Raising Pay in Public K-12 Schools Is Critical to Solving Staffing Shortages: Federal Relief Funds Can Provide a down Payment on Long-Needed Investments in the Education Workforce

Ever since students began returning to classrooms in the late summer and fall of 2021, countless news stories have described intense staffing shortages in primary and secondary schools. The pandemic has wreaked havoc on the country's K-12 educational workforce, with overworked educators retiring or leaving the profession, insufficient substitute teachers to fill in when COVID hits a district, too few paraprofessionals and teaching assistants there to support students who are struggling after more than a year of virtual learning, not enough bus drivers to get students to and from school, and skeleton crews of custodial and food service workers trying to make do. This report presents data on the characteristics and pay of the K-12 education support workforce, showing trends in employment before and during the pandemic, and discusses how COVID is likely affecting workers' decisions to return to schools. It also presents findings from past EPI research that shows that budget cuts, lack of investment in schools, low relative pay, challenging school climates, and inadequate early career supports led to rising teacher turnover and a shrinking pipeline of qualified teachers in the country's schools long before the pandemic began.