The School Staffing Surge: Decades of Employment Growth in America’s Schools

[MachineGhost]

I wish Reagan had acted on his promise to abolish the NEA.  These stats are outrageous!
 
America’s K-12 public education system has experienced tremendous historical growth in employment, according to the U.S. Department of Education’s National Center for Education Statistics. Between fiscal year (FY) 1950 and FY 2009, the number of K-12 public school students in the United States increased by 96 percent while the number of full-time equivalent (FTE) school employees grew 386 percent. Public schools grew staffing at a rate four times faster than the increase in students over that time period. Of those personnel, teachers’ numbers increased 252 percent while administrators and other staff experienced growth of 702 percent, more than seven times the increase in students.

http://www.edchoice.org/Research/Report ... hools.aspx

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[clacy]

Obama's 2nd term plan for the economy:

-Raise taxes on the rich
-Hire 100,000 new teachers
-Double down on "clean energy"

[moda0306]

Are those expenditures in real terms or nominal terms?

[moda0306]

And I wonder what education spending has done as a factor of GDP as well.

[MediumTex]

I think that a "stealth" issue in those numbers is that many of the women who in the past would have gone into teaching (because there were far fewer career opportunities for women in the past) are now going into other fields. 

Thus, some of the women who in the past might have entered the teaching field and been able to handle large classes with little administrative support are instead working in the private sector.

What's left in the ranks of teachers, on average, may be individuals who require more administrative support, smaller classes, and other assistance that has swelled the ranks of overall education employment.

In dealing with my own kids' schools, it doesn't seem like there are a lot of people other than the teachers wandering around looking for something to do.  There is a nurse, an art teacher, a special needs teacher, etc., but it's not like the school district has an inspector general's office with a paramilitary-type SWAT team that sits around training all day.

I don't know, it just seems like the teacher profile of today vs. the past doesn't get discussed that much and may be an important factor in some of these things.