This is absolutely true.
I'm a high school teacher and have taught in multiple schools. There is an inverse relationship between the quality of education/time+resources teachers are given to plan/teach and the proportion of admin to teaching staff. At my current school, there are too many admin, and each of them is scurrying to show that their post is relevant. In my school, high school teachers share a common calendar and work together to ensure that students don't have major assessments on the same day or near the same day when possible. None of the members of our bloated admin staff have the same consideration for teachers as they all rush to create new "initiatives" and processes and meetings. In the past week I had: one meeting early in the morning before school on Monday, one meeting after school on Tuesday, one Wednesday morning meeting before school and then an after school meeting also on Wednesday. The Monday meeting, held EVERY Monday morning, is led by an admin who is focusing on "team building" among teaching teams, and is largely pointless, with snacks and stupid party games ("ice breakers" for teachers who already know each other and work together). Meanwhile, I have hours of grading to do, and it would happen a lot faster, with more thorough feedback, if I could just be allowed to use my non-contact time to work. There are multiple online training courses our school randomly signed up all high school teachers to complete over the course of the last semester, with no consultation with us about when the best time to do this would be. The courses are not subject specific, but involve things related to DEI, etc. They are fluffy and very time-consuming, and we are expected to complete them outside of school. One, which I am only now finishing, involved a great deal of reading and many written responses and tasks. I have a Masters degree, and I maintain this course required the same amount of reading and writing as a college course. I did NOT have time to adequately provide feedback on my students' writing AND do this course, so the grading suffered. Admin is fine with this: they don't care about grading/feedback because they are completely out of touch with what it is like to be in the classroom, or the implications of taking away high school teachers' time to plan and grade. These stupid courses are the brain child of one admin, who is making this part of his job. You might be thinking, what about this woman's planning time during the day? Don't high school teachers get planning periods? The truth is that I don't really get planning periods in the day anymore because my school has apparently decided that this year they are no going to make much effort to procure subs for coverage. Instead, they like to pop by my room in the morning to "ask" me to cover for a colleague during my planning that day because "You have period 4 free." ("Free?" FREE? That is my PLANNING TIME). I am stressed and unhappy |
I echo everything you wrote. It’s just as bad at my school. Many of our administrators simply exist to produce work for teachers. The teaching staff is very aware that they actually have a negative impact on students. They hastily create initiatives, all of which last a mere semester before they fade away. But in the meantime, teachers are wasting precious time checking the required boxes for these administrators’ pet projects. We are all very aware that scrapping these positions would result in better quality education for the students. Teachers could focus on teaching, and we would be less stressed. As it is, we waste precious time doing work simply to justify these admin positions. They also create so much resentment. Most of my administration has taught fewer than 7-8 years. Many of the teachers have taught 20 or more. It’s insulting to have some administrators evaluate us, knowing full well they aren’t the experts in the room. |
I know I love graphs that don't cite their source and have unreadable labels! |
Don’t take me long to find info: https://oakmn.org/the-growth-in-school-admini...%20whopping%2088%25! |
The input of two actual teachers in the DMV, which corroborate and add detail to the issue, should more than make up for that. Let me ask you PP: - what evidence can YOU offer as to whether there is or is not a spending/staffing/ resource-utilization problem in our local public schools? |
OP, for FCPS in particular, they aren't really overstaffed. The problem lies with some of the progressive education reform changes and with the students (or parents). We parents have done a fair bit of wrecking schools, much more than too many administrative staff. |
Teacher here, and I partially agree. Yes, those are problems. But we need more teachers and fewer administrators. The problem is that teaching is so challenging. There are so many people desperate to move out of the classroom, so we create positions for people. That leaves the teachers to deal with the real work while these new positions create work to justify their existence. |
Of course, it's the school choice MFers... |
Er, your vulgar language aside, I assume you are referring to proponents of vouchers when you wrote “school choice” ? Not sure that issue is at all relevant here. |
Or… It’s just people who would like to see education improve. Perhaps we are sick of the waste: wasted salaries, wasted positions, etc. |
This right here. My small Title I ES has 2 admin and 4 nebulous facilitators who do not work with students and are instead supposed to be supporting teachers in improving their practice. What it really means is those 6 people spend an awful lot of time making tasks for us to do in meeting after meeting without ever working with students or in a classroom so they can see just how desperately our kids need more effective help. Their suggestions are great in theory but not in practice and most of them do not have proven experience improving a school like ours. My “planning time” is spent doing tasks they make them look and feel good without actually helping accelerate the growth of my students who are YEARS below grade level. |
The admin overhead has become silly.
See also the thread in the FCPS forum about “Failed Principal to Central Office Pipeline” (or something similar). If FCPS cut Gatehouse staff by 50%, schools probably would be much more effective. |
Thank you, PP. I had not noticed that thread before; just working through a few of the 11 pages! OMG why isn’t this problem bigger news? No wonder public education is failing. Here is the thread from the Fairfax schools section: https://www.dcurbanmom.com/jforum/posts/list/1164725.page |
+100 |