Resources in Education: From Accounting to the Resource Cost Model Approach

This report focuses on two approaches to measurement of resources in education: an accounting approach and a resource-based approach. The accounting approach measures resources in dollars of expenditure. The resource-based approach emphasizes the measurement of resources in terms of physical ingredients, such as teaching staff. The comparison of the accounting and the resource-based approaches explores the differences in the way accountants' and economists' view the concepts of cost and expenditure. The report focuses on the development of a framework for organizing and analyzing programmatic cost, expenditure, and resource data for local educational agencies serving elementary and secondary students.