Liberal Forum

In recent years, U.S. public schools have experienced a sharp divergence: staffing numbers have dramatically increased even as student enrollment has continuously declined. 
While overall school employment grew by adding administrative and support staff, teacher hiring specifically outpaced the dwindling student population. 

The Recent Data (School Year Comparisons)
Data from the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) highlights a massive gap between employment surges and student population contractions:

• 2024–2025 School Year: Public schools added approximately 118,000 total new full-time employees. Of those, 90,000 were teacher positions. During that exact same period, student enrollment dropped by 135,000 students.
• 2023–2024 School Year: The trend was nearly identical. Schools added 121,000 total employees while losing another 110,000 students. 

The primary driver behind this hiring surge during a population decline was the influx of Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief (ESSER) funds—historic federal pandemic relief money. School districts used these temporary federal dollars to aggressively hire more teachers, counselors, and support staff to combat pandemic learning loss and lower student-to-teacher ratios. 

I seem to recall children were home schooled during the pandemic and schools were not even open....pandemic learning loss, indeed.