Instruction by Category and Instructional Support

View/download the following Instruction charts:

• Per-Pupil Instruction and Instructional Support Expenditures by District (25 KB)
• High Schools (22 KB)
• Middle Schools (25 KB)

WHAT YOU ARE LOOKING AT

This chart removes two large categories, Operations and Leadership, in order to assess the costs directly related to supporting the child, the teacher, or the classroom.

This chart includes 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 Students with Disabilities. This chart does not represent 100% of the total per-pupil expenditure, but graphically shows the actual cost of each of the above subcategories. The chart is 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$ite works is to allocate the money spent on substitutes hired to cover a teacher engaged in professional development to the Instructional Support subcategory of professional development. Those substitutes, then, are not included in the Instruction category. The substitute-teacher costs represented in the In$ite Instruction and Instructional Support charts apply only to absences due to illness, personal days, and the like.