During COVID-19 Lockdowns, Public School Teachers Lost Jobs While Administrators Gained Jobs

Government school administrators gained jobs through COVID-19 and the lockdown-induced recession, even as teachers lost jobs.

As a report by the Economic Policy Institute reveals:

Of the five main occupation categories within educational services, only management, business, and financial occupations — the highest-wage occupation category within educational services — experienced employment gains between 2019 and 2020.

The group’s data show that “management, business, and financial occupations” saw 53,153 new jobs during the past year — a 7% increase. Meanwhile, government school employees within the “education instruction and library occupations” saw 288,959 lost jobs — a 5.3% decrease. Kindergarten through twelfth-grade teachers composed a plurality of the job losses in the latter category.

Other sectors within public education — including service occupations, office support occupations, and transportation occupations — saw 19.8%, 5.5%, and 25.8% losses, respectively.

The Economic Policy Institute therefore notes:

While it seems most obvious that on-site operations will need to rehire food services workers, grounds crew, and bus drivers, school systems will also need to hire more teaching professionals to help students recover from learning loss during the pandemic… This need for more (not fewer) teachers is made even more difficult because the U.S. already faces a teacher shortage.

The past year’s statistics reflected the decades-long trend of more government education dollars financing administrative positions.

A 2013 report from the Department of Education showed that between 1950 to 2009, public schools saw a 702% increase in non-teaching staff. Over the same period, the number of teachers rose by 252%. 

As the report explained:

Nationally, states could have saved — and could continue to save — more than $24 billion annually if they had increased/decreased the employment of administrators and other non-teaching staff at the same rate as students between FY 1992 and FY 2009… Virginia would have had an extra $29,007 to spend per teacher if it had limited the growth of administrators and other non-teaching staff to its growth in students from FY 1992 to FY 2009. Maine would have had an extra $25,505 per teacher, and the District of Columbia would have had an extra $20,472. Those funds could have been spent on salary increases for teachers or some other worthy purpose.

The Economic Policy Institute’s report emerges as parents across the United States grow frustrated by government schools’ efforts to push critical race theory. In Loudoun County, Virginia, parents have formed groups such as Parents Against Critical Theory and Fight For Schools in order to oppose the school board’s efforts to push the left-wing ideological framework.

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