School support staff now officially outnumber teachers

[MechAg94]

https://twitter.com/DeAngelisCorey/status/1236468546470895618

School support staff now officially outnumber teachers

Teachers:               3,169,499
Support staff:        3,309,118

51% support staff.

This is a jobs program.

I cam across this post on twitter.  I knew spending was unbalanced, but I never looked at total employees.  The link below was also in the replies.  Table of education employees separated by function.  

Table 213.20.    Staff employed in public elementary and secondary school systems, by type of assignment and state or jurisdiction: Fall 2016
https://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d18/tables/dt18_213.20.asp?current=yes

According to the link, Texas has 352,809 teachers out of 707,173 employees.  That is by far the biggest chunk.  If you add up all the officials, administrators, principals, and assistant principals, that number is not small.  I am curious what "Other Support Services Staff" is, but it is probably cooks, bus drivers, etc.  

[WLJ]

And look, test scores fell again.
Time for another tax hike and hire more support staff

[Northwoods]

I always liked this op-ed by Tom McClintock from 2005. 

SEN. TOM McCLINTOCK on Jun 14, 2005

Tuesday, June 14, 2005 | The multi-million dollar campaign paid by starving teachers’ unions has finally placed our sadly neglected schools at the center of the budget debate. Across California, children are bringing home notes warning of dire consequences if Gov. Schwarzenegger’s scorched earth budget is approved – a budget that slashes Proposition 98 public school spending from $42.2 billion this year all the way down to $44.7 billion next year. That should be proof enough that our math programs are suffering.

As a public school parent, I have given this crisis a great deal of thought and have a modest suggestion to help weather these dark days.

Maybe – as a temporary measure only – we should spend our school dollars on our schools. I realize that this is a radical departure from current practice, but desperate times require desperate measures.

The governor proposed spending $10,084 per student from all sources. Devoting all of this money to the classroom would require turning tens of thousands of school bureaucrats, consultants, advisors and specialists onto the streets with no means of support or marketable job skills, something that no enlightened social democracy should allow.

So I will begin by excluding from this discussion the entire budget of the state Department of Education, as well as the pension system, debt service, special education, child care, nutrition programs and adult education. I also propose setting aside $3 billion to pay an additional 30,000 school bureaucrats $100,000-per-year (roughly the population of Monterey) with the proviso that they stay away from the classroom and pay their own hotel bills at conferences.

This leaves a mere $6,937 per student, which, for the duration of the funding crisis, I propose devoting to the classroom.

To illustrate how we might scrape by at this subsistence level, let’s use a hypothetical school of 180 students with only $1.2 million to get through the year.

We have all seen the pictures of filthy bathrooms, leaky roofs, peeling paint and crumbling plaster to which our children have been condemned. I propose that we rescue them from this squalor by leasing out luxury commercial office space. Our school will need 4,800 square feet for five classrooms (the sixth class is gym). At $33 per foot, an annual lease will cost $158,400.

This will provide executive washrooms, around-the-clock janitorial service, wall-to-wall carpeting, utilities and music in the elevators. We’ll also need new desks to preserve the professional ambiance.

Next, we’ll need to hire five teachers – but not just any teachers. I propose hiring only associate professors from the California State University at their level of pay. Since university professors generally assign more reading, we’ll need 12 of the latest edition, hardcover books for each student at an average $75 per book, plus an extra $5 to have the student’s name engraved in gold leaf on the cover.

Since our conventional gym classes haven’t stemmed the childhood obesity epidemic, I propose replacing them with an annual membership at a private health club for $39.95 per month. This would provide our children with a trained and courteous staff of nutrition and fitness counselors, aerobics classes and the latest in cardiovascular training technology.

Finally, we’ll hire an $80,000 administrator with a $40,000 secretary because – well, I don’t know exactly why, but we always have.

Our bare-bones budget comes to this:

This budget leaves a razor-thin reserve of just $216,703 or $1,204 per pupil, which can pay for necessities like paper, pencils, personal computers and extra-curricular travel. After all, what’s the point of taking four years of French if you can’t see Paris in the spring?

The school I have just described is the school we’re paying for. Maybe it’s time to ask why it’s not the school we’re getting.

Other, wiser, governors have made the prudent decision not to ask such embarrassing questions of the education-industrial complex because it makes them very angry. Apparently the unions believe that with enough of a beating, Gov. Schwarzenegger will see things the same way.

Perhaps. But there’s an old saying that you can’t fill a broken bucket by pouring more water into it. Maybe it’s time to fix the bucket.

[Ben]

I always liked this op-ed by Tom McClintock from 2005. 

Thread veer: I never understood why Tom never moved farther up the political hierarchy. Talk about a guy that would make an excellent President...

[Pb]

At the university the staff to faculty ratio is much, much much worse... I think like 3:1.

[Kingcreek]

I’m on the school board for the local public school approx 2000 students pre K through 12.
We need more support staff all the time, especially in a high poverty district like ours 75% district wide and higher than that in elementary. We have more aids and paraprofessionals because more behavior issues, more health issues and special needs, more meals and snacks than years ago, some kids even get a backpack with food to take home on Friday to get them fed before Monday.
We also have more testing and benchmarks to meet for state and federal.
And yeah, the teachers union demands more people doing more things so they can teach. And we have scool resource officers now to protect everyone from the common mass shooters or dealing with non custodial parents or protection orders etc.
I think we have about 275 employees not counting some other outside people employed by the special ed district or psychologists or the regional Ed but working in our buildings.
Blame the liberal policies and entitlement mentality and the unions and the destruction of the traditional family. In spite of all this, we still educate most children but I can’t honestly say we get better at educating.

[AZRedhawk44]

IT staff.  Warehouse employees.  Janitors.  Accountants.  Classroom aides.  Bus mechanics.  Groundskeepers.

You'd be amazed at how incompetent a computer science "teacher" is when it comes to maintaining a computer lab.  I used to be a public school IT admin.  Never again.

There's campus-wide software licenses that are purchased for a particular curriculum, and never installed or used.  "Special" education is typically the worst violator of this.  "Counseling" next.  Go figure.

The worst abuses I think I ever saw, though, was the "Teacher On Assignment."  It's like a paid sabbatical, for a public school teacher.  Horribly ridiculous.

Regarding the McClintock op-ed... it's mostly right, except for the horrific damage caused by children.  You put them in an office complex, and you'll have broken drywall all over the place, bathroom leaks and water damage, repeatedly stained carpets and surcharge after surcharge for its cleaning and replacement from unconventional and out-of-contract abuse, and the walls are not sufficiently sound insulated for close proximity of classrooms.

Were I to be in charge of fixing it:
 
-No accountant staff.  Accounting services are provided by teaching staff that also teach math and accounting coursework.  This keeps the teaching staff abreast of real world evolution of their skill set.
-No "teacher on assignment."  'Nuff said.
-No classroom aides.  This is a shytty and shifty way the districts attempt to get around headcount problems.  Most of them are soccer-mom level education, high school or associates degree at the most, no professional education background and no specialization background, usually in the K-6 environment.  If the course curriculum cannot be presented at the current headcount ratio, then the designer of the curriculum is at fault.  That's the credentialed professional educator's fault.  We've gone from proficiency in Latin, Greek, and Calculus by High School, to illiteracy in English and problems with basic arithmetic at the same grade, in 100 years of devolution.  Fix the curriculum.
-F's are back in style.  Students will be held back for failing.  This starts early, in elementary school.
-Students that are held back are assigned a different teacher (if available).  Teacher pay and advancement is a function of minimizing F's and maximizing A's.  Teachers found to be abusing this (i.e. passing students that cannot handle the coming curriculum in the next classroom) are terminated and lose their teaching credentials.  This becomes a malpractice issue, much like doctors and lawyers suffer.  "Profeshunal" means something.  You want to be paid like one, then earn it.  No centralized curriculum mandates.  Teachers design their own course work.
-You need a computer in your classroom?  You maintain it.  You have the admin privileges on it.  You install the software, you fix it when it breaks, you keep it turned off/logged out so the little angels don't destroy it while you're not supervising.  Cut 75% of the IT department so they only provide TCP/IP services to the ethernet jacks in your classroom.  The rest is the teacher's responsibility.

[MechAg94]

IT staff.  Warehouse employees.  Janitors.  Accountants.  Classroom aides.  Bus mechanics.  Groundskeepers.

You'd be amazed at how incompetent a computer science "teacher" is when it comes to maintaining a computer lab.  I used to be a public school IT admin.  Never again.

There's campus-wide software licenses that are purchased for a particular curriculum, and never installed or used.  "Special" education is typically the worst violator of this.  "Counseling" next.  Go figure.

The worst abuses I think I ever saw, though, was the "Teacher On Assignment."  It's like a paid sabbatical, for a public school teacher.  Horribly ridiculous.

Regarding the McClintock op-ed... it's mostly right, except for the horrific damage caused by children.  You put them in an office complex, and you'll have broken drywall all over the place, bathroom leaks and water damage, repeatedly stained carpets and surcharge after surcharge for its cleaning and replacement from unconventional and out-of-contract abuse, and the walls are not sufficiently sound insulated for close proximity of classrooms.

Were I to be in charge of fixing it:
 
-No accountant staff.  Accounting services are provided by teaching staff that also teach math and accounting coursework.  This keeps the teaching staff abreast of real world evolution of their skill set.
-No "teacher on assignment."  'Nuff said.
-No classroom aides.  This is a shytty and shifty way the districts attempt to get around headcount problems.  Most of them are soccer-mom level education, high school or associates degree at the most, no professional education background and no specialization background, usually in the K-6 environment.  If the course curriculum cannot be presented at the current headcount ratio, then the designer of the curriculum is at fault.  That's the credentialed professional educator's fault.  We've gone from proficiency in Latin, Greek, and Calculus by High School, to illiteracy in English and problems with basic arithmetic at the same grade, in 100 years of devolution.  Fix the curriculum.
-F's are back in style.  Students will be held back for failing.  This starts early, in elementary school.
-Students that are held back are assigned a different teacher (if available).  Teacher pay and advancement is a function of minimizing F's and maximizing A's.  Teachers found to be abusing this (i.e. passing students that cannot handle the coming curriculum in the next classroom) are terminated and lose their teaching credentials.  This becomes a malpractice issue, much like doctors and lawyers suffer.  "Profeshunal" means something.  You want to be paid like one, then earn it.  No centralized curriculum mandates.  Teachers design their own course work.
-You need a computer in your classroom?  You maintain it.  You have the admin privileges on it.  You install the software, you fix it when it breaks, you keep it turned off/logged out so the little angels don't destroy it while you're not supervising.  Cut 75% of the IT department so they only provide TCP/IP services to the ethernet jacks in your classroom.  The rest is the teacher's responsibility.

Best would be to eliminate all but the most basic federal/state requirements and let a private school company manage all that. 

[Northwoods]

Yeah, just privatizing education would be the easiest way to cut the crap.  And screw federal regulations.  State level is the highest it should ever go.  I'd prefer even more local than that.

[lee n. field]

You'd be amazed at how incompetent a computer science "teacher" is when it comes to maintaining a computer lab.

No, I wouldn't.

 I used to be a public school IT admin.  Never again.

Contract, one day/week, for a bunch of years.  They hired on one of the teachers to do it half time to replace me.  I'm just as glad to be out of that environment.

-You need a computer in your classroom?  You maintain it.  You have the admin privileges on it.  You install the software, you fix it when it breaks, you keep it turned off/logged out so the little angels don't destroy it while you're not supervising.  Cut 75% of the IT department so they only provide TCP/IP services to the ethernet jacks in your classroom.  The rest is the teacher's responsibility.

Scary.  You know they totally can't do that.

[MechAg94]

How much are computers in the classroom really necessary?  Lots of people in the past were taught without them and arguably got a better education.  It isn't like they are coming out of school with more job skills because of computers. 

[Ned Hamford]

Near a decade ago when waiting on my bar admission I passed some time with being a substitute teacher... 6 assistant principals. I can't even fathom what they all must do all day and have no doubt most of it is getting in the way of education. I don't even want to know how many there are now.  Last time I went to the school for voting, I saw several classrooms were converted into more office space.  And we've more students than ever.   

[Kingcreek]

One more comment.
Since I’m plugged into all the state and national education legislative alerts and seminars and webinars and policy positions...:
There is more and more attention to equity equality social acceptance gender support justice and liberal word soup. We can not improve Education under these directives. The politicians are retarded and policy “experts” are passing down mandates and children are no longer expected to sit at a desk and behave without drugs and families are totally dysfunctional.

[AZRedhawk44]

How much are computers in the classroom really necessary?  Lots of people in the past were taught without them and arguably got a better education.  It isn't like they are coming out of school with more job skills because of computers. 

A lot of the computer education is horribly inept, anyways.

Technophobe teachers that are terrified of any digital responsibility themselves.  Buy hardware and have no idea what "drivers" or "compatibility" are.  Expectations that software-based curriculum somehow eliminates the need for classroom management.  Inability to Read The F*cking Manual and abide by it when using tech enhanced lecture halls.

Honestly, the tech makes the teachers look even worse than they actually are at their jobs.

I see no reason why a math course needs computers.  Or a physics/chemistry/biology course with lab segments does, if the variables/statistics/reactions tracked are at a basic HS level.  CNC shop sure does.  Same with the CAD/drafting course or engineering (if available).  Maybe circuit design, too.  Special ed?  It's babysitting, or a reward device.  CompSci, obviously needs them.  As does any modern effort to teach accounting, keyboarding, word processing, statistics, etc.  And a word processor lab isn't a bad thing to have.

But if you examine the ratio of PC's to student headcounts, you find them inexplicably high in remedial reading programs, special ed, and art departments.  And the art department isn't using them for your first assumed use pattern (image editing, composition, 3d design, etc).

[HankB]

I'd start cleaning house with school staff by eliminating any person with the word "diversity" (or any synonyms for the word) in their title or job description.

As far as school budget & spending go, HUGE amounts are wasted. Back when I was in high school, school bureaucrats claimed a particular school improvement (a minor construction project) would cost $43,750. Students found that it could actually be done for well under $2000. Now, this was in Chicago circa 1973, and back then the $43k figure would buy you a decent house.

[Kingcreek]

The cost per square foot for school construction is astronomically high and usually bonded over 20 years with interest paid. We have spent several millions on some new additions and some modifications like elevators and chair lifts to accommodate 5 wheelchair students currently moving up through the grades. Our newest building is 1973 construction.
Our socialist state of Illinois passed a $15 minimum wage and a $40k minimum teacher salary so we will see our costs go up. Our starting teachers aren’t much under the 40 but it will be a bump. Our district has 2000 students in 6 buildings plus an admin building, 275 full and part time employees including food service and bus drivers (some districts contract those) and we operate on an 18 million dollar annual budget. And we know we still aren’t meeting all the needs.

[cordex]

-No classroom aides.  This is a shytty and shifty way the districts attempt to get around headcount problems.  Most of them are soccer-mom level education, high school or associates degree at the most, no professional education background and no specialization background, usually in the K-6 environment.  

This year my daughter’s second grade class went through two separate, incompetent "professional education background" instructors before a former classroom aide (without a teaching certificate or college education) was hired as teacher on a provisional emergency certification. The soccer-mom level instructor with a few years of practical classroom experience under a competent teacher has done far more to improve the behavior and academic performance of the class than the previous two "professionals" combined. My daughter (who has been reading since she was three and does multiplication and division in her head for fun when most of her classmates are still struggling with addition and subtraction) is for the first time being assigned extra-credit work intended to challenge her. An anecdote, but I’m not overly impressed with the current crop of "professional educators" or the system that produces them.  I think more classroom experience through first hiring teacher candidates as classroom aides in sort of an apprenticeship program could actually be an excellent training tool if done properly.

If the course curriculum cannot be presented at the current headcount ratio, then the designer of the curriculum is at fault.  That's the credentialed professional educator's fault.  We've gone from proficiency in Latin, Greek, and Calculus by High School, to illiteracy in English and problems with basic arithmetic at the same grade, in 100 years of devolution.  Fix the curriculum.

From what I have seen the problem isn’t the curriculum - at least at the lower grade levels - it is the ability for teachers to control their classes.  That seems to be a big reason for classroom aides.  I've seen good teachers do a lot to control unruly classes, but I've also seen teachers faced with truly malicious students without any tools to deal with them.  Also plenty of parents - even "involved" parents - either don't care or actively defend their little Sammy's horrific behavior.  I think there has been a cultural shift away from discipline (both in the home and in school) and toward keeping disruptive kids locked in the same room with the rest of the kids that is a significant issue.

[makattak]

From what I have seen the problem isn’t the curriculum - at least at the lower grade levels - it is the ability for teachers to control their classes.  That seems to be a big reason for classroom aides.  I've seen good teachers do a lot to control unruly classes, but I've also seen teachers faced with truly malicious students without any tools to deal with them.  Also plenty of parents - even "involved" parents - either don't care or actively defend their little Sammy's horrific behavior.  I think there has been a cultural shift away from discipline (both in the home and in school) and toward keeping disruptive kids locked in the same room with the rest of the kids that is a significant issue.

While the ability to control the classroom (at ALL levels) is an issue¹, it's also the curriculum.

I was teaching some 2nd and 3rd graders last night at Trail Life USA- an organization specifically geared toward raising Christian boys. This is key, because it means the people there will tend to be more conservative. (That's an understatement, btw.)

I asked the boys for examples of people who showed courage. EVERY SINGLE BOY responded with the name of the first black person to do something. (e.g. attend school (newly desegregated), play baseball, open a bank, etc...)

Now I have to, of course, point out that my problem isn't that they gave me wrong answers. Most certainly those early fighters for civil rights dealt with threats of violence and death and certainly showed great courage in the face of opposition.

My problem is that they didn't have any other names from history associated with courage. Their educations have made sure the children know what is important to the educators. This is definitely a matter of curriculum and priorities.


1: There are horror stories (and video!) of what happens in New York high schools

[cordex]

My problem is that they didn't have any other names from history associated with courage. Their educations have made sure the children know what is important to the educators. This is definitely a matter of curriculum and priorities.

I'm not saying the curriculum is perfect, I'm saying that's not what causes schools to bring in classroom aides and teacher assistants as AZRedhawk seemed to be implying.

Also, we're just out of black history month.  If you asked the same question in late November you'd probably hear about the bravery of Pilgrims and Indians, or in December you might hear about the bravery of Rudolph.

[MechAg94]

I have heard the inability to kick the worst kids out of class and/or separate them is a big problem.  I figure those worst kids also influence other kids into the same behavior who might otherwise behave. 

Otherwise, sounds like leftist thinking carried forward.  Those people are completely unable to see the long or even medium term consequences of their decisions, they have little understanding of real human nature, and they are unwilling to admit their previous decisions might be wrong. 

[makattak]

I'm not saying the curriculum is perfect, I'm saying that's not what causes schools to bring in classroom aides and teacher assistants as AZRedhawk seemed to be implying.

Also, we're just out of black history month.  If you asked the same question in late November you'd probably hear about the bravery of Pilgrims and Indians, or in December you might hear about the bravery of Rudolph.

Ah, I had forgotten about black history month. That's a possible explanation. I'll test that theory at other points in the year.

I have heard the inability to kick the worst kids out of class and/or separate them is a big problem.  I figure those worst kids also influence other kids into the same behavior who might otherwise behave.  

Otherwise, sounds like leftist thinking carried forward.  Those people are completely unable to see the long or even medium term consequences of their decisions, they have little understanding of real human nature, and they are unwilling to admit their previous decisions might be wrong.  

This is actually one of the issues that most angers me about public schools. By design they are stealing the potential of the brightest students in public schools.

Suggest vouchers and see what they say. "It will take the best students out of the schools and the other children will suffer!!"

So, instead, you plan on using the smartest POOR children in order to further your progressive utopia of everyone being equal. I highlight that it is smart poor children who will suffer because rich (or just middle class) parents of smart children will generally ensure they get an education that will best challenge their bright child.

So public schooling admittedly steals the future of these brightest poor children by ensuring they are never challenged intellectually. Being bored by things they learned in the first 5 minutes that the teacher then spends the next hour explaining and reworking examples and then the students are specifically used to help teach the other children, including those that are making it difficult for the others to learn.

Next, the ones that COULD get it if they were able to focus are disrupted and never get the education they deserve because the disruptive students keep the class in chaos. So we're stealing the brightest AND the above averages' futures just to ensure that every (poor to lower middle class) child gets the "same" education.

This really ought to be horrifying to more people.

[AZRedhawk44]

From what I have seen the problem isn’t the curriculum - at least at the lower grade levels - it is the ability for teachers to control their classes.  That seems to be a big reason for classroom aides.  I've seen good teachers do a lot to control unruly classes, but I've also seen teachers faced with truly malicious students without any tools to deal with them.  Also plenty of parents - even "involved" parents - either don't care or actively defend their little Sammy's horrific behavior.  I think there has been a cultural shift away from discipline (both in the home and in school) and toward keeping disruptive kids locked in the same room with the rest of the kids that is a significant issue.

This is where F's come in handy.

[K Frame]

You can't flunk the widdle chillruns! It will hurt their feels!

[Pb]

This is where F's come in handy.

Giving too many deserving F's will probably get the teacher punished.

It happens on the university level.

[cordex]

This is where F's come in handy.

How?