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State Report Card
Instruction by Category and Instructional Support
WHAT YOU ARE LOOKING AT These charts remove two large categories, Operations
and Leadership, in order to assess the costs directly related to
supporting the child, the teacher, or the classroom. These charts
include an aggregate of all five Instruction subcategories –
classroom teachers, substitute teachers, paraprofessionals, classroom
technology, and classroom materials – and Instructional Support
– which includes pupil support (guidance, library, extracurricular,
and student health), teacher support (curriculum development, professional
development, etc.), and program support (psychologist, personal
attendants, social workers, et al.). The per-pupil expenditure includes
all students, in general education as well as programs targeted
to specific populations such as English-language learners and Special
Education. These charts do not represent 100% of the total per-pupil
expenditure, but graphically show the actual cost of each of the
above subcategories. The charts are re-sorted once again, high to
low, by per-pupil expenditure, for Instruction and Instructional
Support. WHAT YOU ARE LOOKING FOR You are looking to get a comparative sense of the state’s investment, specifically in teaching and learning, in the child, the teacher, and the classroom. Bear in mind that district educational decisions such as class size, the presence of teacher aides, reading specialists, the specific needs of their students, and so on will affect these numbers. More questions than answers These charts are not answers or proofs, but merely lenses that offer us fresh perspectives. Since we have no standards or ideal expenditures, the charts raise some questions that should not go unanswered at the state level. Questions such as: Why do certain districts have such high costs for substitute teachers? The way In$ite works is to allocate the money spent on substitutes hired to cover a teacher engaged in professional development to the Instructional Support subcategory of professional development. Those substitutes, then, are not included in the Instruction category. The substitute-teacher costs represented in the Instruction and Instructional Support charts apply only to absences due to illness, personal days, and the like.
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