Too Many Teachers in Public Schools

"Since 1970, the public school workforce has roughly doubled — to 6.4 million from 3.3 million — and two-thirds of those new hires are teachers or teachers' aides," writes Andrew Coulson. "Over the same period, enrollment rose by a tepid 8.5%. Employment has thus grown 11 times faster than enrollment. If we returned to the student-to-staff ratio of 1970, American taxpayers would save about $210 billion annually in personnel costs."

Taxpayers were promised that hiring teachers to reduce class sizes would improve student achievement. Did it work?