Back to Basics: More Teachers in Classrooms

Parents and taxpayers have long been concerned about any tendency toward excessive administrative costs in local schools. And rightfully so, as parents want school district resources to be focused on children in the classrooms.

School boards are sensitive to this concern. No candidate runs for school board on a platform of increasing the size of district administration.

Comparing the relative size of administrative staff to teaching staff is one useful measure of the relative efficiency of individual school districts. In Orange County, a number of districts have a comparatively small number of administrators relative to the number of teachers. Among them are the Orange Unified (5.6%), Westminster (5.6%), La Habra City (5.5%), Cypress (5.4%), Magnolia (4.8%) and Savanna, the lowest in Orange County at 4.3%.

On the other hand, the Fullerton Joint Union High School District has 45 full-time administrators and 508 teachers. Administrators in this instance total about 8.9% of the number of teachers. Huntington Beach Union High School District (8.8%), Fullerton Elementary (8.8%), Laguna Beach Unified (8.5%), Garden Grove Unified (8.3%) and Brea Olinda Unified (8.2%) all have a greater percentage of administrators than the much-maligned Los Angeles Unified School District (7.0%).

There is another trend in school district management that bears close watching. Increasingly, throughout the state, fewer teachers are actually engaged in teaching. In some districts, as many as 25% of the teachers are doing something else.

These teachers may be engaged in “curriculum development,” “mentoring,” “peer review” or other nonteaching activities. Parents and taxpayers might want to ask what specifically is being accomplished. They may want to ask if children in their school district would be better served by having all teachers actually teaching, thereby reducing average class size.

They particularly might want to ask if the most experienced and best-qualified teachers are actually in the classroom.

Teaching is a difficult and challenging profession. The best and most capable teachers are an invaluable asset. More important, the best are the ones who can have the most positive influence on individual children. It could be that many of them opt for the comparatively easier life of curriculum development, mentoring or peer review because our education system does not place appropriate emphasis on rewarding teachers for teaching.

This is something that every legislator, school board member, parent and taxpayer should ponder when thinking about improving public schools in California. Though the state Department of Education does not track this trend, it nevertheless is possible to discern certain broad tendencies toward ever-larger numbers of teachers not actually engaged in classroom teaching.

Each school district in California reports its average classroom size to the state. Dividing each district’s enrollment by its average classroom size yields a useful estimate of the number of teachers teaching. This number can be compared with the number of teachers employed by each district. Though not precise, this comparison affords some indication of the number of teachers who are not teaching.

The results of this calculation can be edifying. For example, in fiscal year 1999-2000, Westminster School District employed the equivalent of 499 teachers, but the average classroom size calculation indicates that only 373 of those teachers were in the classroom. As many as 126 of the district’s teachers, or more than 25%, were apparently engaged in other activities.

In 12 school districts in Orange County, more than 20% of the credentialed teachers were not actually teaching. These include Westminster (at 25% the highest in Orange County), Orange Unified (24%), Newport-Mesa Unified (23%), Capistrano Unified (23%) and Santa Ana Unified (22%).

The comparable figure for Magnolia is 7%, for Centralia 7%, for Fullerton Joint Union High 6%, and for Anaheim City about 3%. It is interesting to note that Magnolia has both a very low percentage of administrators compared with the number of teachers and that most of the teachers appear to be in the classroom.

Parents might want to watch the proliferation of peer review teachers especially closely. “Peer review” can be a euphemism for teachers, rather than principals and superintendents, evaluating the performance of other teachers.

The peer review process, which is being pushed in Sacramento by union bosses, substantially erodes the ability of principals and superintendents to remove ineffective teachers from classrooms. Shouldn’t the best teachers be in the classrooms, and the ineffective teachers be asked to leave the profession?