We just released our new report, Missouri’s 21st Century Public School Personnel Boom, at showmeinstitute.org. The report documents how the growth of Missouri’s teaching and administrative staff has greatly outpaced growth in student enrollment since the year 2000. In fact, student enrollment has declined slightly (-4 percent), while Missouri schools have added significantly more teachers (+13 percent) and more administrators (+35 percent).
The growth in administrators is especially pronounced. And a recurring question has come up since we released the report: Is the administrator boom attributable to the rise of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs in public schools?
While it is possible that DEI initiatives account for some of the growth in administrators, most of it appears to be unrelated. How do we know? Because the administrator growth trend was well underway before DEI became widespread in public schools. DEI initiatives largely emerged as a distinct institutional framework in the mid- to late 2010s, but administrative staffing in Missouri schools had been increasing fairly consistently since at least 2000. From 2000 to 2015, prior to DEI becoming widespread, administrator positions grew by about 15 percent against flat student enrollment.
Could DEI have contributed to the more recent growth in school administrators? Perhaps. The growth rate has accelerated since 2015, which roughly coincides with the rise of DEI. But we do not have clear evidence establishing a connection between the two, and other factors could be responsible. For example, aside from the short-lived COVID recession, the economy has generally been strong over this period. When the economy booms and tax coffers are flush, we tend to spend more on everything, including schools.
Put differently, it is not obvious that there would be fewer administrators today if DEI had never taken hold in public schools. Schools may simply have found other initiatives or priorities to justify expanding their administrative staff, with the same underlying result.
Our report is meant to be informational. It documents what has happened: Missouri schools have added substantial numbers of teachers and administrators even as student enrollment has declined. But it does not tell us why this has happened. We hope the report spurs further inquiry into the reasons behind Missouri’s public school personnel boom.
