Session Law 2013-360 (Section 8.14) requires N.C. Department of Public Instruction to produce an annual expenditure report for the state’s public schools. Today, N.C. DPI released the report for the 2015-16 school year.
Total state spending on K-12 schools increased by 5.8 percent between 2014 and 2016 but only 1.2 percent between 2015 and 2016. Salaries and benefits accounted for around 95 percent of all state expenditures on public schools. As such, no other type of expenditure does as much to establish the overall trajectory of education spending as salaries and benefits.
Neither the N.C. DPI reports, nor the percentages mentioned above, take into account state funds budgeted for the 2016-17 school year, expenditures of federal and local dollars, enrollment changes, or inflation.
And, despite the naysayers, I will say it for the umpteenth time – the relationship between K-12 education spending and student performance is weak. Weak. Weak. Weak.
