While Feds Work to Dismantle Public Education, States Work to Address Teacher Shortages

December 10, 2025

On November 18, the Trump administration announced six interagency agreements signed with other Federal departments as part of its overall effort to dismantle the U.S. Department of Education (DOEd) by transferring several of its responsibilities to those agencies. This was followed this month by the Department of the Treasury and the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) starting the formal process of implementing the new Federal school choice program that was created as part of the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act,” or OBBBA (covered in the first story of this week’s “NCTR FYI”) as a way to defund public education in the eyes of many. In the meantime, a number of states are focused on teacher recruitment initiatives to address the ongoing teacher shortages and the serious long-term threats to the stability and equity of U.S. public education that such shortages represent, with Maryland’s release of $19 million in grants for a program to not only decrease the state’s teacher shortage, but also entice more men into the teaching profession, as perhaps the most recent example of such.

The Education Department says it will “maintain all statutory responsibilities and will continue its oversight” of all six interagency agreements. These are with the departments of Labor, Interior, Health and Human Services, and State, as follows:

Labor Department: The Department of Labor (DOL) will be given a “growing role” in administering elementary and secondary education programs currently managed under the DOEd’s Office of Elementary and Secondary Education. According to the DOEd, “with proper oversight,” DOL will manage competitions, provide technical assistance, and integrate the Education Department’s programs with the various employment and training programs DOL already administers. DOL will also take on a greater role in managing the DOEd’s higher education grant programs, such as the “Gaining Early Awareness and Readiness for Undergraduate Programs,” or GEAR UP, as well as TRIO – which are a set of U.S. Department of Education federal outreach and student services programs designed to identify and support individuals from disadvantaged backgrounds in their pursuit of higher education, with participants typically from low-income families, first-generation college students, or having disabilities. The Higher Education Emergency Relief Fund, the Graduate Assistance in Areas of National Need program and the Strengthening Historically Black Graduate Institutions program, among others, would also be included.
Interior Department: The Interior Department will take on a “growing role” in administering the Education Department’s Indian Education programs.
Health & Human Services (HHS): HHS will oversee the National Committee on Foreign Medical Education and Accreditation’s work. It will also “manage existing competitions, provide technical assistance, and integrate” the Education Department’s Child Care Access Means Parents in School Program, which supports the participation of low-income parents in post-secondary education through the provision of campus-based childcare services.
State Department: The Education Department’s agreement with the State Department will let that agency “oversee all foreign education programs.”

The interagency agreements drew immediate criticism from Democrats. For example, Congresswoman Rosa DeLauro (D-CT), ranking member of the House Appropriations Committee, said “any attempt to unilaterally remove programs from the Department of Education will fundamentally alter their purpose.” She stressed this is “not about efficiency — it is about creating so many needless bureaucratic hurdles that the Department of Education is rendered useless — a death by a thousand cuts.”

Unions were also highly critical, with Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) saying that “spreading services across multiple departments will create more confusion, more mistakes and more barriers for people who are just trying to access the support they need.” She added that “it’s a deliberate diversion of funding streams that have helped generations of kids achieve their American dream” and “will undermine public schools as places where diverse voices come together and where pluralism, the bedrock of our democracy, is strengthened,” according to reporting by Shauneen Miranda, a reporter for States Newsroom’s Washington bureau. [States Newsroom is a nonprofit news network with newsrooms in 39 states focused mostly on state politics. Its commentary and opinion pieces generally lean left.]

As for convincing Congress to ultimately approve these interagency agreements, this would require at least 60 senators to advance, as it would be subject to a filibuster. Therefore, given Democrats’ opposition, it would not appear that any such legislation is in the works, at least in the short term. Meanwhile, on December 2, a broad coalition of school districts and employee unions suing to block President Trump’s original efforts earlier this year to dismantle the Department of Education expanded its lawsuit to include objections to these recent interagency agreements to shift the department’s responsibilities to other Cabinet-level agencies. However, it should be noted that the U.S. Supreme Court in July allowed the Trump administration to temporarily proceed with mass layoffs and a plan to dramatically downsize the Education Department that President Trump ordered earlier this year. Therefore, legal challenges may not prove to be fruitful.

Finally, a senior DOEd official could not tell Miranda how many Education Department employees would be transitioning to these other agencies when States Newsroom reported on these interagency agreements on November 18. The official did note that there will be “a bit of a lag” between the signing of the agreement and when the agreements are fully executed and that the DOEd is “still exploring the best plan” for the Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services, Office for Civil Rights and Federal Student Aid.

While this action that many argue will effectively undermine public education as we know it is being aggressively pursued by the Trump Administration, states have been responding to another more serious threat to public education, namely the ongoing national teacher shortage.

For example, the Learning Policy Institute (LPI) tracks teacher shortages by reviewing the most recent state-specific data on the number of teachers not fully certified for their teaching assignments as well as the number of unfilled teaching positions. As state laws typically specify that teachers who are not fully certified can be hired or assigned only if a fully certified teacher is not available, “both data points provide a strong indicator of the severity of shortages,” LPI explains in its “Overview of Teacher Shortages: 2025 FACT SHEET.” [LPI is a nonpartisan think tank dedicated to research and advocating for evidence-based policies to improve education systems from pre-K through high school, focusing on equity, teacher quality, school finance, and deeper learning for all students. LPI produces research, briefs, and reports, working with states and districts to implement policies that support high-quality, equitable education, addressing teacher shortages and systemic issues.]

According to LPI’s latest June 2025 analyses, 48 states plus the District of Columbia employed an estimated 365,967 teachers who were not fully certified for their teaching assignments. Thirty-one states plus the District of Columbia also published data on vacancies, showing 45,582 unfilled teacher positions. Together, these estimates indicate that, at a minimum, 411,549 positions were either unfilled or filled by teachers not fully certified for their assignments, representing about 1 in 8 of all teaching positions nationally. Compared to LPI’s 2024 review, these vacancy numbers represent an increase of approximately 4,600 teaching positions.

Therefore, the U.S. is still experiencing a significant national teacher shortage in 2025, and LPI has repeatedly warned that this teacher shortage is a “serious threat to educational quality and equity,” noting that shortages disproportionately affect low-income schools and students of color.

In response, “Grow Your Own” (GYO) teacher recruitment initiatives have become a recognized national strategy to address teacher shortages, with States like Illinois, Washington, Minnesota, and Texas having long-standing GYO initiatives that recruit paraprofessionals, community members, or high school students into teaching pipelines.

Most recently, Maryland Governor Wes Moore (D) announced on December 2 the release of $19 million in grants to not only decrease the state’s teacher shortage but also entice more men into the teaching profession. The money for the Grow Your Own initiative is allocated in this year’s Maryland budget through the “Excellence in Maryland Public Schools Act” that Moore signed into law this year. The initiative addresses the teacher shortage by developing fully licensed teachers through recruitment campaigns and supporting debt-free pathways to teacher licensure.

According to Governor Moore’s office, Maryland has already utilized education initiatives that cut teacher vacancies nearly in half from 1,619 in the 2024-25 school year to 886 in 2025. One of those initiatives is a $2,000 relocation grant to attract out-of-state licensed teachers. Overall, the program prioritizes efforts that leverage on-the-job training and mentorship and on working to recruit men into the profession.

The Maryland “Grow-Your-Own Educators” grant program aims to create stronger paths for non-licensed school staff to become full-time teachers while continuing to work in schools. It also gives priority consideration to awards for schools with demonstrated plans to recruit and retain male teachers, as men represent only 23 percent of Maryland’s teachers.

Finally, Maryland’s initiative is tied to the “Blueprint for Maryland’s Future,” a multi-billion-dollar education reform law, making it a structural part of statewide policy. This contrasts with other state GYO programs, which often are stand-alone or district-led initiatives.

Governor Moore also announced a new partnership between Maryland’s Young Men and Boys Initiative within the Governor’s Office of Children and the American Institutes for Research (AIR) to build up men and boys. A press release states this partnership will provide research, evaluation, and technical assistance to Maryland’s work to support men and boys. [AIR is a nonprofit, nonpartisan behavioral and social science research, evaluation, and technical assistance organization based in Arlington, Virginia and is one of the world’s largest social science research organizations.]

Therefore, although federal efforts to dismantle the Department of Education and siphon Federal dollars in support of public education to private schools instead can be discouraging to supporters of public education, states are keeping their eyes on the ball, working to resolve the nation’s teacher shortage. However, it will take more than just grant programs, as teachers continue to leave the profession due to low pay, high stress, and heavy workloads. Enrollment in teacher preparation programs has also declined, meaning fewer new teachers are entering the profession.

“Teacher shortages and the need for more men in the classroom are real—and solvable,” said AIR Opportunity Fund Executive Director Dr. Rashawn Ray. “Through our partnership with the State of Maryland, AIR will lift up best practices and proven methods delivered by rigorous evidence that increase recruitment of teachers and provide strong on-ramps into the teaching profession.”

As Dr. Ray says, “This is Maryland at its best—public leaders, educators, families, and research partners pulling in the same direction.” But the message is also true for public education and its strong supporters, including teacher pension plans. Adequate and affordable retirement security has an important role in rebuilding the teaching pipeline and improving retention so that teacher shortages do not become a permanent structural weakness in U.S. education.