Enrollment, Teachers, and Teacher-Pupil Ratios
- Student Enrollment and Teacher Availability
As the number of Black students increased, the need for more teachers also increased. Black schools faced an increased need for more Black teachers in the 1950s. However, this growth remained stagnant until two years after Brown v. Board of Education. Unfortunately, there was another issue: as Black teachers increased by a few hundred, students increased by the thousands each year. The rising concern was that there would not be enough teachers to accommodate the students enrolling in school. Conversely, white student enrollment fluctuated in the early years before and after Brown, whereas the number of white public school teachers remained the same during the remaining years of segregation in New Orleans.
2. What Changed After Integration?
The number of students continued to increase into the late 1960s, four years after the Orleans Parish School Board fully integrated New Orleans public schools. Public schools were predominantly Black at this point. In the 1970s, the number of enrolled students in integrated schools decreased due to more white students transitioning to other schools. Enrollment declined slightly among Black students as well.
3. Expectation v. Reality: Teacher-Pupil Ratios
Despite New Orleans’s increase in Black student enrollment, the city did not see the same increase in the number of teachers. The increased Black population in public schools was predominantly at the elementary level. Black student enrollment in high school dropped after 1953. As a result, public Black elementary schools saw the most imbalance in student-to-teacher ratios.
At the minimum, the ideal size for an average classroom where a teacher can fully attend to each student is a ratio between 1:20, one teacher per twenty students. The ratio of 1:15 is more favorable but unrealistic based on the number of students and teachers available in mid-nineteenth-century New Orleans. Black and white elementary schools saw ratios that did not meet the minimum ideal, but Black schools consistently had higher numbers of students per teacher in a classroom. As a result, it was likely difficult for these teachers to provide substantial attention to each of the growing numbers of their students. Black high schools also did not reach this ideal in the early 1950s. Alongside white high schools, Black public high schools saw significant drops in student enrollment, which made for the average of one teacher to fifteen students per classroom. These ratios allowed teachers to dedicate ample time to students; however, many Black students did not receive an education beyond elementary school.
To compare the data, click on the tabs labeled “Elementary” and “High School” at the top of the graph.
4. Did Integration Help Ratios?
Despite New Orleans fully integrating public schools, the teacher-pupil ratio decreased slightly. At the elementary level, student enrollment continued to surpass available hired teachers, which didn’t allow for the minimum ideal ratio of 1:20 to be met. While high schools did see a ratio of 1:15, which would allow teachers even more time to dedicate to students, this ratio only benefited students who reached this level. So, while high school ratios were ideal and would have technically benefited Black high school students, a larger number of Black students did not reach that level of education. Integration also offered no solution for the overcrowding of elementary school classrooms.