Hillsdale College president Larry Arnn brings to our attention these startling facts (and chart) about K-12 public education:
If you want to see the problem with American education, look at a chart illustrating the comparative growth in the number of students, teachers, and district administrators in our public schools in the period between 2000 and 2019. (See the chart below.) The number of district administrators grew by a whopping 87.6 percent during these years, far outstripping the growth in the number of students (7.6 percent) and teachers (8.7 percent).
These numbers, however, do not really get at how deep the rot in education runs. Arnn again:
The fiction is that these bureaucrats are highly trained, dispassionate, nonpartisan, and professional, and that therefore they can do a better job, of almost anything, than somebody outside the system can do. They proceed by rules that over time have become ever more hopelessly complex. Only they can read these rules—and, for the most part, they read them as they please.
Almost 40 years ago Bill Bennett referred to the public education establishment as “The Blob.” Today it is worse than a blob: it is a monster.
