Has the Percentage of Texas Public School District Staff Who Directly Impact Student Outcomes Changed over the Last 20 Years?
In the last post, I showed that the decrease in the percentage of teachers was largely due to an increase in support staff. But support staff is a catch-all that covers a wide variety of individuals. As it turns out, a fair percentage of support personnel are located at schools and have a direct impact on students. A significant percentage also provide teacher support. Below I review this in (agonizing) detail. The goal here is to document the percentage of individuals in positions that directly impact student outcomes. The reason for doing this is to determine how many positions could be cut without directly impacting student outcomes. I want to do this to disprove some comments by the governor, other politicians, and lobbyists that school districts are choosing to lay off individuals who directly impact student outcomes. First, we must determine the number of individuals who are in positions that directly impact student achievement and the amount of money expended on their salaries. Next week, I will examine whether districts would have enough money under HB 1 to not cut individuals who
