Breaking Down School Budgets: Following the dollars into the classroom

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Education Next
June 2009
Marguerite Roza

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Education Next, Vol. 9, No. 3

SUMMER 2009

How much does it cost to provide a high school math course? What about remedial English? An Advanced Placement (AP) course in history? As the economic outlook continues to darken, school districts will be looking for ways to cut costs, and they will no doubt wrestle with some difficult issues. When does it make sense to keep classes small? When does it make sense to increase class sizes to cut costs? Such debates are often carried out in the absence of information about what actually happens in schools or what the options might be for reallocating scarce resources.

Computing spending patterns is not difficult. Per-pupil service expenditures can easily be determined at the classroom level. This analysis computes and reports spending on various services for high schools in three anonymous districts. The findings reveal the ways in which per-pupil spending varies by subject and course level.

While the findings are not intended to be suggestive of all districts in the country, the work does demonstrate how such fiscal metrics can reveal the financial implications of the inner workings of individual high schools. How much does a high school pay to offer electives, and how does that compare to what is spent on core subject courses? What are the cost implications of decisions regarding the structure of the school schedule, which courses to offer, and who teaches what course?

The findings presented in this article demonstrate how isolating spending on discrete services can 1) identify the relationships between priorities, current spending, and outcomes; 2) clarify both relative spending on discrete services and the organizational practices that influence how resources are deployed; and 3) establish the current cost of providing high school services as a necessary precursor to identifying whether there are better ways to provide some services.

Funding for this work was provided by The Broad Foundations.