Marguerite Roza
Published March 24, 2025 on Brown Center Chalkboard, Brookings Institution
The end of ESSER has researchers, pundits, practitioners, and policy makers examining the outcomes of this massive infusion of one-time money. One investment that deserves particular reflection was the tendency of districts to bring on so many staff even as enrollment fell and is predicted to drop.
In our analysis of NCES staffing data, we find districts added well over 200,000 positions between 2019-20 and 2023-24. Notably 65% of the added positions are non-teaching roles of administrators, coordinators, counselors, interventionists, coaches, and student support staff.
One worry is that these newly created non-teaching positions were filled by what had been some of the strongest teachers, and the replacement teachers aren’t as effective. The best math teacher got “promoted” to being a math coach. Filling the resulting teacher openings amidst teacher shortages (triggered in part by the mass hiring) meant pulling from deeper into a thinning applicant pool, potentially filling classrooms with weaker candidates (or worse, leaving unfilled roles covered by substitutes).
And now that ESSER is gone, districts are struggling to afford their larger, better-paid workforces and consider layoffs. An open question is whether districts will shrink their administrator and specialist ranks, and if so, will those employees (formerly some of the stronger teachers) be exited from the system or return to the classroom?
