Shrinking Share of Money Going to Students
While spending in the Bay Area’s 10 largest school districts has generally grown over the last seven years, a shrinking proportion has gone directly to the classroom. School districts across California have faced the difficult task of balancing classroom spending with ballooning costs for facilities maintenance, technology, pensions, retiree benefits and utility bills, among other needs. Half of the Bay Area’s 10 largest school districts spent less than the statewide average of 62 percent of their general funds on direct classroom instruction in the 2009-10 school year, according to the most recent figures available from Ed-Data, a data consortium overseen by the California Department of Education and other agencies. Those districts include the San Francisco Unified School District,[...]