Posted on 11/24/2014 1:14:45 PM PST by MichCapCon
In late September, State Superintendent Mike Flanagan said in a press release that there was a “dramatic teacher shortage” causing large classroom sizes in Detroit Public Schools. Flanagan called on businesses, career professionals and the state Legislature to help.
A review of the number of teachers relative to the student enrollment in DPS, however, doesn’t paint a picture of a teacher shortage.
Detroit Public Schools has one classroom teacher for every 16.65 students, a ratio that is a little higher than the state average but lower than higher performing school districts.
Teacher-to-student ratios are not the same as class sizes, but it does shed light on the resources a school has to address staffing of classrooms.
In 2014-15, Detroit Public Schools has 2,836 classroom teachers and 47,238 students, or one teacher for every 16.65 students, according to documents received in a Freedom of Information Act request that were also verified by DPS spokesman Steven Wasko.
In 2013-14, DPS had 3,088 teachers and 49,870 students. Although the district shed 255 teachers since last school year, it also lost 2,632 students. The state average is one teacher for every 15.57 students.
That DPS teacher-to-student ratio is lower than Chandler Park Academy in Harper Woods, which had one teacher for every 19.8 students and Knapp Charter Academy in Grand Rapids, which had one teacher for every 18.3 students in 2013-14. Those two charters public schools are among the best performing schools in the state, according to the MDE’s own Top-To-Bottom rankings.
Other large districts in the state have larger ratios than DPS. Utica Community Schools has one teacher for every 19.1 students and Warren Consolidated Schools had one teacher for every 17.2 students in 2013-14.
“There are quality charter schools in the Detroit area with higher student-to-teacher ratios that are growing and posting better academic results,” said Audrey Spalding, education policy director at the Mackinac Center for Public Policy. “The number of teachers per student is less important than whether the district is managed effectively.”
The MDE press release also stated, “Flanagan was responding to a media story over the weekend that reported Detroit Public Schools (DPS) having over 100 teacher vacancies that are resulting in classroom sizes of up to 45-50 students.”
The Michigan Department of Education did not respond to a request for comment.
You can't improve the prospects of young people when they, and you, work in a place where you're afraid for your life.
Let’s try “State Superintendent Claims Detroit Public Schools HAVE A Dramatic Teacher Shortage”
The author of that article has a dramatic grammar check shortage...
Detroit Public Schools has 2,836 classroom teachers and 47,238 students, or one teacher for every 16.65 students,
A good teacher could teach in a barn with shared books. Most of our great grandparents didn’t get much more than that and they generally got better educations than we did.
I remember well the days in Catholic grade school we would have one teacher, all day, for 35-38 kids....no hot lunch, no permanent librarian, no counselors, no cops, and the mothers took turns watching the school yard at recess....you could BUY milk though...with chocolate milk a few cents more expensive so of course, our mother wouldn’t let us get it...
nope....you need some "Kotter's".....people willingly going back to the old neighborhoods and really taking an interest in the kids...
a teacher to be qualified needs to consider it a vocation, just like the old days, when nursing and teaching were called vocations...every good Catholic school girl was encouraged to go into these vocations, if not into the nunnery .
You are so right-my grandmother had the 6th grade level schoolbooks her mother learned from in the late 19th century, and she gave them to me-they are a treasured possession. Many of the English grammar lessons and the math problems were not covered in my classes until 8-9th grade-and I went to private school...
You could get rid of 90% of all School Administrative personnel and not miss a beat. It’s one of the last bastions of featherbedding.
Well back “in the old days” even in the rougher neighborhoods generally a teacher didn’t have to worry about getting shot.
We had smaller classes-maybe 23-25 kids, but it was a rural area Catholic school, so not many kids around anyway. No cafeteria, just the milk for about 15 cents a carton, and a lunchroom to eat the homemade lunch we brought, and the nuns took turns doing recess duty. And we turned out okay...
Not enough drama teachers in Detroit? Things must be getting pretty bad I guess.
They wouldn’t have to worry about it now if teachers were still allowed to keep order in classrooms and on all school property without parents and liberal administrators howling about it...
How many Detroit public school students who are not in charter schools are not special needs kids? Massively more staffing resources go into teaching them than “nonspecial” children.
We usually had around 30-33 in a classroom...and even though I was a young tyke, I remember the teachers complaining about large classroom sizes.
Now its nearly been cut in half, education isn’t any better, and teachers are still complaining about class sizes.
And then the libs got really involved.
Detroit Public Schools has one classroom teacher for every 16.65 students,
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50 years ago my one classroom teacher had 3X that of us students...we fluctuated 50-55 over the years..
and we all learnt to read...and write...and cipher..
Golly gosh how can that be ???
It is obvious that every school system has a shortage of good teachers.
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