Why do government schools have more staff, yet fewer students enrolled?
USPIE’s Michigan President and Board Member: No for-profit business could increase costs while losing customers and stay in business… School boards have failed in their fiduciary responsibilities.
In most U.S. public school districts, staffing continues to increase while student enrollment remains stagnant or declines.
In fact, only 17 percent of the 200,000 new staff positions added in the past 10 years to government schools were teachers, The Epoch Times reports.
“Nationally, K–12 public school enrollment decreased by nearly 900,500 students, or 1.9 percent, between 2015 and 2025, and staffing—including both teachers and support staff — increased by more than 700,000, or 11.8 percent, during the same time,” the article said, citing research from the Edunomics Lab at Georgetown University, which analyzes data from the National Center for Education Statistics.
“No for-profit business could increase costs dramatically while losing customers and stay in business,” said Melanie Kurdys, USPIE’s Michigan PIE president and board member. “Only government entities can demand more and more taxpayer-coerced money despite losing customers while failing to actually benefit the customers who do remain.
School boards across the country have failed in their fiduciary responsibilities. To make matters worse, their top ideas to address declining enrollment funds are to cut out fun classes, double the class sizes instead of hiring substitutes, and cut bus services, all of which negatively impact the students.
The National Center for Education Statistics data show that over the past decade, the number of students around the country has decreased and the number of teachers increased in more than 80 percent of states.
“But the relatively modest increase in teaching staff was dwarfed by surging ranks of administrators and non-instructional staff,” The Epoch Times noted.
The five largest districts in the nation — New York City, Los Angeles, Miami-Dade in Florida, Chicago and Clark County in Nevada — have all lost students in the past several years, the Edunomics analysis said, but Miami-Dade was the only one that reduced staffing.
Virginia had the largest difference over the decade, with an 18.6 percent boost to staffing alongside a 2 percent enrollment drop.
This is while woke school boards in wealthy Virginia counties like Loudoun and Fairfax continue to foist a woke and perverse agenda on hapless students.
There is a silver lining to this story. More and more families are choosing to take their kids out of these failing schools. Politicians need to be brave and really cut funds to government schools to get rid of one of the worst sources of waste, fraud, and abuse.
To hear from USPIE’s Founder and President, Sheri Few, tune in to the latest episode of USPIE’s podcast, “Unmasking Government Schools with Sheri Few,” on Tuesday, Feb. 17, where Few is joined by special guest Rebecca Watson. She is the founder of the Fairhope Faith Collective, a grassroots community devoted to encouraging transparency, accountability and family values in schools and local government. Rebecca is also an opinion writer for 1819 News, and her recent piece “When Schools Become Clinics” tackles the growing role of mental health services in classrooms and what that means for education and parental authority. Listen to “Unmasking Government Schools with Sheri Few” on YouTube, Facebook, Spotify and X.
USPIE’s powerful documentary, “Truth & Lies in American Education,” addresses some of the most glaring issues in the American education system and helps parents experience a paradigm shift in how they think about education and the role of their local schools. “Truth & Lies in American Education” is available for streaming on SalemNOW, as well available on DVD