By Steven Malanga
WASHINGTON D.C. (Texas Insider Report) Back in 2011 I
wrote a piece in the Wall St. Journal about the increase in local government payrolls over the decades focusing in particular on school systems and the rise in both teacher-to-student ratios and the sharp increase in non-teaching employees.
Some defenders of the schools wrote to suggest the growth in employees had been driven by demographic factors including a sharp increase in special ed students and students who spoke English as a second language.
Now the Thomas B. Fordham Institute has a
new study out on employee staffing levels at public schools which also details the growth in non-teaching personnel. But the Fordham study looks in addition at the common reasons given for this growth most especially demographic changes in student population over the years.
The study specifically uses regression analysis to see if factors like the rise in English-as-a-second language students or special ed students can account for most of the sharp rise in public school payrolls.
They do not.
As the study points out changes in student population account for only a small percentage of the growth in school payrolls not more than 7 percent in the variation among school districts in hiring for non-teaching personnel and teacher aids.
Since 1970 student enrollment has increased by a modest 8.4 percent but public school employee rolls are 84 percent larger. The ranks of teachers have grown by 58 percent but non-teaching staff is up by 130 percent.
The largest category of growth the Fordham study found was in teacher aids which in 1970s accounted for just 1.7 percent of school employment and today represents 11.8 percent. Relative to student population thats a change of roughly one teacher aide per 1000 students in 1970 to about 15 per 1000 today.
The costs associated with these non-teaching personnel are high by international standards the study finds. Only one other country of the 29 in the Organization for Economic Development and Cooperation (the international coalition of industrialized countries) spends a greater percentage of its education budget on non-teachers and thats Denmark. Our neighbor to the North Canada spends 15 percent of its education dollars on non-teachers compared to 28 percent in the U.S.
The Fordham study is aimed mainly at educators suggesting they could do a better job of allocating resources.
The study however might also be a guidepost for taxpayers.
Looking at tests scores over the period covered by the study its hard to argue theres been a big payoff for the investment in additional personnel by our schools.
