SURPRISE: Gov Perry flat-out wrong about admin-teacher ratio!
Once again, a conservative politician has perpetuated the mis-truth about the ratio of administrators to teachers and the “huge” number of non-teachers we have hired over the last decades (see http://edtechsandyk.blogspot.com/2011/05/governor-perry-is-wrong-about-texas.html). Conservative groups have consistently perpetuated these incorrect data as a way to garner public support for cutting education–especially cutting central office positions. In fact, Republican Senators and the Governor have implied that no teachers should lose their jobs as a result of budget cuts since the “huge” increase in non-teachers–especially administrators–leaves plenty of non-teaching positions available to cut in order to solve the budget deficit perpetrated on districts by bad decision-making by the Governor and legislature back in 2006.
Let’s look at the REAL data. I know this is a novel idea for some people, but using the REAL data might lead to actual REAL policy solutions rather than those driven solely by ideology. As shown in Figure 1, the percentage