How much of that is spend on sports facilities?
The biggest increases in expenditures are specialists for children with speech problems, reading problems, learning disabilities etc. as professions like speech language pathologists usually earn considerably more than teachers and the number of them within any school has increased considerable too. I'm not making a value judgement - that's just where the money is going.
Purchased services (janitorial, professional development, etc.) Staff costs, including teachers, administrators, and specialists, are up only slightly per student (down as a share of total) over time, as are supplies.
Does anyone know of socioeconomic studies that look for correlations between family stability/duration and rates of speech/language pathologies?
_Is_ there such an increase? The GP comment says that use of speech pathologists increased, not that this was due to an increase in kids with these problems. My assumption was just that we're serving these kids better, where in the past they'd be less likely to be identified and helped.