Indiana teachers are only paid 23% of their per-classroom funding. Where does the rest of the money go?

The average 20-student K-12 classroom in Indiana receives more than $234,000 in local, state and federal funding, local media reported.

However, the average teacher salary is $55,000, which means that despite spending the most time with students, teachers receive less than a quarter of the classroom’s total funding.

So where does the other $179,000 go?

In districts nationwide, rising costs are caused by a substantial uptick in administration staff – and the hefty paychecks that they receive.

One district in South Carolina had 30 administrators earning over $100,000 in 2013. Ten years later, it has 133, a 340% increase.  

Looking at data from the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), it’s clear that schools are hiring more and more administrative staff. 

From 1980 to 2015, the number of public school teachers rose roughly 44%. But principals and assistant principals increased by 70%, support staff by 44%, and guidance counselors by 69%.  

The number of instruction coordinators – also called curriculum specialists – rose by a staggering 325%.  

When sorted into categories, overall “instructional” staff rose 55% while “administrative” staff rose 97%.  

And while the average Indiana teacher makes $55,000 a year, the average school administrator makes $82,000. Instruction coordinators make $65,000 annually. And most principals make well above six-figures nationwide. 

Yet despite the sticker shock of a 20-student classroom, Indiana’s per pupil spending is comparatively conservative. 

The state spends roughly $10,000 on each K-12 pupil. The national low is Utah with $8,000 while the highest spender is New York with nearly $25,000 per student.  

Public schools are touted as tuition-free, even though taxpayers are actually the ones picking up the tab. And surprisingly, public schools are actually more costly than private ones.  

The average private school tuition is just $7,000 in Indiana, according to the Education Data Initiative. 

And to make it even worse, only 40% of Indiana’s public school students are proficient in English or math.  

It’s a likely reason Indiana’s school choice program has grown by 50% in just three years.  

Indiana’s Choice Scholarship Program, which launched in 2011, provides families with vouchers of $5,500 – barely more than half the funds for a public school student.  

The program allows students from low to middle-income backgrounds to attend private school. Over 44,000 students participated in the 2021-22 school year.