In 2000 the Chicago Board of Education had about 440,000 students enrolled and employeed about 40,000 people. Today it has about 400,000 students enrolled and employs about 45,000 people.
I’ll report back if I find out how many teachers the CBoE employed in 2000 vs. today. I’m guessing that the additional 5,000 people aren’t teachers or even involved directly in instruction.
There’s a joke around here that the only qualifications required for a $100,000+ a year job with the CBoE are a political sponsor and no teaching experience.
Information derived from various Chicago Tribune articles
I know part of this answer for Springfield schools, which have the most administrators per pupil in the state:
221:1 (1999)
126:1 (2009)
“the statewide average has followed a similar trend.”
http://www.sj-r.com/top-stories/x1650248605/District-186-has-high-number-of-officials
Gammon’s law at work!
Dave, this may be the figures you’re looking for:
http://iirc.niu.edu/District.aspx?source=About_Educators&source2=Administrator_Information&districtID=15016299025&level=D
I would bet that a part of that is special education if it is anything like our district. Do coaches count as administration?
Steve
The link to Chicago shows the average administrator salary going from $87,000 to $114,000 over the last ten years. I can’t imagine those are special ed. coaches. I could imagine that they are filled with financial professionals whose job it is to do the paperwork necessary to obtain supplemental funding for special education.
My school district has 1,201 teachers, 427 of which do not work in classrooms. Out of that 427, 370 are special education teachers who work in non-classroom settings. It had 77 “academic coaches, mentors, instructional leaders, leaders-in-training and other certified academic support staff.” I know the numbers don’t add up completely, perhaps because there are overlapping categories, but the 77 were trimmed to 21 last year anyway.
The 370 are probably “itinerant”, meaning that they travel from school to school or, under certain conditions, from student to student.
That’s essentially mandated by the federal government (“least restrictive setting”) as is the significant number of special ed teachers.
BTW unlike the situation in general ed. there is a significant shortage of speech pathologists.
I don’t know if in this situation “special ed” includes disobedience issues. I believe at some point the school kicks kids out and doesn’t allow them back into school, and provides them with an in-home tutor instead. They are probably diagnosable as ODD, the tutor isn’t there all day (counts his/her travel time as well).
“unlike the situation in general ed. there is a significant shortage of speech pathologists.”
This is what nags me about steve’s suggestion. Higher teacher salary will likely raid “like” careers. I don’t believe good teaching is an academic achievement; it requires some personality characteristics that just aren’t taught.
My wife is a therapist, specializing somewhat in kids, and her mother was a great teacher. I think she would be a great teacher too, but that’s not her calling. She works for less than a teacher, with more years of education than many. Would we be better off to bribe her away?
Would higher salaries convince more financial advisors to teach? Would they be good at it? Would it be easier to transform swords into plowshares?
I kind of agree with you PD. There are some people who just seem like naturally excellent teachers. They may even be the best. I am kind of skeptical about education classes, but I may be wrong. I suspect that they can probably train people to be competent. Maybe the combination of aptitude and training makes for the very best result. Who knows? I teach a lot and get excellent reviews from our students. The part of the puzzle I do not know is how I would do, or your wife, with students who dont care or dont want to learn.
Steve
Three thoughts:
1. I think teachers should be trained closer to plumbers than accademics. Someone with reasonably good grades in K-12 has the accademic qualifications to be a teacher; the rest should be practice. Friends who’ve taken education courses say it’s all common sense draped in doctrine. Normal schools, I say.
2. If teaching is more craft than science, both the schools and the teachers are too invested by the time we learn the craft isn’t there. The schools can’t remove below-average teachers:
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/editorials/ct-edit-0230-cps-dismissal-gfx.eps-20110226,0,3378793.graphic
The teacher won’t move for fear of not getting back in.
3. Some of the studies suggest difficult teaching assignments are best for younger people, able and only willing to make a short term commitment to teaching before they do something else. Illinois has been allowing teachers to retire at age 55 at what is essentially a starting teacher’s salary for the rest of their lives. We were paying someone not to teach for the next 40 to 50 years. Now, we’re closer to 67 and maybe that’s too old. How do you structure a lifelong career?
” I think teachers should be trained closer to plumbers than accademics. Someone with reasonably good grades in K-12 has the accademic qualifications to be a teacher; the rest should be practice. Friends who’ve taken education courses say it’s all common sense draped in doctrine. Normal schools, I say.”
Maybe for grades 1-6. I like the idea of apprenticeship for these grades. My son is taking AP physics. They really need someone with a master’s equivalent person teaching the course. Maybe we should do something like the Germans do with a higher level requirement of education for grades 7-12.
2) Need better management. I have mixed feelings about tenure. Without it I know that teachers from my hometown would have been fired for even mentioning evolution.
3) 55 is too early. I see no reason they cannot work until 65 at least.
Steve
I betcha the unions got certain activities roped out of teacher responsibility, and that was what helped grow the non-teacher roster.
At my dad’s school teachers successfully argued that they should not take turns (not at all every day) at noontime supervision, and so the school had to figure how to hire lunch monitors, and then … what do you do try to get them to just come in for a couple hours a day … or do you find more for them to do and make them full time …