Enrollment drops but Denver schools keep growing administration

By Cory Gaines | Commentary, Colorado Accountability Project

Denver Public Schools administrative bloat — with some interesting counterpoint

The Gazette article linked first below touches on a subject that I’ve written about multiple times. It’s administrative bloat in schools.

It seems as though DPS has gotten its ranks of administrators while at the same time enrollment has fallen. This pattern also seems to be playing out in school districts around the state. Quoting (with link intact) from the article:

“This finding [that DPS is beefing up administration while student numbers fall] mirrors a statewide trend identified in a report by the Common Sense Institute (CSI) that found Colorado school districts continued to grow their administrative staff despite declining student enrollment. In the past five years, districts across the state have added more than 250 administrators, a 13.1% increase, according to CSI. State data shows Colorado has lost more than 15,000 students over the same time period, prompting school closures, layoffs and budget cuts.”

This dynamic, the bloat, is concerning indeed. I don’t think it’s helping students, but it sure does soak up taxpayer money intended to help our students learn.

I want to approach this from another angle, however. It is vital that you challenge your assumptions and that you discipline yourself to (at least) review counterarguments to the beliefs you hold.

The image at the top of this post comes from a Substack piece I link to second below. The headline is “Critical Reasoning with AI: Administrative Bloat.”

Skipping directly to the meat of today’s post, I went into the newsletter and took pictures of the rebuttal against the idea that there is a causal relationship between administrative bloat and poor student performance. Those pictures are attached as screenshots 1a and 1b.

I have to admit, I think I found a few of these to be pretty persuasive. I am not at all swayed that student performance is in the toilet. It is. I am, however, beginning to wonder about the causes of administrative bloat; I am not so sure it’s entirely a choice by schools (in the sense that they’re avoiding hiring teachers to have more administrators to gossip with at the water cooler).

As we use more technology, as we pile mandates on schools, as mental health (in a broad category sense) becomes something we throw more money at, we need more non-teachers to do/manage those things.

I don’t know that I agree with all the policies, the mandates and the sudden interest in a buildup of a mental health apparatus, and/or the addition of every single technology I am aware of in education, but I am in agreement that these things require more administrators to do.

This is definitely a reminder for me to take a more nuanced look at studies about administrative bloat, and a closer look at mandates on schools with regard to what it does for school budgets (and where they can put what money they do bring in).

How about you? Did reading the counterpoint here change any of your views on the topic? Bring to mind any new perspectives? If so and you feel motivated to do so, please add to the comments.

**I don’t know the writer, haven’t read anything by him before, but one of the larger themes of what he is writing seems to be the use of AI in examining questions/critical thinking. As such he asks his AI engine to perform a Toulmin Analyis (see the third link below) on the question of administrative bloat. The wording he fed into AI is instructive so I quote it below:

“Do a Toulmin analysis of this chart as evidence that administrative bloat is the cause of supposedly declining educational quality, include rebuttals and follow it with a summary of the strength of the argument vs. the rebuttals.”

If you are a fan of using AI as a tool, this strikes me as a wonderful way to do it. You could copy the phrase above and simply change out the particular topic. May start doing this myself; a Toulmin analysis strikes me as a pretty fruitful paradigm. things.

https://www.denvergazette.com/2026/06/05/denver-schools-grow-back-administrative-ranks-despite-lower-enrollment/#google_vignette

https://mikecaulfield.substack.com/p/critical-reasoning-with-ai-administrative?utm_source=substack&utm_campaign=post_embed&utm_medium=web

https://owl.purdue.edu/owl/general_writing/academic_writing/historical_perspectives_on_argumentation/toulmin_argument.html

READ THE FULL COMMENTARY AT COLORADO ACCOUNTABILITY PROJECT

Editor’s note: Opinions expressed in commentary pieces are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the management of the Rocky Mountain Voice, but even so we support the constitutional right of the author to express those opinions.