Web scraping job postings pinpoints challenges in real time No images? Click here A Education | ) Next A BETTER MEASURE OF TEACHER SHORTAGES Web scraping job postings pinpoints challenges in real time News reports routinely describe the teacher labor market as “dire” and “in crisis.” But school leaders and researchers know there’s more to the story. Teacher shortages are not universal and staffing challenges vary widely by subject area and school type. Yet public understanding of teacher shortages typically lacks these nuances, and policymakers often don’t have detailed enough information to address schools’ needs. What if there were a low-cost way to get a close-to-real-time snapshot of the demand side of the teacher labor market? Fortunately, there is: web scraping, an automated data-extraction technique that regularly exports and refreshes data from the Internet.  In a new article for Education Next, authors Dan Goldhaber, Grace T. Falken, Roddy Theobald, and Maia Goodman Young report new insights from using web scraping to create a comprehensive database of teacher job postings in Washington State from late 2021 through 2022. "The teacher labor market is highly localized, and scraped job postings data can provide a detailed picture of demand and support precise strategies to shore up the teacher pipeline where and when it is needed," they write. Keep reading ABOUT EDUCATION NEXT Education Next is a scholarly journal committed to careful examination of evidence relating to school reform, published by the Program on Education Policy and Governance at the Harvard Kennedy School. For more information, please visit educationnext.org. TwitterLinkedInFacebook Program on Education Policy and Governance Harvard Kennedy School 79 JFK Street Cambridge, MA 02138 Phone (877) 476-5354 Fax (617) 496-1507 You’re receiving this because you subscribed from our website   |