Understanding the Twentieth-Century Growth in U.S. School Spending

Persistent increases in spending on elementary and secondary schools have gone virtually undocumented. Real expenditure per student increased 3½ percent per year over the period 1890-1990. Decomposition of the spending growth shows that it resulted from a combination of falling pupil-staff ratios, increasing real wages to teachers, and rising expenditure outside of the classroom. Although the expansion of education for the handicapped has had a disproportionate effect on spending, most of the growth in expenditure during the 1980s came from other sources. Significant teacher salary increases, particularly for females, have failed to keep up with wages in other occupations.