Districts annually get funding—roughly $900 billion in inflation-adjusted dollars, according to the most recent federal data—from three main sources: local taxpayers, state appropriations, and the federal government. The policies, formulas, and political conditions informing dollar amounts vary significantly from source to source and from place to place.
Nationwide figures tell one important story about K-12 school funding—how much money schools are spending in the aggregate. But digging deeper reveals far more stories that vary from state to state and even school to school within the same district.
For instance: the average funding per pupil from state and local sources in Vermont and New York state is more than $25,000. The comparable figure in states such as Arizona, Idaho, North Carolina, and Utah is less than $12,000—less than half the amount in the highest-spending states.
In states including Connecticut, Florida, and Michigan, districts with large shares of students in poverty get far less state and local money per pupil on average than districts with small shares of low-income students. The opposite is true in Maryland, South Dakota, and Utah—districts with high concentrations of student poverty get thousands of dollars more from state and local sources than low-poverty districts.
“Just by accident of where you happen to be born or live, there would be as much as a threefold difference in how much your child is getting in terms of school funding per pupil,” said Bob Kim, executive director of the Education Law Center, a nonprofit that leads litigation on school funding issues and recently released its latest annual “Making the Grade” report on school funding. “That is an enduring and pretty unconscionable reality of this nation’s school system.”
America’s population of school children is diverse, and the systems governing the schools they attend are labyrinthine and scattershot. Emerging data can be useful for highlighting deep disparities that affect students, and for understanding the broad landscape with an eye toward addressing them.
In that spirit, here are some key figures from recent publications.
State spending is going up, but huge disparities persist
The overwhelming majority of K-12 schools’ annual revenue—roughly 90 percent nationwide—comes from state and local sources. Federal money makes up the rest, mostly subsidizing services for poor students and students with disabilities. States overall spent more on schools this year than last, but inequities persisted.
10.9 The percentage increase in state-level investments in K-12 school funding from the 2022-23 school year to the 2023-24 school year, according to the 2024 State Expenditure Report published Dec. 10 by the National Association of State Budget Officers.
15 The percentage increase in K-12 school funding for capital projects—construction and maintenance—from state governments in fiscal year 2024 over the previous year, according to NASBO.
18.9 percent The portion of state budget appropriations that went to K-12 education in fiscal year 2024, according to NASBO. The only priority with a higher percentage was Medicaid, with 29.8 percent. No other priorities consumed more than 10 percent of state budgets.
1 The number of states where school funding from state and local sources grew faster than the state’s overall economy between 2021 and 2022, according to the Education Law Center analysis. California was an outlier—in every other state, broader economic growth outpaced growth in school funding.
6 The number of states where the “effort index”—the percentage of the state’s gross domestic product that goes toward K-12 schools—dropped by 10 percent or more between 2021 and 2022, according to the Education Law Center analysis. In four of those six states—Montana, Texas, Wyoming, and West Virginia—the effort index dropped because GDP grew by up to 3 percent, while school funding declined by 2 to 9 percent. In the other two—Alaska and North Dakota—the GDP dropped by a little more than 1 percent, while school funding dropped by 6 to 7.5 percent.
3.4 The number of percentage points separating the states with the lowest and highest school “funding effort”—the percentage of the state’s gross domestic product that goes toward K-12 schools. Only 2.1 percent of GDP in Arizona went to K-12 schools, according to the Education Law Center analysis, whereas the comparable percentage in Vermont was 5.5 percent.
$3,783 High-poverty school districts in Oregon receive this much less in per-pupil funding on average than low-poverty districts, according to the ELC. Oregon ranks as the state with most regressive school funding, meaning low-poverty districts have a larger funding advantage over high-poverty districts than in any other state.
$6,544 High-poverty school districts in Utah receive this much more in per-pupil funding on average than low-poverty districts. The Education Law Center considers Utah’s school funding setup to be the most “progressive” in the nation, meaning high-poverty districts there have a larger funding advantage over high-poverty districts than in any other state (though Utah ranks 50th in the nation for per-pupil spending).
28 The number of states with progressive school funding, as determined by the Education Law Center. A decade ago, only half that number had progressive funding. “I think there’s just a growing recognition that poor students need more,” said Danielle Farrie, the center’s research director and a co-author of the 2024 report. “We’re getting over that question of ‘Does money matter?’ and we are definitively on the side of, ‘Yes, money does matter.'”
36 The number of states where the GDP grew from 2021 to 2022, but inflation-adjusted school funding decreased over the same period, according to the Education Law Center analysis.
Sources:
Making the Grade 2024, an annual report on school funding from state and local sources published Dec. 12 by the Education Law Center. This year’s report covers data from the 2021-22 school year.
2024 State Expenditure Report, published on Dec. 10 by the National Association of State Budget Officers. The report draws on state budget reports up through fiscal year 2024.
Child poverty is relatively low nationwide—but much higher in some states
A wide body of research shows that schools need to devote more resources to students from low-income families relative to their higher-income peers so they have the same opportunity to succeed academically. Many state funding formulas direct more per-pupil funding to account for the greater needs of those students—though advocates and lawmakers in states including Alabama, Delaware, Georgia, and Virginia are currently debating whether those efforts are sufficient.
15.3 The percentage of the nation’s 53 million children ages 5 to 17 living in poverty in 2023. This number doesn’t tell the full story—child poverty is far more prevalent in some states than in others.
4 The number of states where more than 1 in 5 K-12 children are from families in poverty. Those states are Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi, and New Mexico.
5 The number of states where fewer than 1 in 10 K-12 children are from families in poverty. Those states are Minnesota, New Hampshire, North Dakota, Utah, and Vermont.
16.5 The number of percentage points between the states with the highest and lowest shares of K-12 children living in poverty. The child poverty rate in Louisiana (24.3 percent) is roughly triple that of New Hampshire (7.8 percent).
4 The number of years since 1999 when the nationwide poverty rate among children ages 5 to 17 was lower than in 2023. Child poverty is at a relative low point compared with most of the last quarter-century. It peaked in 2012, at 21 percent.
Bond election results offer a window into local voters’ enthusiasm for long-term investments in their local schools. Districts secured approval for a larger amount of money to spend on bonds than ever before—but the percentage of successful bond elections is a little smaller than in previous years, according to SchoolBondFinder, a nationwide database that tracks K-12 school bond election outcomes.
$113.5 billion The total amount of money voters in 2024 agreed to let school districts borrow through bonds to help fund construction projects and technology purchases.
0 The number of years in which voters have approved a larger amount of school district borrowing than in 2024.
1 The number of states in which voters approved fewer than 40 percent of proposals from school districts to sell bonds to pay for long-term projects like construction and maintenance. Seven districts in South Dakota asked voters to approve bonds this year; only one district secured approval from the mandated 60-percent majority of voters. Earlier this year, state lawmakers proposed mandating that all school district bond elections happen on the same ballot as primary and general elections, when turnout and engagement tend to be higher. The bill failed to advance.
74 The percentage of U.S. school district bond initiatives approved by voters in 2024. This year marks the first since SchoolBondFinder began collecting comprehensive data in 2015 when the percentage of approved bond initiatives dipped below 75.
2,234 The number of bond proposals voters considered at the polls this year. That number is essentially flat compared with each of the previous two years. It’s much higher, however, than in either of the two previous presidential election years—2016 and 2020—when voter turnout tends to be higher.
Source:
SchoolBondFinder, a continuously updated nationwide database of K-12 school bond election outcomes published by the Amos Group, a firm that sells school finance data to companies looking to contract with districts.
K-12 student populations are poised to shrink—but not everywhere
11 The percentage by which the nationwide total number of public high school graduates is expected to decline between now and 2041. Roughly 3.5 million public school students graduated from high school in 2023; by 2041, that number is projected to dip to 3.1 million.
9 The number of states where the total number of public high school graduates annually is expected to decline by 20 percent or more by 2041. Those states are California, Hawaii, Illinois, Michigan, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, West Virginia, and Wyoming.
11 The number of states where the total number of public high school graduates each year is expected to increase between now and 2041. Those states are Alabama, Delaware, Florida, Idaho, Louisiana, Montana, North Carolina, North Dakota, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Texas.
Source: The annual Knocking at the College Door report from the Western Interstate Commission for Higher Education, a coalition of state policymakers and researchers serving colleges and universities. The report, now in its 11th year, draws on K-12 school enrollment data and a wide range of other demographic statistics to project the number of high school graduates for each year in the next two decades.
