Capital Spending to Build and Renovate Schools Also Down

State cuts in K-12 funding over the past decade haven’t just affected schools’ operating funding for things like teacher salaries and textbooks.  Capital spending — to build new schools, renovate and expand facilities, and equip schools with more modern technologies, for example — also fell sharply in most states.

Elementary and secondary schools nationally cut capital spending by $28 billion or 37 percent between fiscal years 2008 and 2014 (the latest year available), after adjusting for inflation. 
Forty states cut capital spending over this period — in many cases drastically, as the table below shows.  Eight states cut capital spending by more than half.  Nevada, the state with the sharpest reductions, cut capital spending by 86 percent.

See charts here.