Something to keep in mind the next time you hear teachers unions complaining that classrooms are overcrowded due to underfunding:
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 non-teaching staff experienced growth of 702 percent, more than seven times the increase in students.
All part of turning little minds to mush before they start working the way they should.
In 1950 the number of courses was limited to basic subjects, now we teach every special interest topic there is. In GR12 (1964) I had the choice of 1 elective, Chemistry or Biology, now they have all these choices most of which are not required knowledge or skills for graduation. Eliminate all the ridiculous choices and you can reduce Teachers, Teachers Aids, Support Staff and Administration.
I had this discussion with a teacher friend of mine, who became nicely bent out of shape when I made the mistake of hypothesizing aloud that at some point after 1970, incremental expenditure on K-12/OAC (Ontario) education had actually started to generate negative productivity returns within the system — school consolidation and standardization being an important driver of the post-WWII North American productivity boom of the 1950s and 1960s.
Regardless, I am a product of the 1970s system, and I think it worked out okay for me. I’m not just sure what was so wrong with it that it required most of a seventy-five or so percent increase in the teacher/student ratio and most of a four-hundred percent increase in the non-teaching employee/student ratio.
I find your reference to ‘teats’ in a negative context offensive on this hallowed Day of International Women. This isn’t a men’s locker room you know.
Don’t forget that in that same time the output of an administrative worker has increased multiple times. In the 1950’s all the admin was done without the aim of computers, or even photocopiers. So the number of administrators grew 700 odd percent when it really should have been cut by 75 percent taking into account improvements in efficiency.
Overcrowded classrooms?
I thought this was normal.
Oh sure…those kids may look happy but I’ll bet they don’t know how to put condoms on cucumbers, like the enlightened children of today. They may look normal but I’d even bet that most of them were actually productive citizens. Small wonder the social engineers had to intervene. Forward.
I was the square peg in the round hole in the 60’s and 70’s, I can not say that school back then was very useful to me, as my problem was not reading, which was what the whole system was designed to fix and nothing else. I manged to get through thanks to a few inspired teachers. Being a parent now, I notice that teachers are doing the fun stuff” in class and pushing homework to the home, I suspect this will get worse as my daughters get older. I would suspect that early-mid 2000 was the best time to go to school if you did not fit the cookie cutter, neither today or back then was a good time. Part of the problem now is the chase for what is the “sexy method of teaching this year” In a perfect world, schools would be designed for certain types of students and the student sent to the school best suited for them.
For most teachers, it’s a job that is more attractive than the actual work. They like the hours, the pay, the security, etc. so they get an education degree and a teaching license and a sinecure. But not all actually enjoy the real work of teaching, and for many of these the answer is to get out of the classroom and burrow into the bureaucracy.
Don’t bother replying to tell me about the good teachers you know, or are, and their self-sacrificing devotion to their vocation, etc. I know, I had some in school, have some in my family. That’s not the problem we are talking about. If you are in the education system and you don’t see anyone who is soaking up resources and not contributing to real learning, go look in a mirror. It’s you.
Bill Davis, the pinko tory, started the downhill slide in edumakation here in Ontario, and every one since has been giving it a further push
Nobody, and mean *nobody* takes public education seriously or looks at it with the kind of cool logic we associate with Socrates. Not teachers, not administrators, not local or provincial politicians or civil servants, not teacher educators, not students, and not their parents.
When one attends a public meeting associated with proposed school closings or any other type of “educational change”, education is the one thing that is almost never discussed. Every “stakeholder” has a long list of private interests — from the length of bus rides to the survival of athletics teams to the economic impact of the school to “cuts” to teachers and educational “support workers” to faux-bullying, and on and on.
The great advantage to vouchers is that those parents who actually want their children to be educated can direct educational funds toward that end. Those who want their school to serve innumerable other ends can try to find one (or start one) that will do so.
I remember Miss Murphy from Grade 3 where I was top student.
When she left and got married, I was heartbroken. Never was top student ever again.
Our class the next year were made pen pals with a class in Something-Ridge Tenn.
It turned out there were more kids in our Ontario class than their entire school
so grade 4 classes in other schools in their district got roped in to share the load.
I was in the school system during the 1950s and 60s, and this class size was normal experience for me both in public school and in high school other than grades one and two when I attended a rural prairie school with all eight grades in one room. That style of desks look familiar, except ours were doubles.
The girl beside me had pigtails and one day I pulled one of them and had to stay after school and walk home two miles…up hill both ways. But, she was nice. Normally we went to school with a bunk sleigh in winter and a buggy in summer.
Grade one through eight …. 1959 through 1967 …. all classes were six rows of 6 to eight desks …. no class was ever less than full.
That’s the education environment that made Canada the BEST in the world.
Then the commies got in.
Elementary school was 36 per class for me. At least 10 % or better went on to university. That’s enough. A third of them quit before graduation and they probably far exceeded the bottom third of today’s graduates in skills. Administration? – a thirty teacher school had the principal and a vice-principal share a class. The school also had a secretary and a music teacher. The school system had a superintendent, secretary-treasurer, and a secretary for maybe 80 teachers. The principals of the small schools had a full course load. What’s with all the useless middle management and support staff today?
There’s a difference between a men’s locker room and a dairy barn.
It has to do with cows and miking.
The Post titles appropriate.
There seems to be a lot of cows in the system not producing much milk.
(There used to be a solution for cows that don’t milk,,, and it wasn’t 18 hole corrals for eternity)
As for the feed money going into those barns,,,
It begs the question on what the ratio of hay is to cream, half/half,homo,3%,2%,1%,Skim,and just plain water. (I’m not touching Kurds)
But now,some cows are more special than others
Stealing kids milk money is what it is.
/s
Bingo.
When my father taught (since retired) he saw women teachers rise to the position of department heads with only two years teaching experience under their belts.
There are many problems with the education system and not all of them are due to the teachers but when I see reports like this, I demand that the government pull out of education entirely and let everyone fend for themselves. Parents who truly want their children to be educated will find a way. Everyone else will be happy with a baby-minder. Those who are truly dedicated to teaching will remain.
I suspect that the waste in the educational system is the same in Canada. I’ve never seen my school tax portion of property taxes fall and for a good portion of students, teachers could be replaced with minimum wage babysitters.
When I was in high school, the larger the size of the class, the happier I was. That meant the teacher would be preoccupied with other students while I sat unnoticed writing programs. Small boring classes were torture especially if the teacher wanted student “participation” in a subject which I could care less about – like social studies and I was forbidden by the teacher from bringing up any scientific topics.
Given advances in information technology, one would expect that the number of people required in education should be a small fraction of what was required in 1960. Students should be learning at home over the internet and only attending school for their physical education to ensure that they stay in shape. Really that is the only need to have humans involved in basic education as once someone learns to read, they can learn on their own. The other place where humans need to be involved is in learning a trade where one is an apprentice to a skilled practitioner of an art.
I’d be interested in what the statistics for school bureaucracy growth over the same time period has been in Switzerland. In Switzerland, the fraction of students going on to university is much lower than in the US and students go on to become apprentices in various trades. Considering how well Switzerland is doing economically, it seems that this approach has some merit. Every time I see a 16 year old patient who tells me, after taking totally fluff courses in high school, that they’re going into an arts program at university I have to restrain myself from launching into a rant about how deluded they are. The attractive females might be able to make a good living as self-employed practitioners of the tantric arts, but the others whose only employment experience was working at McDonalds are in for a rude awakening when they find their post university Pizza Hut salary won’t pay off their student loans during their lifetime.
The only reason I can see this accumulation of deadwood existing in the “education” system is because at some point marxists saw this as a primary target of infiltration. Most of the individuals who work in this system are engaged in indoctrination of children to become good communists and forget about the perpetually denigrated accomplishments of dead white males which are described as “exploitation”. Instead they are taught “sexual education” – something which couples have managed to figure out themselves for millenia given that reproductive programs exist in the hypothalamus. Post-modernist thought makes everything relative and destroys the concept of truth. Feelings matter more than logic and “bullying” is the latest means of vilifying those who aren’t good little sheeple. The public education system now is designed to crush individuality and make good subservient serfs to serve the self-selected political “elite”. The dumber the serfs, the less likely they are to revolt and think for themselves and they are far more dependent on the “elites” if they are dumb.
Speaking of teat. Most definitely a dairy farmer term which I used from the time I was three. And we didn’t pronounce it as in T-E-A-T but in the more usual way. Leave my language alone.
My elementry school class consisted of up to 36 and never less than 30. The teachers back then had no trouble handling it.
Some years later when, after mentioning the size of my class, my daughter’s teacher whined about having 25 and still wanted me to complain to my MLA. I simply replied, “Ain’t gonna happen.”
This is simply a union tactic to get more members meaning more of our tax dollars for its leftist causes.
And yet they want to add gun-toting guards to every school.
Blow me!