Policy impacts on the K12 Teacher Workforce

Session Submission Type: Panel

Abstract

This session explores the critical challenges and policy levers shaping the U.S. teacher workforce, focusing directly on retention, supply, and instructional quality. Together, these papers examine how systemic frameworks, localized demands, and external shocks influence teacher mobility and student success.Each study highlights a unique dimension of education policy. The first paper focuses on localized cpecialization and investigates the distinct, understudied turnover patterns within Career and Technical Education (CTE) pathways in Massachusetts. The second seeks to understand the role of historical precedent and uses a historical lens to evaluate how World War II-era teacher supply shocks reverberated to impact long-run student outcomes. The third paper looks at systemic reform and proposes a structural framework—the PWP Model—designed to re-center professionalism within national teacher workforce policy. And the fourth paper looks at environmental crises and quantifies the immediate, devastating impacts of school gun violence on teacher mobility, retention, and overall workforce quality.Collectively, this session offers a comprehensive, multi-dimensional analysis of how public policy can better stabilize, support, and professionalize the teaching profession in the face of both chronic systemic issues and acute external crises.

Policy Area

• Education

Chair

• Samantha Viano, Johns Hopkins University

Discussant

• La Toya Caton, Teachers College, Columbia University

Individual Presentations

• Understanding Career and Technical Education Teacher Turnover: Evidence from Massachusetts - Presenting Author: Xiaohan Qian, Boston College

• Teacher Supply and Long-Run Student Outcomes: Evidence from World War II - Presenting Author: Michael Briskin, Analysis Group

• Re-centering the Profession in U.S. Teacher Workforce Policy: The PWP Model - Presenting Author: Etai Mizrav, Northeastern University

• Gun Violence in School and Teacher Workforce: Impacts on Mobility, Retention, and Teacher Quality - Presenting Author: Bogyung Kim, Georgia State University