In spite of new waves of technology, coaching approaches, and the rise of major academic initiatives like the Common Core State Standards, district spending on teacher professional development makes up about the same share of district budgets now as it did 20 years ago.
Districts spent about $2,000 more per teacher on in-service training in 2022 than in 2001—but put in the context of overall district spending, that figure makes up only about 3.5% of district budgets, the same share as two decades ago, according to a new analysis of federal data on school finances.
Because professional development is an investment in future quality rather than a day-to-day expense like transportation, it “may be a particularly vulnerable line item when budgets tighten,” concluded researchers led by Arielle Boguslav, a senior research associate for the Research Partnership for Professional Learning. The partnership is based at the Annenberg Institute research center at Brown University in Rhode Island.
On average, districts’ professional development spending rose steadily from $6,250 per teacher in 2001—just before the passage of the No Child Left Behind Act, which included several new teacher-quality requirements—to more than $8,300 per teacher in 2022. That figure includes teacher stipends, pay for instructional coaches, services from outside vendors, conference fees, and supplies.
But how that money is spent—and whether it’s reaching teachers in meaningful ways—remains an open question.
Is professional development supporting enough hands-on coaching?
The kind of training districts supply might have changed over that time period, but the data doesn’t detail the format or content of their PD.
Still, the researchers gauged that districts would need to spend more than $18,000 per teacher to provide one instructional coach for every 10 teachers. A district spending the average $8,300 per teacher, by contrast, could afford to hire one instructional coach for every 35 teachers.
“There’s a push towards more resource-intensive and human-intensive formats of professional learning, moving from one-time workshops towards things like coaching and professional learning communities, which tend to take more personnel resources,” Boguslav said.
“It’s not necessarily that more spending is better or that less spending is more efficient,” she said, “but that districts need to make strategic decisions about how to allocate their resources to the kinds of professional learning that will have the highest return on investment.”
That may be a tough ask, as districts are already trying to pick up the budgetary slack from federal cuts earlier this year to programs supporting professional learning for teachers in particular subjects and those working with special populations, such as English learners, as well as disruptions to federal education funding caused by the ongoing government shutdown.
The researchers also released interactive map tools with the study to allow district leaders to compare spending on teacher development across districts and states.
States on the East Coast, Pacific Northwest, and some mountain states have seen some of the fastest growth and greatest spending per teacher for professional development, though it’s not clear why, Boguslav said.
When looking at spending, the researchers controlled for differences in cost of living around the country. However, the spending data cannot distinguish how much of district spending comes from local property taxes versus state or federal funding, which is allocated based on locale and poverty level.
“The variation that we see in spending was a bit surprising to us,” Boguslav said. “There are districts spending $20,000 or $30,000 per teacher and districts spending $2,000 or $3,000 per teacher. Certainly districts seem to be making different decisions based on their particular contexts and needs.”
High-poverty schools serving a majority of students of color spent the most on teacher development—just under $12,000 per teacher—but high-poverty schools serving mostly white students spent the least, little more than $6,000 per teacher—even after controlling for differences in rural and urban schools.
