It’s no secret that American public schools are in dire need of improvement. In the past decade, the vast majority of public schools have seen declines in student test scores across core subjects which have only accelerated since the pandemic despite a massive increase in school budgets per student in the 21st century, as well as in employee headcounts. But a closer analysis of these trends hints that it’s not how much funding or hiring that determines student success, but rather who gets hired at the taxpayer’s expense. And with a stagnant public school student population, why are more staff needed at all? 

It turns out, virtually all of the increased hiring in American public schools has been driven by an expanded school administration. Although teacher hiring has mostly continued proportionally to student population growth, administrator hiring has grown at a rate approximately ten times faster than both from 2000 to 2019, including professionals from principals to school board members. In many states, these administrators earn far more than teachers despite not interacting with students for nearly as long during the average school day. Much of this growth has aligned with increasingly bloated federal and state regulations on education, which has sent compliance costs through the roof out of fear of lawsuits at every corner. And with a heavily decentralized school system that spans thousands of districts across fifty states, this only further multiplies the number of required administrators nationwide to comply with the Department of Education’s one-size-fits-all mandates. Eliminating the DOE alone would save billions of dollars from the deficit each year, and return education to the states as it is constitutionally delegated in the 10th amendment. President Bush’s No Child Left Behind Act and Obama’s Common Core Standards failed to take into account the diversity of needs across fifty states and the thousands of districts, and were just as unsuccessful at improving student outcomes in the 21st century. But inefficiency in teaching staff hiring is a similarly plaguing issue.

Instead of collecting massive union dues for the improvement in child education or even pay raises to resolve the ongoing teacher shortage, teachers unions have spent them on exercising increased political power and control over education policy. They have also eliminated accountability in the classroom by obstructing firings of teachers whose students fail to meet educational subject standards year after year. Furthermore, these unions regularly lobby against measures that would force schools to improve by making the market for education more competitive, such as authorization of charter schools and school choice vouchers. To improve America’s education system, competition must be enabled by eliminating government overreach and union monopolies on hiring practices to ensure that students receive the most qualified educators.