What Do Teacher Job Postings Tell Us About School Hiring Needs and Equity?

Abstract

While decades of research document inequity in the distribution of teachers across schools, few studies consider the distribution of teacher vacancies and other school hiring needs. We use teacher job postings, a direct proxy of school hiring needs, to document how these hiring needs vary across districts, schools, and subject areas. We first validate job postings as an indicator of school hiring needs by showing that filled postings closely line up with eventual teacher hires. We then show that schools serving more students of color had greater hiring needs throughout the year and that hiring needs for special education and science, technology, engineering, and math positions were considerably higher than for elementary positions according to both the number and duration of job postings.