Kentucky’s schools are still top-heavy with non-teacher staffing

The new “The Condition of Education 2015” has been released by the US Department of Education’s Institute of Education Sciences.

Kentucky stands out in at least one figure in the publication, which shows the ratio of teachers to the total of all staff in public school systems around the nation. Very simply, the Bluegrass State’s public schools appear to be over-staffed with non-teachers. Kentucky has one of the worst “tooth to tail” ratios of teachers to total school staff of any state in the nation.

2012 Teacher Staffing Map for US from Condition of Education 2015

To explore this further, I pulled up the data from a number of issues of the Digest of Education Statistics to develop this next graph. This second graph shows Kentucky has always ranked at or near the bottom for the worst ratio of teachers to total staff in our schools.

Kentucky's Rank for Teacher to total Staff Ratio 1989 to 2012 graph

• Why does this condition continue to exist?

• How do more non-teachers in our schools really help our kids learn?

• Are Kentucky’s schools being used as make-work programs that mostly benefit adults?