Should I work at a lab prior to getting my PhD in Education?
I'm in an educational psychology PhD program at a large R1 university that's not especially competitive or prestigious and there are many students who had no research or lab experience before starting.  That being said, working in a lab may help your application to be more competitive, particularly if you work in a lab at the university you're applying to (so you can meet people) or you have opportunities to publish or present research (which I think would be sort of rare for a non-student employee, but I could be wrong).  In fact, my program has a lot of part-time students who teach (or do some other school-related position) during the day and take classes towards their MS/PhD in the evenings, who have never worked in a lab, and who intend to go back into teaching (or school admin or school psychology or whatever) after they finish the degree.