K-12 Teacher Recruitment and Retention Policies in the Higher Education Act: In Brief. CRS Report R45914, Version 4. Updated

The K-12 teacher workforce is relatively large--each year, nearly 4 million teachers are employed in U.S. elementary and secondary schools. Turnover in these schools is high relative to earlier periods--16% of teachers left their school in the 2021-2022 academic year. In addition, there is evidence that teacher quality standards have been lowered in order to fill open positions. The problem of teacher turnover raises a number of recruitment and retention issues of interest to policymakers. The Higher Education Act (HEA) is the main federal law containing policies designed to address these issues. Title II of the HEA authorizes grant support for schools that prepare new teachers. Title IV of the HEA authorizes financial support to encourage people to stay in the teaching profession in the form of student loan forgiveness and other benefits. Congressional consideration of potentially reauthorizing the HEA is ongoing, with the introduction of numerous bills to amend current law and address teacher recruitment and retention. This report describes the history of federal teacher recruitment and retention policy, current policies in this area, and related issues that may arise as Congress considers reauthorizing the HEA.