Conventional wisdom says that schools spend next to nothing on professional development. Finance experts say that districts may spend up to 5 percent of their budgets on staff training, but they can’t be sure. Investment in staff training is assumed to be so small that school officials often don’t even bother to tally up the dollars.
Evidence from Flint, Mich., and other districts working with the Rockefeller Foundation, however, turns conventional wisdom on its head. At Rockefeller’s request, Flint school officials inventoried their spending on staff training for the 1994-95 year. Only one line item in the district’s $205 million budget was specifically earmarked for professional development, but officials uncovered another 65 line items where money was spent on staff training. The result, summarized below: Flint was spending nearly $2 million on staff training--seven times its official professional-development budget.
| Professional Development | $286,924 |
| School Improvement | 257,838 |
| Eisenhower Mathematics and Science | 217,269 |
| Vocational Education | 158,497 |
| Title I | 141,733 |
| Pupil Personnel | 136,854 |
| Early Childhood | 106,731 |
| Community Education (including adult education) | 110,866 |
| Special Education | 104,378 |
| Head Start | 89,696 |
| Labor Relations | 61,357 |
| Miscellaneous | 54,302 |
| Site-Based Management | 52,793 |
| Drug-Free Schools | 39,808 |
| Gifted | 37,382 |
| Curriculum Services | 34,999 |
| Superintendent, Deputy Superintendent, Board | 34,384 |
| Bilingual Education | 20,931 |
| Individual Schools | 15,403 |
| Magnet Program | 13,790 |
| Indian Education | 6,098 |
| Driver Education | 2,378 |
| Total | $1,984,411 |
SOURCE: Flint Public Schools.
