Hundreds of thousands of state-school teachers in the US could lose their jobs in a coronavirus-led economic recession, a researcher has warned.

Michael Griffith, a senior researcher at the Learning Policy Institute (LPI), a US education research body, said that a 15 per cent reduction in state contributions to education funding caused by a coronavirus-led recession could lead to “the loss of just under 319,000 teaching positions in this country”.

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In a blog post for the LPI, he said that hundreds of thousands of teacher job losses from the 2008 financial crisis were only saved by additional funding from the Federal Recovery Act, but that current predictions suggest effects on education spending from a Covid-19 recession could be two and a half times worse than the last recession’s lowest point.

“Most [financial predictions] suggest that our current economic downturn, plus the extraordinary costs for healthcare and unemployment, could produce a reduction in state education revenue of at least 10 per cent this year and 20 per cent or more in 2020-21,” he said.

“It is hard to believe that our current economic situation will turn around overnight - like flipping off a light switch. If these projections are correct, the resulting hit to education spending would be two and a half times worse than the lowest point of the last recession,” he added.

Estimating that most districts would continue current education spending patterns, and that budget cuts would impact teachers with the least experience the most, Griffith predicts that a 15 per cent reduction in education funding will result in more than 300,000 job losses for teachers. 

Furthermore, if education funding were cut by 30 per cent, Griffith calculated that nearly 700,000 teachers would lose work. 

“Without the intervention of the federal government, hundreds of thousands of teachers could lose their jobs - impacting the education of millions of students in this country,” he said.

“The pandemic has already created economic losses that will take many states years to recover from, and the negative impact on student learning may be felt for decades,” he added.