By: Ted Dabrowski and John Klingner
Illinois education officials continuously claim there’s a teacher shortage across the state. The state board of education’s most recent “Educator Shortage Report” says “4,096 teaching positions, 1,095 school support personnel, 162 administrator positions and 2,755 paraprofessional positions” remain unfilled. It also says “91% of school leaders indicated a minor, serious or very serious problem with teacher shortages.”
Yet data from the state’s own Illinois Report Card shows that hiring at schools has been booming over the last 25 years, especially when you consider that student enrollment has been shrinking at the same time.
A Wirepoints analysis of public school data shows staffing statewide of teachers, other certified staff and administrators has jumped by 75,000 – up 55% – since 1998.* Teachers are up by 18,000. Other Certified Staff, among them special ed, bilingual instructors and reading specialists, has jumped by 54,000. And the number of administrators is up by more than 5,000, or 70%.
All that growth has happened despite the fact that enrollment at public schools across the state has fallen by nearly 100,000 during that 25-year period.
Certainly, some districts may be suffering a general staff shortage or problems with specific positions, like in ESL or Special Ed. And small, rural districts may struggle to find educators in more specialized subjects. But the simple fact is that Illinois has far more educators and far fewer students today than it did 25 years ago.
Students per staff details
Students per teacher
The net effect of Illinois’ education hiring and student shrinkage is that there are now far fewer students for every teacher in Illinois compared to 25 years ago. Today there are just 13.8 students for every teacher vs. 16.7 in 1998, an improvement of 18%.
Students per other certified staff
Other Certified Educational Staff – which excludes teachers – experienced the largest hiring boom among educators, by far. Today there are just 26 students for every non-teacher staff vs. 144 in 1998, an improvement of 77%.
Combine teachers with other staff and it turns out classroom personnel have improved to 9.0 students per staff member, down from 14.6 in 1998, an overall improvement of 38%.
Students per administrator
Fewer students per educator is a good thing, everything else equal. But fewer students per administrator is a bad thing. It reflects an increase in bureaucratic bloat that Illinoisans end up paying for, in part, via the nation’s highest property taxes.
More than 5,400 administrators were hired between 1998 and 2003, a 70% increase. That has lowered the number of students per administrator to just 141, down from 251 in 1998. Necessary or not, each new bureaucrat has consumed resources that could have been spent in the classroom.
Per student across Illinois
Wirepoints broke out regional enrollment and staffing numbers and found the education hiring boom and enrollment declines since 1998 were largely consistent across the state. Student per staff ratios have collapsed no matter if you look at Chicago, the rest of Cook County, the Collar counties or downstate.
The cost of staffing
The increase in education staffing has come at a significant cost to Illinois taxpayers, as employee wages and benefits make up about 80% of Illinois’ education costs. Those costs are largely paid for by local property taxes, which, for Illinoisans, are the nation’s highest.
Illinois now spends all-in about $45 billion a year on education, or $24,000 per student. In 1998, it was just $14 billion a year, or about $7,200 per student. That increase in per student spending is about 2.5 times the rate of inflation over the 25-year period.
Fix priorities, spend less
Illinois House Speaker Chris Welch recently announced the formation of a Teacher Shortage Working Group to “address the issue of vacancies in Illinois schools and exploring ways to recruit and retain qualified educators.”
Their conclusion will inevitably call for higher salaries, more teacher-training programs in Higher Ed, and more resources for Illinois’ education system overall.
But a lack of resources is not the problem.
The real problem, rather than a teacher shortage, is the misallocation of education funding in Illinois. Wirepoints wrote about that in our Special Report: Administrators over Kids. Billions are spent on bureaucratic bloat, duplicative school districts, and expensive pensions and benefits rather than the classroom.
*Wirepoints used 1998 as its year of comparison because it was the first year the Illinois State Board of Education began publishing the student-certified staff ratio in the Illinois Report Card.
Appendix
Read more from Wirepoints:
- Chicago mayor wants $1 billion more for schools even though 43% of CPS teachers are chronically absent
- Chicago needs more champions of literacy like Willie Wilson
- Illinois education officials keep trying to hide their failures behind excuse of “higher test standards”
- Illinois lawmakers’ killing of school choice looking more absurd as Alabama, Tennessee, Texas set up choice expansions
- Illinois per student spending jumps to nearly $24K, CPS at nearly $30K.
- Poor student achievement and near-zero accountability: An indictment of Illinois’ public education system
Audio and summary 
If this bill passes, say goodbye to local control over all Illinois parks and expect to see open drug and alcohol use, needles, no sanitation and fire hazards, but no ordinary park users.
For all the people commenting on here about how teachers are overpaid: go get your paraprofessional license and work in a school yourselves. Unfortunately for teachers, you raised kids that don’t want to take responsibility for raising their kids and think the school system is responsible for imparting morals and structure. If anything goes wrong, it’s the teacher’s fault. Also look up danielson metrics for teacher evaluation. These districts are telling teachers they have to go to community events and can’t use their sick days because both of those things will affect their employment. Raise your kids and grandkids right… Read more »
I’ll tell you what most are told constantly in the private sector – you do not like it here, please leave. I do think public schools in IL in many cases are daycare centers. The poor achievement results reflect that. I had a guidance counselor in HS quit like at 40 and he took a rural mail carrier job. I saw him a few years after and asked how the career change went and he said Great! He said his mail carrier job was much more meaningful work.
One of the main reasons for instituting mandatory public education over a century ago was to make sure that civic and cultural values were passed on to next generations. The reasoning was that this most important societal task could not be left to parents alone. Only government managed schools staffed with professional teachers could make sure children grew up to be productive citizens. Public education has been diligently promoting civic and cultural “values” ever since. The problem is that the education establishment started to promote and instill progressive values, not the traditional American values of the majority. You are correct,… Read more »
When I see voters of Illinois and Chicago defeat the current leaders, I will finally believe that the public wants something different. Until then, the people of Illinois seem to be completely happy with the outcome and voters such as yourself are getting exactly what they want.
Sure, it’s that easy! Easy Peasy! Just vote new people in! Piece of cake!
Democrat Party: HOLD MY BEER
But that’s PPF’s circular argument he always makes. The people elected Democrats, so that Democrats could rig the rules to ensure nearly forever Democrat power, because that’s what the people voted for, to always have Democrats.
It’s not circular logic one bit. Those voters on your color coded maps aren’t required to vote blue. Nothing is stopping those voters from choosing a different candidate. The majority of the state votes for Democrats because they want to choose. Whine and complain about gerrymandering until the end of your time, none of that is causing people at a state level from rejecting Republicans. If Republicans want to win in Illinois they will need to offer up a product that causes voters to choose differently. They will need to campaign and convince the voters they are the better choice.… Read more »
Is it possible to stick your head any further into the ground? Most of these races are uncontested, because of the way the districts are drawn, there’s simply no way a candidate from any other political party can win. And the Democrat machine does its best to prevent any primary challengers too. These races which are controlled by the Democrat Party have one candidate, pre-chosen by the party (often put into office by the Party itself after the retirement of the previous candidate) and then don’t allow any primary challengers. You’re being willfully naive if you don’t understand the process… Read more »
Remember the last major upset when Melissa Bean was tossed out of office during the tea party era, cause the red leaning McHenry County voters were ticked off at having a Democrat Represenative in DC? They elected Joe Walsh…
They could never let that happen again! So they redrew Walsh out of a district! And now they cram Republican McHenry County into a blue district and boo-hoo, they don’t get a Republican to represent them in
DC.
The Springfield politicians freely admit they do this. I don’t know if you’re being obtuse or trolling, but it’s so ridiculous.
debtsor 5/15/2024
They are just taking a page out of your playbook. Don’t get mad and whine like a little girl when they are just BETTER than you.
Also, these maps don’t impact statewide races one bit. Regardless of your carved up district, democrats ran the table statewide.
Sorry, but responsible parents want the schools to educate their children, and not go off onto a seemingly government mandated track of CRT/ Gender Bending/ Social Justice etc. nonsense. As for those parents that see school as daycare, they should be addressed separately and quit burdening the schools at the expense of kids that are there to learn.
Education is so far left learning they’ve scared away conservatives, half the population that would make good teachers. But conservatives don’t become teachers, because they’re forced to teach gender bending nonsense, and share school hallways with AWFLs. That’s half the problem here an no one wants to address the problem.
That “gender nonsense” you continually denigrate is surely much stronger in the elementary school settings. Once students start high school they start to encounter teachers who have deeper, subject matter specialties and are far more likely to concentrate on that in their classrooms except where such specialties are dealing with such social programs such as history, “civics”, government, etc. I doubt, for example, that science, tech and math teachers spend much thought or time in the liberal topics you denigrate. No, chances are they spend time in teaching the skills they were taught rather than trying to become social crusaders.… Read more »
Who here said teachers were overpaid? Yes, parents are a huge problem, no doubt. However, how about teachers taking a stand and pushing back against their radical union leadership that pushes and supports things that have nothing to do with classroom education? Based on test scores, they aren’t learning. How about teachers pushing back against their union leadeship’s support for the politicians that write laws for unfunded mandates? This article was NOT about teachers being overpaid. It was about throwing more money down a bottomless black hole by increasing staffing levels both in the classroom and administration yet student achievement… Read more »
U teachers shoulder absolutely zero. Go figure.
You don’t have to be a good teacher. You just have to be ultra liberal in Illinois
Unless I am mistaken class sizes are usually determined during contract negotiations. Perhaps larger class sizes would be determined if the voters demanded it on school board election day. Other than that prepare to pay more taxes…it really isn’t hard to understand.
Maybe school boards shouldn’t be comprised of business owners. Maybe they should be made up of teachers who have taught in classrooms
LOL what a disaster. Let’s put the wolves in charge of the hen house!
District administrators (i.e. superintendents) sit alongside the board of education and do far more damage to teachers than if teachers with lived-experiences ran the board. We would see better outcomes for our students for sure.
LOL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! There would be no accountability at all.
Maybe as some commenters have stated, this isn’t a simple issue. With all the various stakeholders that’s likely true. No matter what, Wirepoints is absolutely correct in presenting the information. This is a critical problem that warrants a high level of attention by the appropriate parties. One thing for certain, we should not have a shrinking student base, an increasing staff base, terrible performance results and an inattentive and ineffective legislature. And before anyone says it, the voters don’t want this. Many probably don’t even know it, and for that we can thank a complicit media.
Too many parents are disengaged from the running of school districts by lack of participation in their local board of education proceedings and business. Taxpayers cannot just “vote” and walk away and wash their hands of the situation. They must stay actively engaged and active to improve their district performance!
There’s nothing wrong with education in Illinois that a few thousand nuns couldn’t fix.
So… we have more teachers and fewer students and the teachers want more pay because they don’t have enough teachers. And, of course, the students continue to learn less. What a system!
I have been saying the same as you and keep getting thumbs down…….hopefully you said it better…….you are so correct!!
Taxpayers have been paying for a platinum public education, and getting scrap iron results. Now we know why. Public schools must be consolidated and leaned out – way out.
Why do you think consolidating schools will result in efficiencies? Are the largest districts the most efficient?
On a state wide basis we look at averages, and from the WP data it is very obvious consolidations and leaning out are much needed.
“and they’re off!” “‘Round and ’round she goes. Where she stops nobody knows.” Just a few thoughts re the everyman-knows-best shiny-object frenzy-ridden thread of the moment.
I trust the everyman more than I trust educators. I’m seeing the results of educators, and it ain’t good.
The traffic on this discussion has slowed lately. I guess most of the quick-solutions gas-bag crowd has gone on to solve life’s other problems already. I am relieved to feel so much smarter now.
Mental disordered liberals would have to get smarter just to be stupid.
So ‘right-sizing’ would require a average student/ teacher ratio of 25, not 13.8. That is a +50% cost savings in teacher cost right there. Likewise across the other staff categories.
Think WP has clearly ID’ed the problem – sandbagging.
Jack, my 1st grade class at a Catholic school in the early 60s had 1 nun for 50 kids! Yes, you read that right and she literally worked for food and board and not much more. She never went on strike or had a maternity leave either!
I’ve heard many say back in the day Catholic grade schools would have over 30 kids per room – yet they got the job done, and done well.
Almost fifty in my early grades in Catholic school.
There were 50 kids to a class in private schools back then because CPS and the CTU was terrible back then too. The only change in 50 years is that things have gotten worse.
Spot on Debtsor. The worst thing that could happen to you at a Catholic school was to be expelled. Then you’d have no choice but to attend a public school which was thought a fate worse than death.
When my Catholic school closed in 8th grade and I had to attend a public school is when my old school beliefs began to take shape.
My grandmother moved from the city to the suburbs because, well, as everyone knows, CPS public schools sucked back then too.
No institution has done more with less than the Catholic School System. They actually save taxpayers as a whole, money.
Spot on Tom. I could read and write when I got out and didn’t waste any time on active shooting drills either!
Oops, I forgot we never had snow days because the convent was right next door to the school!
Fantastic, and the supposed shortage in teachers state claims is rational to fix TIER 2 pensions beyond “safe-harbor” requirements. There’s no shortages in education, law enforcement, streets & san, etc just crazy guaranteed contracts with endless ways to not be in the classroom, not be on the beat, etc. And crazy 7,000 units of gov (+600 school districts)
Can you throw in a chart that reflects parental involvement and responsibility?
Long time residents need to stop reflecting on the past and see Chicago for what it really is now. The city is nothing more than a place of evil next to a big lake. Children are used as an excuse for greed. Truely good people are compelled to leave because they can’t stomach it. What will you do?
I’m a school superintendent and extremely conservative, and I hate taxes. I also hate government waste. While your facts may be accurate your assessment of the problems are incorrect. Blaming schools and administrators for waste isn’t the issue. Perhaps you need to discuss these issues with people that actually do the job. I’d even suggest you talk to the IASA director, Brent Clark. The issue is schools respond to all the mandates that the legislature continues to put in place that are unfunded. We’re required to teach so many things now that were never required 30-40 years ago. In my… Read more »
Thanks for sharing Jon. Always nice to hear from people on the front line who know what’s going on versus those that just want to assign blame based on their own bias.
How about consolidating some of the crazy +600 school districts and sharing some of those administrative costs/requirements. How big is the school district where you are superintendent?
Thanks for pointing out the source of many of the problems. Rethinking those progressive ideas that the education monolith has pushed for decades? No, of course not. Still like the ideas. Just don’t like the inevitable results.
Jon, great to have a superintendent comment. As part of the argument over teacher shortage, WP has recently done a # of articles on CPS teacher chronic absenteeism. As a Chicagoan, I have tried to find data on: what’s CPS spends on substitute teachers, average # of days teachers are in classroom (out of 176), average # of days or % of day kids are stuck with substitutes instead of CPS teachers. and have found that this information is mysteriously not available. Why the secrecy? So, what about the district or school where you are superintendent—what’s the budget for substitutes?,… Read more »
Jon, we could not agree more. Actually, we’ve earlier written often and strongly on those underlying causes, especially the state mandates, though we did not include them all here. One exception is the discipline problem, which we want to write about, but haven’t. We know it’s severe but it does not lend itself to empirical measurement. Anecdotally, we have heard the horror stories often (we do talk to educators in the trenches). Any suggestions you have on how to document the problem persuasively are welcome. We really appreciate comments from folks in positions like yours.
I’d feel more sympathy, and I’d be more likely to believe them, if they mostly weren’t lying, thieving Democrats. Other than an anonymous poster here, the education complex is entirely Democrats, and everything they say must be taken with a grain of salt.
I’m glad to hear you’re conservative but you are a rare species in education. The superintendent in my district uses he/him pronouns and the former superintendent authorized not one, but two, “hate has no home here” banners across the ediface of the local high school with the transflag, BLM and two dudes holding hands. It’s been four years now, and most of that crap has disappeared in normal society, but education refuses to let go.
Hi, Jon Public. Can you please email me at ted@wirepoints.org? Would love to hear your points in greater detail. Thanks.
I wholeheartedly agree with you. I’m seeing the mandates coming one after another and cannot believe what’s being done to our teachers. I too am conservative and CTU frustrates me as much as anyone else. In my high-ranking suburban district, the teachers are demoralized, and parents are furious with what is going on right now. BTW, our district has tripled the number of administrators in the last 12 years. There are more administrators than teachers!
I am conservative, hate excess taxes, am financially responsible both personally and professionally and work in school finance. That being said, schools and administrators are to blame because they do not push back against the unfunded mandates. I agree with you that unfunded mandates are part of the problem but they are not the only problem. Adding one more support person in your district is not the problem. One of the bigger problems is having to hire more teachers because you acquiesce to the unions in negotiations for unreasonably smaller class sizes. With that, as you well know, are costs… Read more »
Queue up the “it’s what the voters want!” brigade.
Here’s an old article from John Stossel. What has changed since this was first aired?
https://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/political_commentary/commentary_by_john_stossel/the_blob_that_ate_children
https://www.creators.com/read/john-stossel/07/12/the-education-blob