Be Skeptical When Media Stories Of Teacher Shortages Contain No Numbers
So-called shortage at a Waterford high school is actually a big increase in teacher-student ratio
A WXYZ-TV story from Nov. 15 told of a school staffing shortage that caused the Waterford district’s Mott High School in Oakland County to shut down.
Waterford sent a notification to parents that the school was closed due to a staffing shortage caused by illness, according to WXYZ.
Media outlets across the state have reported about teacher shortages for several years. Very few report on the number of teachers.
For example, WXYZ-TV wrote in a Feb. 10 story, “A teacher shortage in Michigan is getting worse, as more educators are retiring mid-year and fewer people are entering the profession, per the Michigan Education Association.”
Michigan Capitol Confidential has obtained teacher numbers from the state and the employers, filing Freedom of Information Act requests with many school districts, asking for the number of teachers working at each.
The number of teachers at the Waterford School District increased significantly between the 2017-18 and 2021-22 school years, even as the number of students was falling. In 2017-18, the district employed 347 teachers, with enrollment of 9,045, or 26.0 students per instructor. By 2021-22, the number of teachers had grown to 426, a 23% increase over four years. The number of students had fallen to 7,571 (a 16% drop), and the number of students per teacher was down to 17.7.
This year, the district has one more teacher (going from 425 to 426) than it did in 2020-21, despite media reports of a teacher shortage caused by early retirements
State enrollment data for 2021-22 has not been released yet.
Michigan Capitol Confidential is the news source produced by the Mackinac Center for Public Policy. Michigan Capitol Confidential reports with a free-market news perspective.