Wisconsin has seen a 17.7% drop in licensed school bus drivers over the past 15 years, creating challenges for school districts and the families they serve. This problem may get worse before it gets better, as more than onefifth of licensed school bus drivers are 65 and over. Transit systems across the state are facing a similar problem, with the…

Since 2019, federal grants have supported a broad range of innovative efforts to address the critical shortage of school psychologists and other school-based mental health providers across the country. In collaboration with partner organizations and state school psychology associations, the National Association of School Psychologists (NASP) has…

The current brief provides an overview of the 2021-2022 school year student-to-school psychologist ratio for every United States territory, using the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) counts of school psychologists. In addition to this, data are presented on the percentage change in student-to-school psychologist ratio from the…

Concerns over the teaching workforce have been rising across Wisconsin in recent years, particularly since the advent of the COVID-19 pandemic. A series of Forum reports have raised warning flags about declining graduates from schools of education, record turnover among state and local government employees, and the rising use of emergency K-12…

Although numerous studies confirm the importance of school principals, schools often experience high turnover rates and principal shortage. However, we know little about the staffing challenges in rural schools and what promotes applicants to apply for and be hired for principalship. In partnership with the Wisconsin Education Career Access…

Roughly one in five American adults, or approximately 53 million people, live with some type of disability, and their unemployment and poverty rates are nearly double the rates of people without disabilities. Labor force participation for people with disabilities is just 20.2 percent--less than a third of the rate of participation among people…

Among the challenges confronting Wisconsin's K-12 education system are long-standing disparities in educational opportunity and achievement on the basis of race. Racial and ethnic achievement gaps also largely correlate with related socioeconomic differences within students' communities in terms of income, poverty, unemployment, and educational…

Strong and stable school leadership is critical for success in schools across the nation. The duties of the principal are many and varied. Principals, for example, can oversee instruction, purchase curricular materials and supplies, and provide professional learning and supports for teachers. Carrying out these duties effectively makes a…

This study addressed teacher retention at the school level. The research question that guided this study follows: How do teacher characteristics and organizational characteristics relate to teachers' decisions to remain at their current schools? This study used a purposive sample of PK-12 teachers from four Wisconsin school districts of similar…

This brief examines the mobility of public school teachers and principals (including assistant principals) in Wisconsin and presents annual and five-year mobility rates between 2006/07 and 2010/11. An average of 8.0 percent of teachers changed schools between consecutive years, and 19.4 percent changed schools within a five-year span. Teachers…

Education leaders have expressed concern about educators' moving to different schools--within the same state or in another state--because these moves create costs for the home district and have potential impacts on the equitable distribution of effective educators among schools. However, many states do not routinely monitor mobility among…

In June 2020, the Wisconsin Policy Forum published "A Teacher Who Looks Like Me: Examining Racial Diversity in Wisconsin's Teacher Workforce and the Student-to-Teacher Pipeline." The impetus for that research was both the long-standing racial disparities in educational outcomes that have persisted in Wisconsin for decades and a growing…

This study responds to a request from the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction for information on Wisconsin's school principal workforce population. Descriptive analyses addressed two research questions: (1) How do the demographic characteristics of Wisconsin school principals compare how did these characteristics change over 1999-2009?; and…

This summary describes a study that responds to a request from the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction for information on Wisconsin's school principal workforce population. In the study, descriptive analyses addressed two research questions: (1) How do the demographic characteristics of Wisconsin school principals compare how did these…

This sequential mixed-methods study determined to what extent the factors identified in the literature were present in the decision to hire an internal candidate to the superintendency in Wisconsin in the last ten years. An initial survey was sent to all 424 Wisconsin public school districts and follow-up surveys sent to school board members in…