"It's not that you don't have some terrifically talented people going into teaching. You do," said Richard Murnane, of Harvard University's Graduate School of Education. "The issue is that you don't have enough.

School systems across the country report a growing scarcity of qualified recruits, the Washington Post reported.

Three-quarters of the more than 3 million public school teachers are women, a figure that has changed little during the last 40 years. But in that time, women have become more educated, with more career choices and better salaries to choose from, the Post reported.

The dearth of new teachers comes as federal policies are tightening requirements for teacher qualifications brought about by the No Child Left law designed by the Bush administration, the Post said.