Do We Need More Public School Teachers?

Take a look at the data — as you can see from this graphic, public school enrollment has minimally increased over the last few decades, but teacher employment has exploded — the public school workforce has grown 11 times faster than student enrollment over the last 40 years.

Public School Enrollment Since 1970

And how does employing more and more teachers affect our students’ performance? While the cost of education has steadily risen, academic scores have remained stagnate and in some cases actually declined. As Cato’s Andrew Coulson notes, if the U.S. returned to the student-to-staff ratio we had in 1970, we could save $210 billion… every year.

Obama vs. Romney on Public School Jobs

Furthermore, on a per pupil basis, the inflation-adjusted average cost of a K-12 education has gone from about $55,000 to about $150,000.