What Happened to the K-12 Education Labor Market during COVID? The Acute Need for Better Data Systems

Autor/inn/en	Bleiberg, Joshua F.; Kraft, Matthew A.
Titel	What Happened to the K-12 Education Labor Market during COVID? The Acute Need for Better Data Systems
Quelle	In: Education Finance and Policy, 18 (2023) 1, S.156-172 (17 Seiten)Infoseite zur Zeitschrift PDF als Volltext Verfügbarkeit
Sprache	englisch
Dokumenttyp	gedruckt; online; Zeitschriftenaufsatz
ISSN	1557-3060
Schlagwörter	Elementary Secondary Education; Labor Market; COVID-19; Pandemics; Employment; Employment Patterns; Faculty Mobility; Personnel Selection; School Personnel; Barriers; Job Layoff; Teacher Shortage; Data + Suchen Sie Ihr Suchwort? Labour market; Arbeitsmarkt; Dienstverhältnis; Beschäftigungsstruktur; Personalauswahl; Personalentscheidung; Schulpersonal; Beurlaubung; Lehrermangel; Daten
Abstract	The COVID-19 pandemic upended the U.S. education system in ways that dramatically affected the jobs of K-12 employees. However, there remains considerable uncertainty about the nature and degree of staffing challenges during the pandemic. We draw on data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) and State Education Agencies (SEA) to describe patterns in K-12 education employment and to highlight the limitations of available data. Data from the BLS suggest overall employment in the K-12 labor market declined by 9 percent at the onset of the pandemic and remained well below pre-pandemic levels more than two years later. SEA data suggest that teachers did not leave the profession en masse as many predicted, with turnover decreasing in the summer of 2020 and then increasing modestly in 2021 back to pre-pandemic levels. We explore possible explanations for these patterns including weak hiring through the summer of 2020 and high attrition among K-12 instructional support and noninstructional staff. State vacancy data also suggest that schools faced substantial challenges filling open positions during the 2021-22 academic year. Our analyses illustrate the imperative to build nationally representative, detailed, and timely data systems on the K-12 education labor market to better inform policy. (As Provided).
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Erfasst von	ERIC (Education Resources Information Center), Washington, DC
Update	2024/1/01