Last month we wrote about a study that looked back to 1970 to track the change in public school enrollment, teacher employment, and non-teacher employment.  The study found that enrollment grew 8%, teachers grew 53%, and non-teachers grew 130%.

Now comes an article in the Washington Examiner that includes a look back as far as 1950 and that school employment has far outpaced student population.  While the student to teacher ratio was 15.3/1 five years ago, the student to non-teacher staff ratio was 7.8/1.

The article points out that the consolidation in the number of school districts—in 1940 there were 119,000 in 1960 there were 40,000, in 1980 there were 16,000—has placed the control of schools under the doctrine of “scientific management” and best practices.  In Pennsylvania the number of districts fell from 2,546 in 1942 to 500 currently, with much of the consolidation happening between 1962 and 1967.  A handful of states have significantly fewer school districts now than they did in 1992.

Spending per-pupil has gone up, and so has non-teacher employment, but results have not.  The fact that employment has exploded while the number of school districts fell is astonishing and should provide a cautionary lesson to those looking at consolidation of school districts or other local governments to produce big savings or efficiencies.