Patrick Kearney is a middle school band director who has taught in Iowa for 35 years. This post first appeared on his WordPress blog on July 27.

Dear Iowa,

A couple of days ago a friend of mine shared that there were 40 unfilled music teaching positions in Iowa right now. That’s a lot of teaching jobs that are not filled in late July. The next day another friend shared that one of the open jobs is the vocal music position at Atlantic High School. Atlantic has a long tradition as an outstanding music program in Iowa. It appears that they’ve been trying to fill this position all summer without success and are trying to figure out how to offer any vocal music at this point.

This news comes on the heels of an article in the Cedar Rapids Gazette detailing the challenges facing the Cedar Rapids school district’s music programs.

As a music teacher, these stories all concern me. I believe in the power of music education, and Iowa has a long history of great school music programs. While music education is a big concern to me, it led me to look into how many total teaching jobs have gone unfilled in Iowa.

Radio Iowa reports that there are teacher shortages in the areas of math, science, music, art, and physical education among others. In total there are 28 teacher shortage areas in Iowa…28. Data from 2025 shows that Iowa had more than 1,000 unfilled teaching vacancies last year and that more than 1,800 jobs were filled by teachers who were not fully certified for their teaching assignment.

This is a real problem, Iowa, and it isn’t going to improve any time soon. The sad thing is, it was totally predictable. I may have even been talking about this for almost ten years now. In a state where GOP legislators insist that teachers have a “sinister agenda,” where public school spending has not kept up with rising costs, and in a state where the governor is actively shutting down Area Education Agencies that have been the backbone of support for our most vulnerable young people, how can anyone be surprised we can’t find enough teachers to fill these jobs?

While Iowa legislators have spent years creating “solutions” to problems that don’t exist through legislation written by out of state interest groups, Iowa schools are facing real challenges. I’ve asked this before, but it’s worth asking again: what is our governor’s solution to this teacher shortage?

If the problem is that all of Iowa’s teachers are too “woke,” then where is the army of young conservatives who want to do this work? As my generation of teachers is retiring, what is Iowa’s plan to replace us? Because the last ten years of bashing public education and public school teachers hasn’t seemed to result in a caravan of teachers beating down the doors of Iowa’s schools.

The people of Atlantic are very concerned about the future of the choir program. It will be sad if those students lose access to a quality music education. But, it’s worth noting that Atlantic has consistently elected legislators who vote in lock step with the governor and her chronic underfunding of Iowa’s schools. I tried to look up whether the legislators who represent this area (Cass County) spoke up against the charges that Iowa’s teachers had a “sinister agenda” and couldn’t find any evidence that they had.

At some point Iowans have to admit that they are OK with losing school programs because of a lack of qualified instructors. The leadership at the capitol have had ample opportunity to solve this problem, which they created. If they had a plan, we’d know about it. They don’t have a plan, and teacher shortages are going to continue to get worse.

I look back on ten years of writing about these issues and can say that most everything I predicted would happen has happened. I have no joy in being proven correct. Even as I watch our state leaders vote year after year against the best interests of our public schools, I have hope. I know that the people of Atlantic are going to fight hard to protect their vocal music program. Iowans care about their public schools.

Maybe, just maybe, as ten years of bad legislation impacts more students, and the consequences for programs become more clear, Iowans will return to voting for candidates who believe in the importance of our public schools. As we prepare for the 2026 elections, every Iowa candidate should have to answer the question, “What are you going to do about teacher shortages in Iowa?”

A good friend was asking how we can convince more young people to consider teaching as a career in Iowa. I struggled with the question, because I wouldn’t trade my career for anything. I’m so honored to have worked with students who have become professional musicians and music educators, but I’m equally honored to have worked with young people who have become doctors, lawyers, welders, bankers, bakers, builders, and so much more.

Teaching is an incredibly noble profession that has nothing to do with “sinister agendas.” But, should we be encouraging young people to teach in Iowa right now? I’m struggling with that right now. But I’ll tell you what, there are some incredibly talented young teachers in our schools. We need to keep them, and I wish that it were as simple as a 2 percent pay raise and a pat on the back.

Iowa needs to take a hard look at what is happening and decide whether they are OK with it. I guess I’m hopeful, but not particularly optimistic, that our state will figure this out before it gets much worse. Iowa needs to give young people a good reason to want to teach here.

Sincerely,

Patrick J. Kearney, Teacher

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Top photo of empty music classroom is by AnnaStills, available via Shutterstock.