Hi, it’s Chad from Edunomics Lab. Here’s the latest from our team:
First up: what’s really going on with teacher turnover?
Last summer, word on the street was that Covid-19 would cause a spike in teacher turnover. This year, there’s another round of speculation of teacher exodus prompted by stress and dissatisfaction.
But the evidence suggests that mass teacher exits have not happened, at least not yet. After digging into data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, I found that turnover among public education employees actually declined last year. Layoffs, voluntary departures, and retirements were all lower in 2020 than they were in 2019.
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What does this mean going forward for school districts? Join Marguerite and me for a 30-minute webinar at 1pm ET/ 10am PT on Tuesday, March 16th to unpack the findings and what they mean for teacher hiring, salaries, and more.
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Who are you calling NERD$?
Our team is excited to share the name for our new database: NERD$: National Education Resource Database on Schools, the first-ever national set of school-by-school spending data. (Brace yourself: we plan to have fun with this name.)
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NERD$ is a joint effort by Edunomics Lab and the Massive Data Institute at Georgetown University to ensure year-over-year school spending data required by ESSA are captured for research and comparisons. Being the nerds that we are, we’re excited for the potential for these data to transform our understanding of education finance.
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We’re hosting a NERD$ mini-grant competition with awards of $5,000 to conduct analysis using NERD$. The competition is open to all (and honestly anyone interested in crunching some school-by-school spending figures). Projects may address a broad range of nerdy and not-so-nerdy questions related to education policy and practice. Find more details here, and register for a free informational webinar on March 25th, 12-1 ET.
If you're attending the AEFP conference, catch a policy talk with Marguerite and a panel of experts on the School-by-School Spending Data: What It Means for Education Finance Research, Policy and Decision Making, March 18th, 12-1 ET.
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Fun with Charts: Schools Keep Adding More Staff
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If we’ve made one Big Bet in education over the last 50 years, it’s that investing heavily to add more staffing will improve schools.
One way to understand just how much we’ve increased staffing is to picture a typical elementary school with 500 students. How many adults would be employed in that school? In 1970 it was 37. By 2018, it was 65.
The chart below shows the staffing gains by role over the last two decades. If staffing had increased in direct proportion to the change in students, all of the gray bars would be even with the red line.
But they’re not. The number of teachers has slightly outpaced the 7% increase in student enrollment, there are 37% more principals and assistant principals, and schools now employ a whopping 153% more instructional coaches.
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Undoubtedly, the staffing surge has served some students well. Given the new funding flowing from the federal government, districts have a decision to make: put those dollars into hiring more staff, or consider using that funding differently—possibly by adding time (and pay) to the staff we already have, or something else?
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ICYMI: Edunomics events and publications
Watch or read the slides from our March 3rd 30-minute webinar looking at how school reopening decisions are affecting district budgets. You can also read a summary of our team's findings here at The 74.
Read our Proceed with Caution brief on state “hold harmless” provisions that protect districts from losing funds when they lose students, and the factors states should weigh as they consider what to do about changes in student enrollment.
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Last call: There are still a few spaces open for the Georgetown University Certificate in Education Finance, March 30-31.
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As always, please don’t hesitate to reach out with insights or suggestions: Chad.Aldeman@georgetown.edu
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Did you get this newsletter from a friend? Email edunomics@georgetown.edu to sign up to be alerted to future webinars and get updates on our work.
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Edunomics Lab is a Georgetown University research center exploring and modeling complex education finance decisions to inform education policy and practice.
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