Any truth to this chart?

[joeglow3]

Our state (Nebraska) released their reading scores by school and they blew. People are discussing this and someone posted this chart in response to someone mentioning more teachers:



On the surface, this is startling, but then notice that there is no citation. As I am not an expert in this area, I was hoping someone here could confirm this chart or provide an accurate one.

Thanks

[FBaggins]

1. Depends on what you mean by "truth"

The reality that the chart attempts to depict is untrue (that we have many more teachers and nothing to show for it) is not true.

[SheilaT]

2. Aside from no citation or sourcing

of the information, the line about teachers per 100 pupils isn't clearly defined. I wonder if they're simply counting all those who have graduated with a teaching degree, or maybe all those who have been hired since 1971 without bothering to subtract those who have retired or otherwise left classroom teaching.

In many school districts there are teachers who aren't teaching in the classroom, and sometimes they still get counted in the per pupil numbers. Heck if you actually count the specials teachers (PE, art, music, whatever) in a given elementary school, it will look like the teacher/pupil ratio is better than it is. Those specialists make no difference the the classroom size. It's how many kids each classroom teacher has all day (all of the day the kids aren't off in the special stuff) that really matters.

[mzteris]

3. can you provide the link

for the graphic or report from whence it came?

[Hannah Bell]

4. what that chart means is that if there were 3 teachers/100 students in 1971, there are

now 4.5 or 22.2 students per teacher v. 33.3.

i fail to see the shock factor considering the entry of large numbers of disabled & ell students into the mix.