All four of these activities are directly related to student learning. Adding them together, we find that 88 percent of school-system operating expenditures go toward the academic program. These two activities are necessary for the operation of school systems, since students who live some distance from their schools must be transported, and all students must have nourishment at meal time. They generally are a heavier burden to county school systems than to city school systems, and particularly to county systems with sparsely-populated rural areas. In comparing school system expenditures, particularly when looking at test scores and other performance measures, it is preferable to separate these auxiliary activities and focus solely on the academic expenditures per student.
Some school systems spend more than others to operate their educational programs.
And state support for local school systems varies according to the size of the local tax base, numbers of at-risk students, numbers of students transported by school bus, and other factors. The table below shows the amount of variation between the top five and bottom five systems in academic expenditures during 1999. School systems are listed in alphabetical order, with county systems first and city systems following. The first column shows the number of students. The next five columns show the amounts spent per student for instruction, instructional support, physical plant operation, central administration, and the total of these four academic activities.