A Labor Department economist told Reuters that nearly 470,000 public school employees lost their jobs nationally in April alone. That is more than the nearly 300,000 total during the 2008 Great Recession, based on information from a 2014 Russell Sage Foundation paper. The job losses at public K-12 schools are bigger and coming faster than experts predicted. Michael Griffith is a researcher at the Learning Policy Institute. He said we’re looking at record cuts in teaching positions. School officials, public officials and teaching experts have warned the job losses will hurt the education of a generation of American students. It also could slow down the U.S. economic recovery since public schools are big employers in the country.
