by Joe Carter
Earlier this week the US Census Bureau released a report that reveals how much US school districts spend per-pupil. Here are seven figures from the report you should know:
- The amount spent per-pupil for public elementary and secondary education (pre-kindergarten through 12th grade) for all 50 states and the District of Columbia increased by 3.7 percent to $12,201 per pupil during the 2017 fiscal year, compared to $11,763 per-pupil in 2016, according to new tables released today by the US Census Bureau.
- The top five school systems with the largest enrollment were New York City (984,462), Los Angeles (633, 621), Chicago (378,199), Miami-Dade County, FL (357,249), and Clark County, NV (326,953).
- Of the 100 largest school systems based on enrollment, the five school systems with the highest spending per pupil in 2017 were New York City School District in New York ($25,199), Boston City Schools in Massachusetts ($22,292), Baltimore City Schools in Maryland ($16,184), Montgomery County School District in Maryland ($16,109), and Howard County School District in Maryland ($15,921)
- Maryland had four of the top 10 school systems school districts with the highest spending per pupil.
- The public school systems that received the highest percentage of their revenues from the federal government were New Mexico (14.4 percent), Mississippi (14.1 percent), Alaska (14.0 percent), Arizona (13.7 percent), and South Dakota (12.8 percent).
- The public school systems that received the lowest percentage of their revenues from the federal government were New Jersey (4.1 percent), Massachusetts (4.3 percent), Connecticut (4.3 percent), Minnesota (5.2 percent) and New York (5.3 percent).
- In 2017, public elementary and secondary education revenue, from all sources, amounted to $694.1 billion, up 3.4 percent from $671.2 billion in 2016.
Note: These statistics come from the 2017 Annual Survey of School System Finances. You can find more information about individual school districts at that link.
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Joe Carter is a Senior Editor at the Acton Institute. Joe also serves as an editor at The Gospel Coalition, a communications specialist for the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention, and as an adjunct professor of journalism at Patrick Henry College. He is the editor of the NIV Lifehacks Bible and co-author of How to Argue like Jesus: Learning Persuasion from History’s Greatest Communicator (Crossway).
