NCTR Gives Thanks for The Public Education “Village”

November 25, 2025

“It takes a village” is a commonly used phrase based on the belief that children grow up healthier and happier when they have had the opportunity to interact with an entire community. This can certainly be said of public education, where not just teachers but an entire community of education support professionals (ESPs) work side-by-side with educators to keep our nation’s schools running and our students safe, healthy, and ready to learn every day. NCTR is therefore thankful for the more than 2.2 million ESPs working in our nation’s public schools and colleges, making up one third of the public education workforce. However, as with teachers, there are serious shortages among ESPs, including bus drivers, and a recent blog post by the Economic Policy Institute (EPI) points out that a school bus driver shortage “continues to play out across the country, making it more challenging for students to get to school and placing additional burdens on the K–12 public education system.” Other education support occupations face shortages as well, and EPI warns that the Trump administration’s actions are creating instability for these workers, with federal policy changes threatening recent progress in overall education employment.

[EPI is a 501(c)(3) non-profit think tank based in Washington, D.C., that carries out economic research and analyzes the economic impact of policies and proposals. It is affiliated with the labor movement, and is often characterized as presenting a left-wing, pro-union viewpoint on public policy issues.]

The new EPI study begins by noting that, “[a]s has been typical in recent years, the beginning of the [2025-26] school year brought forward a steady stream of reports documenting challenges schools are experiencing hiring bus drivers.” Furthermore, while school bus driver employment has begun to grow modestly, EPI points out that it remains below pre-pandemic staffing levels, with 21,200 fewer (-9.5 percent) school bus drivers employed in August 2025 compared with August 2019.

EPI calls this shortage “acute and harmful to working families and their children,” stressing that this fall, school districts in Missouri, Vermont, and Maine had to reduce bus routes and other bus services. Several schools in Pennsylvania and one school system in Ohio also closed for at least a day this school year due to school bus driver shortages, according to K-12 Dive — a news and analysis platform focused on K-12 education that is rated by Media Bias/Fact Check as “least biased” based on minimal editorializing of information, factual reporting due to proper sourcing and a clean fact-check record. Other localities have consolidated bus routes or made other adjustments to respond to driver shortages.

“These types of cuts can eliminate a student’s only way to attend school, including for students with disabilities who rely on buses to attend schools with enhanced special education services,” EPI underscores. In addition, the think tank points out that inconsistent bus schedules and routes “can also contribute to absenteeism and missed school meals.” In short, as about half of all school children use a school bus to get to school, “a healthy public education system requires investment in these key support staff,” EPI stresses.

Privately-employed school bus drivers – who make up a smaller share of school bus drivers overall — have experienced the largest decrease in employment, dropping more than a quarter (-28.8 percent) since 2019. However, state and local government school bus driver employment is also down as well, but not as dramatically, at -4.6 percent. Thus, although state and local government school bus driver employment has increased by almost 9,900 since the fall of 2024, this had been offset by private employment falling by 8,200 jobs over the same period.

Thus, EPI says that while this small overall increase (1.1 percent) is a step in the right direction, “the trend of the last few years remains mostly flat.”

EPI believes that to the degree there is overall growth, it is likely being driven by increasing hourly wages for bus drivers. After all, it notes that recruitment for school bus drivers can be difficult because it often requires a “split-shift” schedule coinciding with the beginning and ending of the school day. “It is also a low-wage job, which contributes to school bus drivers experiencing poverty at greater rates than other employed workers,” EPI explains.

Therefore, with the median hourly wage for school bus drivers rising to $22.45 in August 2025,4.2 percent greater than last year when accounting for inflation, and the quickest rate of increase since the pandemic, EPI thinks this is an indication that school districts are beginning to take effective steps to address the shortage.

Good news to be thankful for! But much more needs to be done. For example, low pay has been a long-standing issue for school bus drivers and all ESPs. For example, pre-pandemic — 2014 to 2019 – EPI found the median weekly wage (in 2020$) for school bus drivers was $493; the comparable salary for food service workers in K–12 education was $331, while teaching assistants made $507. In contrast, the median U.S. worker earned $790 per week pre-pandemic.

There is also concern that the end of pandemic relief funds, along with what EPI refers to as “the instability and attacks on public education by the Trump administration,” threaten to reverse any recent progress in public K–12 school employment, EPI warns.

Specifically, EPI believes that much of the recovery in overall education employment has been fueled by the use of pandemic relief funds provided by Congress in 2020 and 2021. For example, the Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief Fund (ESSER) of 2020 allocated $189.5 billion to public K–12 schools to address the impact of the pandemic and reopen safely and effectively. “Even for occupations like school bus drivers which have not seen a full recovery, the progress made in the last year has been heavily supported by these federal dollars,” EPI argues.

But these funds ran out at the end of the 2024–2025 school year. EPI is therefore concerned with the impact this will have, but it believes “it is too early to say whether the end of this support will reverse this progress.”

Then there are the Trump administration’s actions regarding public education that EPI says are creating instability for teachers and ESPs. For example, EPI notes that during this summer, when school district planning and hiring decisions are being made, the Trump administration temporarily withheld $6.2 billion in funds from before- and after-school programs and teacher development.

Furthermore, the Trump administration is “gutting the Department of Education, and with it, the oversight of billions of dollars that go to low-income school districts, civil rights protections for students, and special education programs,” EPI finds. In addition, the think tank points out that “[m]ore threats to public education are on the way, including the creation of a national school voucher program in the Republican-passed reconciliation bill” that, when fully implemented, “is likely to expand the use of school vouchers, which will drain resources from public school systems,” EPI warns.

Therefore, despite signs of improvement, EPI says more time is needed to really get a “better sense of how policy changes during 2025 have impacted the K–12 education workforce.”

In addition to Transportation ESPs, who manage school transportation services, what about other ESP jobs? These are categorized by the National Education Association (NEA) into eight other careers, including:

Clerical Service ESPs: Work in office operations, including clerical duties.
Custodial and Maintenance ESPs: Ensure schools are safe and clean.
Food Service ESPs: Provide nutritious meals to students.
Health and Student Service Workers: Support students’ health and welfare.
Paraeducators: Assist with classroom instruction.
Security ESPs: Maintain safety on school grounds.
Skilled Trades Workers: Maintain and service school facilities.
Technical Service ESPs: Ensure technology and communication standards.

Indeed, EPI finds that bus drivers were not the only education support occupation that experienced large declines in employment during the pandemic. For example, the new EPI study also examined the change in employment between August 2019 and August 2025 for all K–12 education and key occupational categories.

It found that overall, education employment slightly exceeds its 2019 levels by 1.4 percent. But the recovery has been uneven across occupation groups. For example, the number of paraprofessionals (teaching assistants and early childhood educators) has grown 16.5 percent since 2019, but administrative staff are slightly below their 2019 employment level (-3.0 percent), while teachers (-4.3 percent) and food service workers (-4.3 percent) have experienced more marked declines. Finally, custodian employment is 12.4 percent below its 2019 levels, an even larger decrease than what school bus drivers have experienced.

ESPs are critical members of the education workforce, and play a vital role in providing a safe, supportive, and effective K–12 education system. November 19, the third day of NEA’s “American Education Week,” was Education Support Professionals Day, celebrating the excellence of the ESPs who make student success possible. NCTR also celebrates the public education system and the teachers and ESPs that help secure the future of our nation’s greatest assets – our children.

Therefore, particularly at this time of year, NCTR extends its deepest gratitude to teachers, ESPs and all the other wonderful public employees whose retirement security is both our focus and that of all our members. HAPPY THANKSGIVING!