The Dallas Independent School District has just posted to its Web site a report titled Staffing Levels in the Dallas Independent School District Report, which was compiled on the school board's behalf by the Council of the Great City Schools. The board wondered, quite simply, Is the district overstaffed? The council responded with a 43-page doc full of charts and graphs, but the conclusion on Page 28 offers the answer to that question:
It does not appear that the Dallas Independent School District is over-staffed. The school district was generally within the range of staffing levels of other similar urban school systems across the country. The Dallas school system reflected the median on most staffing indicators examined when it was compared to other Great City Schools, to school systems nationally enrolling 50,000 or more students, and to Texas school systems enrolling at least 15,000 students (the "comparison groups"). In fact, Dallas was more likely to predict the median on most staffing categories than most other school systems examined.That said, the report does offer some ammunition to those who've long insisted the district's top-heavy with pencil-pushers:
The Dallas school system appeared to have somewhat more district administrative staff than one would expect of a school system of its enrollment, compared with other Great City School systems and school systems nationally enrolling over 50,000 students. But, it was comparable to other Texas districts.
