The newspaper reported that 28 states reported having too few teachers and that 15 of those 28 states reported an increase in shortages over the previous year. Guardian staff reached out to the boards of education and departments of education in all 50 states and received responses from 41 states.

Among the areas in which schools were struggling to fill positions were mathematics, science, and special education.

The study found that only eight states tracked unfilled teacher positions statewide: Arizona, Florida, Illinois, Missouri, Nebraska, Oklahoma, South Carolina, and Virginia. California, which does not have such statewide tracking, nonetheless reported a shortage of qualified in teachers in the the 2017–2018 school year as 80 percent of its districts, with 90 percent of those saying that the shortage was worse than in the previous school year.

Oklahoma reported nearly 500 teaching vacancies, despite teachers in that state winning a $6,100 pay increase.

The study found that education officials in a great many of the districts reporting shortages were already employing teachers who had been granted emergency certifications to fill some of the positions.