INDIANAPOLIS, Ind. – American public schools are prioritizing supplemental staff and support workers over teachers and students, according to a new study examining decades-long employment growth in schools.

The study tackles the common claim from union officials and public school proponents that schools constantly need more funding to hire teachers and reduce class sizes, and reveals the notion to be a misleading ploy that doesn’t jibe with historical data.

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“Our latest report – Back to the Staffing Surge – measures U.S. public school employment growth verses student growth as well as teacher salary fluctuations and student outcomes over the past 65 years using publicly available data that state departments of education annually report to the U.S. Department of Education,” the school choice nonprofit EdChoice reports.

“The results were shocking.”

Ben Scafidi, the report’s author and director of the Education Economics Center at Kennesaw State University, put the findings into perspective.

“Given the massive increase in public school personnel – well over and beyond what was needed to accommodate student enrollment growth – given the data on stagnant student achievement in public schools over time, and given that students in recent years have characteristics that are slightly more favorable for student achievement, the productivity of American public schools has fallen rather dramatically over the past few decades,” Scafidi said.

“And, in retrospect, the staffing surge in American public schools has appeared to have been a costly failure.”

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The data shows that between fiscal years 1950 and 2015, American public schools added staff at a rate four times higher than student enrollment growth, and “these additional personnel were disproportionately non-teachers,” according to the report.

The growth rate for teaching jobs during that time frame grew 2.5 times as fast as student enrollment increases, which led to smaller class sizes, but non-teaching staff surged by seven times student enrollment.

“It could be argued that this staffing surge was worth it in the 1950s, the 1960s, the 1970s, the 1980s, and early 1990s because during those decades public schools began welcoming students with special needs and were allowed to integrate by race or were actively integrated by government policies,” the report reads.

“But, the staffing surge has continued even after its first 42-year period that ended in 1992. The modern staffing surge, which began in 1992, has been expensive for taxpayers and has posed a tremendous opportunity cost on teachers and parents.”

Data shows that between 1992 and 2014 inflation adjusted per-student spending increased by 27 percent, while average teacher salaries decreased by 2 percent over the same time period.

“Instead of increasing teacher salaries over and above the cost of living, the American public education system continued its staffing surge,” according to the report.

“From FY 1992 to FY 2014, public schools experienced a 19 percent increase in student enrollment growth. Yet at the same time, they increased (full time equivalent) staff by almost double that rate – a 36 percent increase in FTE school personnel.

“Continuing with a consistent decades-long pattern, public schools increased staffing primarily by hiring non-teachers. Specifically, public schools increased their FTE teacher force by 28 percent from FY 1992 to FY 2014 and increased the number of FTE non-teachers by 45 [percent – more than double the increase in the number of students.”

The report notes that school staffing declined briefly during the national recession from FY 2009 through 2012, but resumed the staffing surge with a preference for non-teachers in the years since.

The bottom line, according to researchers, is public school policies have resulted in a massive surge in hiring non-teachers, which has clearly taken precedent over hiring more teachers, increasing their salaries, and providing parents with alternatives to the public education system that could better utilize resources to fit their child’s needs.

“We can continue going back to the staffing surge and its diversion of resources away from teachers and school choice opportunities for parents and students,” the study concludes. “Or, perhaps it is time to move to a new education system – one that is student-centered and one that devotes more of its considerable resources to its frontline talent: its teachers.”