With the rapid advancement of urbanization in China，current staffing system cannot meet the huge demand on primary and secondary school teachers，which is caused by structural adjustment of school-age population. Thus，the problems with new generation of substitute teachers arise.Based on questionnaires and interviews with teachers，principals and heads of education authorities in selected provinces in eastern，central and western China，combined with data and literatures published by the National Bureau of Statistics of China，the paper aims at describing the scale and trend of new generation of substitute teachers，discussing the problems with their salaries，teaching quality and the reform status under the administrative constraints of staffing system. The new generation of substitute teachers is related not only to education quality，but also to development of teacher workforce. The paper argues that the excessive safeguarding of staffing system should be broken；an effective teacher withdrawn mechanism should be established；equal work should be equally paid and an equal development platform should be provided for substitute teachers；reform efforts should be increased，and new public schools should become role models for system innovation in public education system.