K-12 Education Spending in the United States

Education is known to be one of the most crucial facets of preserving and advancing not only democracy, but life itself. One would assume that the topic of education spending would be a fairly bi-partisan issue; one which people of any political background could reach some sort of consensus , even those in office. My research shows that this unfortunately is not the case.

A classmate and I used archival data to get the total spending  per pupil for each state and political affiliation on the Governor, Senate, Representative level. We performed a Welch's two-sample t-test to test for a difference between political affiliation and spending for states (N = 50). We found that states with a Republican Senate and/or a majority Republican House of Representatives spent less money on education (in 2016).

The difference is stark. On average, states with a Democrat House spent $14,005 per student, while the average state with a Republican House spent $10,521; a $3,483 difference per student. It’s even worse between state Senates; a $3,760 difference. The major conclusion I drew from this quick study is that this information is only a microcosm of the inequities that exist within education, and how lots of people misrepresent them. For example, I read an article in which the author boasted about America spending over $14,000 per student. He failed to mention that some states spend under $8,000 per student, such as Utah and Idaho. Wide variation exists within states as well — the result of uneven property tax bases between districts of different socioeconomic levels (a solo blog piece shall be dedicated to this down the road). 

As of 2021, the feds only pay for 7.7% of education spending in the U.S., leaving the rest for local and state governments to take responsibility for. Local governments pay for their share of education spending through property taxes, which are a large part of the current inequities in our segregated school systems. State governments use formulas to dictate how much funding each district receives from the state, to then fill with state funds whatever gap there is between local funding and the state minimum spending per pupil. Although state and local governments are primary sources of K-12 funding, all three levels of government play an important role in education policy making, even as it pertains to private K-12 schools (Lots of GOP members would like to defund public education and reallocate the resources into private education vouchers, which is a topic for another blog piece as well).

ACTION ITEM: Click here to see where your state ranks in education spending.

Adequate funding will not solve the issue on its own. Increased funding is not a direct, or immediate cause of academic success, for there still exist underfunded-yet-overperforming and overfunded-yet-underperforming districts (this is clearly because students don’t experience formal education in a vacuum — children need more than a caring teacher and books that are intact. They need adequate housing and proper nutrition and a space to belong and access to counseling and identity representation and… the list goes on). However, there still is research that suggests that increased spending does have some impact on student achievement.

As most school districts in America today are experiencing heightened racial segregation trends to levels from the 1980s, one must understand that these issues are indeed racial as much as they are socioeconomical. We frequently hear about the “racial achievement gap” from studies a) lacking a plan of action to combat the issue, b) completely ignoring the socioeconomic and structural undercurrent affecting student achievement and c) ignoring the flaws of our current standards of achievement. A study from the early 2000’s which avoids these issues, reports this: “The acceleration of a narrowing of the Black-White gap in socioeconomic and family conditions in the 1970s and early 1980s parallels a significant drop in the Black-White achievement gap during the same period. Moreover, the deceleration of the narrowing of the Black-White gaps in socioeconomic and family conditions since the late 1980s coincides with a flattening of the achievement gap since that time. Because achievement and socioeconomic conditions covary without any time lag, it appears that they are related to each other. However, this does not fully explain why some of the Black-White achievement gaps rose in the 1990s despite the fact that Blacks’ socioeconomic and family conditions did not get worse relative to their White counterparts.” The last sentence hints at how multifaceted the issue of providing equitable education is, as we’ve already established. Not only do we need to properly fund education, we need local leaders to tackle local issues with none other than localized solutions, because every district has a unique situation at hand.

ACTION ITEM: Click here to see how your state pays its teachers

We may not be surprised that the typical Republican state spends less on education than their Democratic counterparts, but that doesn’t mean we need to make sure that students aren’t suffering at the hands of their own elected officials. We know funding isn’t the only facet of the current education crisis, but that does not, and never will mean that it is not worth fully funding education in America. More spending on education means more money for instruction materials, support services, paying educators higher wages and other educational assets for K-12 students. So despite its “limited” effects, education spending must increase across the board, as it is still one crucial piece of the puzzle that is equitable education for all. 

Sources/ related resources:

Exploring the Relationship Between Political Affiliation And Spending on Education

Closing the achievement gap between high-poverty schools and low-poverty schools

U.S. Public Education Spending Statistics.

How Has Education Funding Changed Over Time?

10 Facts About K-12 Education Funding

Closing America’s Education Funding Gaps

A Review of Evidence That Increased Educational Spending Leads to Improved Outcomes

Education Statistics: Facts About American Schools

How do school funding formulas work?

Racial and Ethnic Achievement Gap Trends: Reversing the Progress Toward Equity?

Black Segregation Matters 2020

Ohio Republicans want state to become second in U.S. to have universal school vouchers