New Study Finds 21 States Have More Non-Teaching Staff than Teachers

INDIANAPOLIS, Feb. 28, 2013 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Twenty-one states employ more bus drivers, librarians, cafeteria workers, deputy superintendents, accountants, coaches, nurses, assistant principals, and other non-teaching personnel than they do classroom teachers, according to a new analysis of state education employees by the Friedman Foundation for Educational Choice.

The report, a sequel to last fall's "The School Staffing Surge: Decades of Employment Growth in America's Public Schools," examines states' hiring patterns between 1992 and 2009. It found that, in 2009, administrators and other non-teaching staff outnumbered teachers in Virginia, Ohio, Michigan, Indiana, Kentucky, Mississippi, Colorado, Oregon, Maine, Minnesota, Nebraska, New Mexico, Louisiana, Wyoming, Vermont, Utah, Georgia, Alaska, New Hampshire, Iowa, and the District of Columbia, which is treated as a state in the report.

"Taxpayers should be outraged public schools hired so many non-teaching personnel with such little academic improvement among students to show for it," said Robert Enlow, president and CEO of the Friedman Foundation for Educational Choice. "This money could have been better invested in areas that have proved to benefit children."

Virginia far outpaced other states with the number of excessive personnel outside the classroom with 60,737 more non-teaching staff than teachers, followed by Ohio with 19,040 more non-teaching personnel than teachers.

The report also compared the growth rate among administrators and non-teaching staff with student enrollment changes from 1992 to 2009. It found that 48 states could be saving $24 billion annually if the hiring of non-teaching staff had not exceeded the growth of students between 1992 and 2009.

In Texas, taxpayers would have saved almost $6.4 billion annually if public schools' non-teaching personnel had not outpaced students. Virginia, Ohio, New York, California, and Pennsylvania each would have annual, recurring savings in the billions. Other states' savings are in the millions; however, Nevada and Arizona actually saved money, as both its administrative and non-teaching personnel did not outpace student growth. Data were not available for South Carolina.

"States could do much more constructive things with those kinds of dollars," Enlow said. "State leaders could be permitting salary increases for great teachers, offering children in failing schools the option of attending a private school, or directing savings toward other worthy purposes. Instead states have allowed these enormous bureaucracies to grow."

The report also shows the salary increases states could provide teachers annually if administrators and non-teaching personnel kept pace with the student population from 1992 to 2009. At the top was Virginia, which could provide teachers an annual salary increase of $29,007. Maine was second at $25,505.

The report was compiled with data from the National Center for Education Statistics and prepared by Ben Scafidi, an economist at Georgia College & State University and a senior fellow at the Friedman Foundation for Educational Choice.

To read the report, visit www.edchoice.org/StaffSurge2. That link also provides a map in which readers can download each state's findings.

SOURCE The Friedman Foundation for Educational Choice

WANT YOUR COMPANY'S NEWS FEATURED ON PRNEWSWIRE.COM?

440k+
Newsrooms &
Influencers

9k+
Digital Media
Outlets

270k+
Journalists
Opted In

GET STARTED