• Revenues per Student
• Total Expenditures per Student
• Median Expenditures per Student
• Current Expenditures per Student
• Charter Schools
• Variations in Types of Districts
• References

Only regular school districts that are on the CCD "Local Education Agency Universe Survey" file and that report student counts were included in this analysis. There were 14,028 such districts in school year 2000–01.

In the 2000–01 school year, the median school district received $8,236 per student in revenues from state, local, and federal sources (table 1). The median revenue per student indicates that half of the districts received less than $8,236 per student and half of the districts received more than $8,236 per student.

Revenues and expenditures of school districts vary both within and across states. Reporting the revenue per student at the 10th and 90th percentiles is one way of describing this variation in revenues. The national revenue per student at the 10th percentile ($6,369) indicates that 10 percent of all school districts received $6,369 or less in revenues per student. At the 90th percentile, the top 10 percent of districts had revenues of $12,877 or more per student. Eighty percent of all school districts received between $6,369 and $12,877 per student in revenues. The "90/10" ratio indicates the difference, or "disparity," between the 10th and 90th percentiles.¹

For the nation as a whole, the 90/10 ratio was 2.0, with districts at the 90th percentile receiving twice as much in revenues per student as districts at the 10th percentile. The 90/10 ratio indicates that the variation in revenues per student was greatest in Montana (2.8) and lowest in Maryland and West Virginia (1.2). Median revenues per student among the states ranged from $14,995 in Alaska to $5,571 in Mississippi. The District of Columbia had the highest median revenues per student—$15,122. The median revenues per student in Mississippi, Tennessee, and Arkansas were lower than per student revenues in 90 percent of the school districts in the country (e.g., the $5,571 median in Mississippi was less than the $6,369 10th percentile for the nation). The median revenues per student in Alaska, the District of Columbia, and Vermont were higher than the per student revenues in 90 percent of the school districts in the country.

The data on the number of students and districts within each state also show the variation in the organization of education across the country. For example, Florida, with over 2 million students, has 67 school districts, whereas Nebraska, with fewer than 300,000 students, has 544 school districts. The number and size of school districts may affect administrative and other overhead costs.

Data for independent charter schools are reported at the bottom of table 1, and are not included in the state or national analysis. Independent charter schools are charter schools that are not affiliated with a school district. The median revenue for the 700 independent charter school districts included in this analysis was $6,591. The per student revenue for charter school districts at the 10th percentile was $241. When this is compared with the per student expenditures at the 10th percentile for charter school districts shown in table 5 ($3,580), it appears that some charter schools did not report all of their revenue. It is assumed that revenues from sources such as foundations or gifts were not reported in these cases.

In 2000–01, the median total expenditure by school districts in the nation was $8,007 per student (table 2). This included current operating expenditures, capital outlays (for school construction and equipment), expenditures for programs other than elementary/secondary education (such as adult education and community service programs), interest payments on long-term debt, and payments to state and local governments. Total expenditures do not include payments to other school districts.

Tables 2 and 3 include median expenditures across districts in all states for specific types of expenditures and for total expenditures. Note that the median expenditures for the components (e.g., instruction, support services) do not sum to the median for total expenditures.

Total expenditures per student ranged between $6,158 and $12,621 for 80 percent of the school districts in the country (i.e., those districts between the 10th and 90th percentiles). School districts at the 90th percentile of total expenditures per student spent twice as much money per student as those districts at the 10th percentile (i.e., the 90/10 ratio was 2.0). The range in per student spending was similar for instruction, support services, and current expenditures. Expenditures for noninstructional services indicated a somewhat wider variation in per student expenditures between districts with high noninstructional expenditures per student and districts with low noninstructional expenditures. This is possibly due to the inclusion of expenditures for enterprise operations (e.g., student-run bookstores), which are reported in only 29 states.

Expenditures for capital outlay, programs other than elementary/secondary education, payments to other school districts, and interest on long-term debt show a relatively large difference between per student expenditures in districts at the 90th percentile and the 10th percentile. Per student spending on capital outlay (for school construction and equipment) in districts with per student expenditures at the 90th percentile was more than 18 times that of districts at the 10th percentile. School districts with stable student populations do not need to make large expenditures for school construction, whereas districts experiencing a growing population of children tend to spend more money on school construction. In addition, expenditures for construction do not appear regularly from one year to the next. Districts may build several schools at the same time. This results in a large expenditure for capital outlays one year and small expenditures in subsequent years.

Per student spending for programs other than elementary/secondary education was approximately 18 times greater in high-spending districts than the national median ($160 vs. $9). The adult education and community service programs that make up most of the other program spending do not exist in many school districts. At least 10 percent of all school districts do not have programs other than elementary/secondary education, nor do they have interest payments or payments to other school districts or governments.

Note that payments to other school districts are not included in the total expenditures reported here. In most cases, these are transfer payments to educate children in other districts. These amounts are reported as payments to other districts by the sending district and are included in the current expenditures reported by the receiving district. The students are only counted by the receiving district, the district which actually educates the students. Thus, reporting the expenditure for only the receiving district avoids double counting and leads to more accurate per student estimates.

Median total expenditures per student ranged from $15,143 in Alaska to $5,705 in Mississippi in 2000–01 (table 3). The median total expenditure per student was over $10,000 in Alaska, Connecticut, New Jersey, New York, and the District of Columbia. Median per student expenditures for classroom instruction (teacher salaries, supplies, etc.) ranged from $7,993 in Alaska to $3,136 in Mississippi. Among the eight states with the highest median expenditures per student for instruction, six were in the Northeast.² Median per student expenditures for capital projects (primarily school construction) ranged from $2,671 in the District of Columbia to $146 in Vermont.

Median expenditures per student for independent charter school districts were lower than the national median in every category except support services.

Because of the variation in the kinds of programs run by school districts and the large swings in school construction expenditures, researchers often use current rather than total expenditures when reporting and comparing school district expenditures. Current expenditures are expenditures for the day-to-day operations of schools and school districts. They do not include expenditures for construction, equipment, debt financing, and programs outside of public elementary/secondary education.

Current expenditures per student by state are presented in table 4. The median current expenditure per student for the nation was $6,942 in 2000–01. Per student spending in districts at the 90th percentile was almost twice that of per student spending in districts at the 10th percentile (i.e., the 90/10 ratio was 1.9). Spending in districts at the 90th percentile was less than 50 percent higher than spending in districts at the 10th percentile in 23 states (i.e., the 90/10 ratio was less than 1.5). The median current expenditure per student in Alaska, the District of Columbia, and New York was larger than the current expenditure per student in 90 percent of all districts in the nation.

The three states with the highest 90/10 ratio in current expenditures per student were Alaska, Arizona, and Montana. The ratio was lowest in Alabama, Florida, and West Virginia. In these three states, current expenditures per student at the 90th percentile were less than 25 percent greater than spending at the 10th percentile.

Although independent charter schools are public schools, they are often exempted from significant state or local rules that normally govern the operation and management of public schools. A charter school may be affiliated with a regular school district, a university, or a private organization. In order to include all charter schools in its files, NCES created a separate school district record for each charter school (or charter school organization) that is not affiliated with a school district. In this report, data for charter schools that are associated with regular school districts are included with the data reported for the entire school district; the data for those schools and the affiliated districts are indistinguishable from districts that do not have charter schools.

Charter school data for independent charter schools that are not affiliated with a regular school district were included in this report if they could be matched to the CCD "Local Education Agency Universe Survey," if they had a student membership count greater than 0, and if they had both total revenues and total expenditures greater than 0. Data for independent charter school districts are reported at the bottom of the tables and are not included in the national totals or averages. Certain charter school districts in Arizona, California, Connecticut, Delaware, Georgia, Michigan, Minnesota, New Jersey, North Carolina, and Texas fell into this category. These data are kept separate because, in many cases, the data are not complete or fail to meet NCES editing standards. This is to be expected if the districts are not required to report finance data to a district or other local government agency. In some cases, a charter school district may operate more than one charter school.

The information presented in tables 1 through 4 is based on all regular education school districts reporting student counts that are reported on the CCD "Local Education Agency Universe Survey" regardless of grades served. Table 5 presents current expenditures per student in regular unified districts only. Unified districts are school districts with both elementary and secondary education programs.

The median current expenditure by unified school districts in the nation was $6,826 per student in 2000–01, with 80 percent of all districts ranging between $5,573 and $9,883 (table 5). The 90/10 ratio was 1.8, indicating a slight reduction in variation of per student spending compared with all regular school districts (1.9) reported in table 4. In nine states, fewer than half of the school districts were unified (Arizona, California, Illinois, Maine, Montana, Nebraska, New Hampshire, New Jersey, and Vermont). In two states, Montana and Vermont, fewer than half of the students attended schools in unified districts. In the three states with the widest disparity in current expenditures per student at the 10th and 90th percentiles when all regular school districts were analyzed, the disparity was reduced in Arizona and Montana when the analysis was limited to unified school districts.⁴

Evans, W.N., Murray, S.E., and Schwab, R.M. (1999). The Impact of Court-Mandated School Finance Reform (chapter 3). In H.F. Ladd, R. Chalk, and J.S. Hansen (Eds.), Equity and Adequacy in Education Finance. Washington, DC: National Academy Press.

St. John, E. (2003). Revenues and Expenditures for Public Elementary and Secondary Education: School Year 2000–01 (NCES 2003–362). U.S. Department of Education. Washington, DC: National Center for Education Statistics.

Table 1. Revenues per student for public elementary and secondary education, by state: School year 2000–01

Table 2. Total expenditures per student, for elementary and secondary education, by type of expenditure for regular districts and for independent charter school districts:
School year 2000–01

Table 3. Median school district expenditures per student by type of expenditure, by state: School year 2000–01

Table 4. Current expenditures per student for public elementary and secondary education, by state: School year 2000–01

Table 5. Current expenditures per student for unified districts, by state: School year 2000–01

¹The 90/10 ratio is based on that used in Evans, Murray, and Schwab (1999).

²These states were Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, and Rhode Island.

³Special education districts were not included in regular districts.

⁴The disparity in Alaska was not changed because all 53 of its districts are unified.