School District Spending on Professional Development: Insights Available from National Data (1992-1998).

This descriptive analysis provides new insights into the amount U.S. school districts spend on teacher professional development. A measure of professional development expenditures is analyzed using three panels of data from the U.S. Census Bureau. Findings reveal that districts devote approximately three percent of total general expenditures to professional development activities, which equates to approximately $200 per pupil. These findings were quite stable during the 1990’s and thus reflect a fairly flat trend in new investments in teacher training and quality enhancement. Findings are reported by state, school district size, and urbanicity. here T has been much recent discussion and debate about the appropriate level of investment that needs to be made in teacher professional development. The consensus in the literature has been that public schools invest at relatively modest levels compared with other sectors of the economy. For example, the National Commission on Teaching and America’s Future indicated that spending levKieran M. Killeen is an Assistant Professor in the College of Education and Social Services at the University of Vermont-Burlington. David H. Monk is Dean of the College of Education at Pennsylvania State University. Margaret L. Plecki is an Associate Professor in Educational Leadership and Policy Studies at the University of Washington-Seattle. An earlier version of this paper was presented at the Annual Conference of the American Education Finance Association in March 2000.