Problem: Public School Education Sucks. Government Solution: Hire Administrators.

A clever and competent reader sent me this link and it’s got me shaking my head that liberals, unions, government, the Dept of Education, Democrats, anti-school choice weirdos, and tons of other people in general STILL haven’t figured out that throwing money at schools to pay for expensive administrators and stupid meaningless needless government-prescribed programs that don’t actually TEACH anything is NOT GOING TO HELP OUR EDUCATION SYSTEM.

The primary result of the study, which is that school administration staff grew SEVEN HUNDRED AND TWO PERCENT from 1950 to 2009, should really piss off every taxpayer.  And here’s why.  The increase/growth in administration workers in public education was SEVEN TIMES HIGHER than the increase in the Actual Number of students. Can someone explain to me where the logic is in that?

Public schools in general grew overall staffing at a rate FOUR times faster than the increase in students over that time period.  Actual teacher numbers increased by 252%, compared to the 702% of administrators or non-teaching staff.

So several decades ago, if I understand this correctly, education was of a higher quality, even though there was a much higher ratio of kids to teachers.  And for some reason, I guess, we collectively decided that we needed to fix that, by hiring a bunch of administrative staff.

Another study cited in the sourcelink reports that since 1970, the number of kids in public schools increased by 8% while the number of teachers increased by 60% and administrators increased by 138%.  Again, NO LOGIC here.

None of this, by the way,  has anything to do with the No Child Left Behind law. 

People are always complaining about how US public schools are falling behind other nations’ schools.  Is it any wonder?  Compared to other countries, US schools spend TONS more money on people/programs TOTALLY UNRELATED TO TEACHING.  And because they do that, they pay teachers less than other countries do.  The US also is one of the highest spenders on education in the world – and do you think we have the results to show for it?  Of course not.   There isn’t a shred of evidence to suggest that increases in public school staffing produced better educated kids.  In fact, public high school graduation rates have fallen since 1970.   The Department of Education, which really got its start in 1980, has, as its primary mission, “to promote student achievement and preparation for global competitiveness by fostering educational excellence and ensuring equal access.”

Yeah.  Hey, Dept of Ed – if you were actually given a report card, it would be a big fat FAIL.

You guys, this is absolutely shameful.  The ONLY REASON schools could possibly think they need all these incredibly well paid school administrators  is to deal with all of the bureaucracy that the Dept of Ed has created and that unions have helped foster.  As the sourcelink points out, if administration staff had “only” grown at the same rate as the increased number of students, and if the Actual Teaching staff had “only” grown at 1.5 times the rate of students, here’s just SOME of the stuff we could have used that saved money for:

*  Provide raises to teachers of over 10k annually

*  Double funding for early childhood education

*  Provide property tax relief

*  Provide impoverished kids vouchers of more than $2600 to attend private schools chosen by their parents

But yeah, instead of doing those things, there are “Diversity Officers” making over 100k. 

GAWD.