"The average gap in dollars between actual and required spending per pupil among public school districts. Required spending is an estimate of dollars needed to achieve U.S. average test scores in each district. 

School funding plays an important role in educational outcomes and their distribution geographically and by race/ethnicity. A 2012 meta-analysis concluded that school funding does have an impact on educational outcomes, and schools and districts with more funding are better able to provide higher-quality, broader, and deeper educational opportunities to students. Increased school spending can improve student outcomes in a variety of ways, such as reductions in class size and increases in the number of adults per school, amount of instructional time, and teachers’ salaries (resulting in more highly qualified teachers).

Residential segregation has long been entwined with school segregation and school funding. Discriminatory policies and practices, which include redlining, legal actions to terminate tribal culture and land rights, and disinvestment in rural economies, among others, have resulted in entrenched residential segregation.³ Because school funds are tied, in part, to local property taxes, more affluent neighborhoods have more deeply resourced schools.⁴ Further, a relationship has been found between increased segregation of Black students from white students and revenue shifts which disfavor the typical Black student, even after controlling for differences in poverty.⁵ In these ways, segregation systematically strips academic opportunity from students of color.

A decade of slow progress in improving educational fairness was reversed by the Great Recession. In 40 states, the amount spent directly on K-12 education relative to the state’s total economic capacity was lower in 2018 than in 2004. Similarly, in 32 states, funding was less progressive in 2018 than in 2008; (progressivity is where more funds are allocated to higher-poverty districts than lower-poverty districts). In 2018, on average, spending in the highest-poverty districts (80th-100th percentile) was 20 percent below the estimated adequacy level (i.e., the amount estimated to be necessary for students to achieve average U.S. test scores). In contrast, in the lowest poverty districts (0-20th percentile) states spent, on average 45 percent more than is estimated to be adequate.⁶

There is reason to believe these inequities will continue to grow during, and will endure long after, the COVID-19 pandemic. Following the Great Recession, states spent less of their total economic capacity on education, dropping from 4.1% to 3.5% on average. Even after states’ economies recovered, the reduction in education spending did not rebound. These reductions at the state-level differentially harm higher-poverty districts because these districts have less local revenue and rely more on state revenue to fund their schools.⁶ If COVID-19 has similar economic impacts as the Great Recession, there could be negative school funding repercussions that are felt most deeply by school districts that already are deeply disadvantaged.

Children enter the classroom with a variety of backgrounds and needs. If children are going to be provided with equitable educational opportunities, more resources will be required for those children with educational disadvantages.¹ An increase in per-pupil spending has a greater impact on children from low-income families than children from high-income families. A 10% increase in per pupil spending for children from low-income families, for all 12 years of public schooling, was found to be associated with 0.46 additional years of completed schooling, 9.6% higher earnings, and a 6.1% reduction in annual incidence of adult poverty.² Additionally, spending increases have also been associated with higher rates of high school graduation, college enrollment and completion, improved standardized test performance, and increased adult earnings."

Source: School Funding Adequacy* | County Health Rankings & Roadmaps