Systemic Inefficiencies in U.S. Public Education: Research Evidence

Heavy Spending on Facilities Over Instructional Needs

A recurring critique is that public school systems pour excessive funds into buildings and infrastructure at the expense of instructional resources. In many cases, a significant share of school capital budgets goes toward construction projects rather than classroom needs. For example, in West Virginia and Ohio during a recent period, new school construction accounted for over half of all K–12 capital spending (about 55–60% in those states), far above the national average of roughly 45% . It is not uncommon for individual districts to undertake hundreds of millions of dollars in school building projects. One district in Washington state, for instance, sought a $224.9 million bond in 2018 to replace aging facilities and build several new schools . This kind of front-loaded investment in bricks and mortar often consumes a large portion of budgets that might otherwise support teachers, curriculum, and student programs.

Underinvestment in Teachers, Curriculum, and Student Services

Research indicates a structural underinvestment in core educational inputs like teacher compensation, up-to-date curriculum materials, student support services, and instructional leadership. In the wake of the 2008 Great Recession, many states systematically disinvested in K–12 funding, resulting in stagnating teacher salaries, out-of-date textbooks, and even what analysts called “crumbling schools” . These funding cuts directly affected resources in the classroom – from teacher pay to the quality of curriculum and technology. Likewise, student services have been underfunded. For example, the average U.S. school counselor is responsible for about 385 students, far above the recommended 250:1 student-to-counselor ratio (American School Counselor Association recommendation), indicating that counseling and support staff are stretched thin . Such shortfalls in staffing and instructional resources suggest that too little of school budgets is directed to the people and programs that most directly impact student learning.

Teacher Attrition as a Major Crisis

Almost all new teacher shortages in U.S. schools are driven by high attrition and turnover, rather than a lack of qualified entrants. Recent analyses show that roughly nine out of ten teaching vacancies each year are caused by teachers leaving the profession (mostly through resignation or retirement), not by new positions being created . Scholars have described this as a teacher retention crisis that undermines educational quality and continuity . Multiple studies and national surveys find that the primary causes of teacher attrition relate to difficult working conditions and burnout. Teachers frequently point to excessive stress, feelings of burnout, lack of administrative support or respect, low compensation, and overwhelming workloads as primary reasons for quitting . In other words, many educators feel demoralized by long hours, insufficient support, and public undervaluing of their role – prompting them to leave at alarming rates. Indeed, about two-thirds of teachers who leave the profession each year do so for reasons other than retirement (mostly job dissatisfaction and burnout) . This exodus of experienced teachers is widely viewed as a crisis because high turnover has been shown to harm student achievement and impose significant costs on districts (for recruiting and training replacements, etc.) . Solving the attrition problem requires addressing the root causes – from teacher pay to professional respect and better working conditions – identified in both scholarly research and national teacher surveys .

Cultural and Professional Undervaluing of Teachers

There is strong evidence that teachers are culturally and economically undervalued in the United States compared to other professions. National surveys reveal a perception problem: roughly seven in ten U.S. teachers believe the public holds a negative or mostly negative view of their profession . This sense of being undervalued is echoed in teachers’ own words – educators often report feeling “overworked, underpaid, and disrespected” despite working with society’s most valuable asset (children). The professional undervaluation is also quantifiable. Economists have documented a large and growing “teacher pay penalty” – meaning that public school teachers earn substantially less than other college-educated professionals. As of recent analyses, teachers earn roughly 25% lower pay than comparable college graduates on a weekly wage basis, after adjusting for education, experience, and other factors . This pay gap has widened over the past few decades and correlates with rising attrition. Notably, in the mid-1990s when teacher salaries nearly caught up to those of other professionals, teacher turnover rates were about 40% lower than they are today . The combination of public disrespect and lagging salaries clearly signals that teachers are not accorded the same cultural prestige or material rewards as fields like medicine or engineering. This point is consistently raised in education policy literature as a key inefficiency in how we treat the teaching profession .

Teaching’s High Cognitive and Emotional Demands

Contrary to some public perceptions, teaching is an extremely demanding profession on both a cognitive and emotional level – arguably on par with or exceeding the demands of many other high-status occupations (including medicine). Research on occupational stress places teaching near the very top of the stress spectrum. A Gallup assessment identified teaching as “one of the most stressful occupations” in the U.S., with educators tied with nurses for the highest daily stress levels. In a 2014 Gallup poll, 46% of K–12 teachers reported high daily stress during the school year, the same share as nurses (46%) and higher than most other professions . This chronic stress has tangible effects: it compromises teachers’ sleep, health, and job performance . Teachers must make countless real-time decisions and manage the academic and emotional needs of dozens of students, creating a persistent cognitive load. Surveys find that about three in four teachers describe their work as “frequently stressful,” and many report symptoms of burnout and fatigue as a result . Researchers note that teacher stress has continued to climb in recent years (exacerbated further by the COVID-19 pandemic), and stress is now a primary driver of teachers’ decisions to leave the field . The consensus in scholarly literature is that effective teaching requires advanced expertise, emotional resilience, and mental agility. In terms of complexity and emotional labor, teaching is as difficult as – if not more difficult than – many jobs traditionally considered “high-status,” including practicing medicine. This helps explain why supporting teacher mental health and reducing burnout have become urgent priorities in education reform .

Top-Down Decisions by Those Far Removed from K–12 Classrooms

Policy and funding decisions in education are often made by individuals far removed from the realities of K–12 classrooms – such as politicians, high-level administrators, architects, or academics – with relatively little input from practicing teachers. Surveys consistently find that teachers feel excluded from decision-making in their own schools and districts. In a Gallup poll, only about 7% of teachers said they have “a great deal” of input in important school decisions at their campus . By contrast, large majorities reported that school administrators, school boards, and state governments wield “a lot” of decision-making power in schools, far more than teachers do . In fact, teachers were the least likely of all occupational groups in a national survey to agree that “At work, my opinions seem to count.” This imbalance means that many policies governing curriculum, testing, funding allocations, and school design are set by people who may lack firsthand classroom experience. Education researchers and advocates have flagged this as a structural inefficiency: policies designed without teacher input can be disconnected from on-the-ground needs, leading to impractical or misguided reforms . Classroom educators overwhelmingly want this to change. In the Gallup survey, 93% of teachers said they should have considerable input in important decisions at their school (with 52% saying teachers should have “a great deal” of input) . Yet current governance structures often sideline the insights of those actually teaching children. In short, key decisions are frequently made at a distance from the classroom, which can result in misaligned priorities and inefficient use of resources.

Prioritizing Human Capital Yields Better Student Outcomes

A growing body of scholarly evidence supports the claim that reallocating funds from physical infrastructure to human capital – such as teachers, support staff, and instructional resources – leads to improved student outcomes. In fact, education finance research now concludes that “money matters” for student success, especially when spent on the core resources that directly impact learning. A comprehensive analysis by the Learning Policy Institute summarizes that a large and growing body of studies shows increasing investments in key school resources (high-quality teachers, smaller class sizes, enriched curriculum, student support services, etc.) significantly improves student achievement and even closes achievement gaps for low-income students . In practical terms, dollars put into hiring additional qualified teachers, lowering class sizes, updating curriculum materials, or providing counseling and academic support tend to yield measurable gains in test scores, graduation rates, and long-term outcomes .

By contrast, massive expenditures on school construction and facilities upgrades, by themselves, do not guarantee commensurate improvements in student performance. Modern facilities can certainly provide health, safety, and morale benefits, but the academic return on infrastructure spending is often modest if not paired with investments in teaching and learning. For example, a recent rigorous analysis of a $12 billion school construction initiative in New York City found only a very small uptick in student outcomes from new buildings: about a 1 percentage-point increase in student attendance each year after three years in a new facility, and no significant change in test scores in those first years . This aligns with other studies showing that new buildings alone have mixed impacts unless coupled with strong instructional programs and staff support. The evidence suggests that directing marginal dollars to instructional quality and student support is a more effective use of funds than lavish capital projects. In summary, human capital investments – recruiting, training, and retaining excellent teachers, providing rich curriculum, and staffing schools with sufficient counselors and specialists – are strongly linked to better student outcomes . In contrast, excessively front-loaded spending on facilities tends to show diminishing returns in learning gains. Policymakers and education leaders therefore argue that right-sizing construction budgets and reallocating funds toward teachers and instructional needs is a strategy that can yield substantial improvements in educational performance .

Sources (APA style):

• Allegretto, S. (2024). The teacher pay penalty reached a record high in 2024: Three decades of leaving public school teachers behind. Washington, DC: Economic Policy Institute.

• Baker, B. D. (2018). How Money Matters for Schools. Palo Alto, CA: Learning Policy Institute.

• Carver-Thomas, D., & Darling-Hammond, L. (2017). Teacher Turnover: Why It Matters and What We Can Do About It. Palo Alto, CA: Learning Policy Institute.

• Darling-Hammond, L. (2025, September 30). Penny Wise, Pound Foolish: The False Economy of Underinvesting in Teachers. Forbes. (Reprinted by Learning Policy Institute).

• Education Week Research Center. (2024). State of Teaching 2024 (Survey report). Bethesda, MD: Editorial Projects in Education.

• Filardo, M. (2016). State of Our Schools: America’s K–12 Facilities 2016. Washington, DC: 21st Century School Fund.

• Gillespie, K. (2018, January 25). Battle Ground Public Schools tries for another bond issue. The Columbian.

• Greenberg, M. T., Brown, J. L., & Abenavoli, R. M. (2016). Teacher Stress and Health: Effects on Teachers, Students, and Schools. University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University (Edna Bennett Pierce Prevention Research Center) & Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.

• Hodges, T. (2018, April 4). Teachers seek more input in school decision-making. Gallup News.

• O’Hagan, K. G. (2025). Inequities and Impacts of Investments in New School Facilities (EdWorkingPaper No. 25-1121). Annenberg Institute, Brown University.

• Partelow, L., Shapiro, S., McDaniels, A., & Brown, C. (2018). Fixing Chronic Disinvestment in K–12 Schools. Washington, DC: Center for American Progress.

• Solis, M. (2024, February 15). “There is Not Enough of Me To Go Around”: Schools Need More Counselors. NEA Today.