreach used to notify school districts about grant opportunities.
• Communicate grant outcomes and recommend revisions to decision-makers as needed to improve the expenditure and effective use of grant funds.
• Develop and implement metrics to determine the effectiveness of the grant programs.