Teacher Employment and Retention

Source: Learning Policy Institute

Date: March 2026

Teacher Turnover in the United States: Who Moves, Who Leaves, and Why

"Most turnover occurs for voluntary reasons and pre-retirement, but rates vary by teacher certification, subject taught, school type, student body composition, and teacher race and ethnicity. Teacher compensation, school leadership, and job and workplace satisfaction are the three factors that are most strongly associated with teacher turnover. Improving these factors through a multifaceted policy approach at the federal, state, and local levels can help create conditions that support a strong, stable, and diverse teacher workforce. The findings are drawn from NCES National Teacher and Principal Survey and Teacher Follow-Up Survey."

Class Size

Source: Urban Institute

Date: 3/23/26

Variation in Class Size Compliance by School Characteristics May Complicate New York City’s Landmark Investment

In September 2022, New York enacted legislation requiring New York City public schools to reduce class sizes across all grade levels. The law set a schedule of intermediate compliance benchmarks to ensure that by the start of the 2027-28 school year, no New York City public school class exceeded 25 students. To accomplish this goal, New York City has already invested $640 million, with an estimated $949 million to $1.7 billion more needed to reach full compliance.

 

Now two years into its five-year implementation schedule, we assess class size compliance rates by school level, geography, student need, and student achievement. We also assess how funding was distributed across schools in fiscal year 2026.

School Choice and Transportation

Source: Heritage Foundation

Date: 3/19/26

Modernizing Student Transportation for an Era of K-12 Choice

American taxpayers all pay for public school districts’ yellow school buses, but these systems run almost exclusively for the benefit of students attending their zoned district school. In recent years, district yellow bus ridership has declined even as the need for transportation in choice-based K-12 education has grown. A "flood the zone" strategy could include allowing universal student access to yellow bus systems; updating municipal transportation systems to serve students better; including transportation as an allowable use under education savings account (ESA) programs; and encouraging the creation and growth of new schools and education vendors through multiple means, including a next-generation co-location policy.

Teacher Employment and Retention

Source: Badger Institute

Date: 3/17/26

How to keep good teachers in the classroom

Last of a Badger Institute series about teacher loss in Wisconsin schools and what policymakers and administrators can do about it.

Review of A New Direction for Students in an AI World: Prosper, Prepare, Protect

Source: Brookings Institution

Reviewed by: William R. Penuel, University of Colorado Boulder

A recent Brookings Institution report synthesizes findings from a year-long study of generative artificial intelligence (AI) in education, concluding that its potential harms to young people's learning and development currently outweigh its benefits.

In his review of A New Direction for Students in an AI World: Prosper, Prepare, Protect, University of Colorado Boulder professor William R. Penuel found it to be a useful tool to anticipate potential benefits and harms of AI but found it weaker in offering any clear blueprint for changing the trajectory of AI in education.

After fights over social studies standards, conservative activists come for math

By: Steven Yoder, The Hechinger Report

"Model math standards produced by right-leaning education advocates helped spark a battle in South Dakota that could spread to other states"

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