School staffing and students

Trends for the nation and each state in teachers, administrators, and students, presented in an interactive visualization.

Each year states report data to the National Center for Education Statistics. While NCES provides methods for extracting data, it isn’t an easy process, and opportunities to produce charts are limited. Here I present trends in teachers, administrators, and students for each state from 1998 to the school year ending in summer 2014, the most recent year of data that is available.

For each state, the charts show the growth in teachers, administrators, and students. For both teachers and students, the value used is full-time equivalency. A table also shows pupil/teacher ratio and pupil/administrator ratio.

There are some obvious mistakes in the data. An example is the number of administrators reported for Kansas for years 2007 through 2009. Figures obtained directly from Kansas State Department of Education show no sudden drop and increase in the count of administrators. Nonetheless, I have presented the data as retrieved from NCES.

For the nation as a whole, the count of students has increased 8.5 percent since 1998. The count of teachers (full-time equivalent) rose by 13.4 percent, and the number of administrators by 19.4 percent. Individual states vary widely, with many having increased administrators at a far faster pace than either students or teachers. Some states, however, have reduced the number of administrators, or the rate has grown slower than students and teachers.

Click here to open and use the visualization.

Data is from the Elementary/Secondary Information System (ElSi) at National Center for Education Statistics, part of the U.S. Department of Education and the Institute of Education Sciences. The number of administrators is calculated as the sum of “LEA Administrators” and “LEA Administrative Support Staff.” LEA Administrators is defined by NCES as “The count of Local education agency superintendents, deputy and assistant superintendents, and other persons with district-wide responsibilities such as business managers and administrative assistants. Excludes supervisors of instructional or student support staff.” LEA Administrative Support Staff is defined as “The count of Staff members who provide direct support to LEA administrators, including secretarial and other clerical staff.”