The Big Picture of Educator Workforce Pipeline Research

Thinking about supply and demand. South Carolina has more than one way to measure its educator workforce—and each one tells a different story. Below are three data-driven narratives: one built on vacancy counts, one built on following people through the pipeline, and one built on district-level workforce totals. Each challenges the way we think about, and measure, the supply and demand of teachers.

Same workforce, three stories. Explore each narrative, then use the questions at the bottom to discuss what the evidence does—and does not—support.

Narrative 1: Counting positions

Vacancies refer to teaching and service positions that remain unfilled as the school year begins, as reported by districts in the annual Supply & Demand Survey.

What the vacancy data show now

Vacancies refer to teaching and service positions that remain unfilled as the school year begins. Districts reported a 32% decrease in teacher vacancies compared to last year—and some of those vacancies may have been filled, and new ones may have emerged, since districts submitted their Supply & Demand Survey.

Teacher vacancy five-year data: 706 vacancies reported at the beginning of 2025-26, down from 1,043 last year

Reported vacancies peaked in 2023–24 and have fallen sharply since.

Departures refer to certified educators who did not return to a teaching or service position in the same school district the following year. Districts reported a 5% decrease in teacher departures compared to last year; of the departures, 19% retired from the profession and 25% transferred to another SC public school district.

Teacher departures bar chart, 2021-22 through 2025-26, down for third year

Departures reported alongside vacancies have declined for three consecutive years.

What vacancy counts actually measure

Vacancies measure positions—not people. Vacancy counts go up when districts create more positions, budget for positions they ultimately cannot fill, expand staffing during funding surges, or hire on different timelines. They go down when funding drops and posted positions are eliminated, when districts consolidate roles, or when hiring freezes occur. None of these changes reflect teacher behavior; they reflect district budgeting behavior.

The ESSER effectBetween 2021–22 and 2024–25, vacancy numbers fluctuated sharply—peaking during COVID-era ESSER funding, when districts hired aggressively and could create new positions, expand roles, add interventionists and specialists, and staff above their normal formulas. Inflated vacancy counts looked, to policymakers, like a mass educator exodus.

Narrative 2: Following people

SC TEACHER’s longitudinal approach tracks every teacher statewide—real retention, real exits, real new entrants, and real movement between districts—using SCDE data.

Who stays. Retention rates have remained relatively stable—at the state, district, and school levels—through the same years the vacancy narrative described as a collapse.

Teacher retention rates across South Carolina over time at state, district, and school levels, 2019-20 through 2023-24

Teacher retention rates across South Carolina over time, measured at the state, district, and school levels.

Who enters. The pipeline’s entry points are shifting—with less reliance on recent graduates and growing roles for reciprocity and alternative-route certificates.

Trends in new hires across South Carolina, by certificate type.

What the movement data really showed

No evidence of statewide mass exit.
Retention stable at the state level, not collapsing.
Movement patterns consistent with pre-pandemic years.
Pipeline entry shifting toward less reliance on recent graduates.

Two systems, two storiesVacancy data measures positions posted. SCDE data measures people moving. When ESSER funding allowed districts to create or sustain positions they could not fill, vacancies spiked—but teachers did not leave in large numbers. The vacancy signal was a funding artifact, not a workforce collapse.

Narrative 3: District totals

A third lens: the change in each district’s total number of teachers, year over year. Green districts grew; rust districts shrank.

Map of South Carolina districts showing change in total number of teachers from 2020-21 to 2021-22

Change in total number of teachers by district, 2020–21 to 2021–22. Dark green: +31 to +201. Rust: −62 to −10.

Map of South Carolina districts showing change in total number of teachers from 2021-22 to 2022-23

Change in total number of teachers by district, 2021–22 to 2022–23.

What the district lens adds

Statewide numbers—whether vacancies or retention rates—can mask what is happening locally. In the same year, some districts added dozens of teachers while neighboring districts lost them. A stable state average can contain both a growing Lowcountry district and a shrinking rural one. Supply and demand for teachers is not one statewide market; it is dozens of local ones, shaped by enrollment, funding, geography, and competition between districts.

Reading the mapsCompare the same district across the two maps: some flip from growth to shrinkage (or back) in a single year, which is hard to reconcile with any single statewide story. Non-district entities—charter authorizers and special schools—are listed separately on each map and follow their own dynamics.

For discussion. Bring these questions to your Litmus conversations—they connect what you just explored to how we weigh evidence, authority, and practicality all year.

Probing questions

Which of the three narratives have you heard most often in your district or community—and from whom?
What decisions—budgets, programs, policies—have you seen made in response to the vacancy narrative? Would the person-centered data have changed them?
Each narrative measures something real. What question is each one the right tool for answering—and where does it mislead?
The district maps show growth and shrinkage side by side. What would a statewide policy have to look like to serve both kinds of districts at once?
Who has the actual authority to change which workforce metrics get collected, reported, and cited—and what would it take to move them?
How should this shape the messages we craft? What is a claim about the educator workforce you could now state—and defend—with specific evidence?

The chairs testVacancy data counts how many chairs were set out. SC TEACHER uses SCDE data to count how many people actually walked in or out. If you put out 200 extra chairs and people don’t fill them, you do not have a mass exodus—you have more chairs.