New Data on Revenues and Expenditures for Public School Districts in 2019-20

New data tables from the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) provide information about revenues and expenditures in the nation’s public school districts for school year 2019-20. The tables use provisional data from the School District Finance Survey (F-33), which state education agencies in all 50 states and the District of Columbia submit each year. The national median of total revenues per pupil across all LEAs was $14,710 in FY 20, which represents an increase of 1.1 percent from FY 19, after adjusting for inflation. The national median of current expenditures per pupil among all LEAs was $12,602 in FY 20, an increase of 2.0 percent from FY 19, after adjusting for inflation. On a national basis, in the absence of any geographic cost adjustment, in FY 20 median current expenditures per pupil were $12,112 in cities, $13,813 in the suburbs, $11,543 in towns, and $12,853 in rural areas. In FY 20, current expenditures per pupil in the 100 largest public school districts by enrollment ranged from a low of $7,531 in Alpine School District, Utah to a high of $28,828 in New York City School District, New York. The tables also provide information on a regional basis, although a geographic cost adjustment was not applied. In FY 20, current expenditures per pupil from the two largest school districts within each state by region were highest in: Northeast: New York City Public Schools, New York ($28,828); and Boston City Schools, Massachusetts ($27,793);  South: Christina School District, Delaware ($23,161) and District of Columbia Public Schools, District of Columbia ($22,856) Midwest: Cleveland City School District, Ohio ($18,441) and City of Chicago School District 299, Illinois ($17,041); and West: Seattle Public Schools, Washington ($17,250) and Hawaii Department of Education, Hawaii ($16,564). Median current expenditures per pupil in independent charter school districts were lower than median current expenditures per pupil in noncharter and mixed school districts in 26 out of the 32 states with data that met reporting standards for reporting finance data for independent charter school districts. This was also true for the District of Columbia. On a national basis, there was a 0.6 percent difference in FY 20 between current expenditure in high-poverty districts and low-poverty districts, based on quartiles calculated by ranking LEAs by poverty rate (i.e., the percentage of children ages 5–17 in families living below the poverty level) weighted by the number of children in poverty. To view the full report, please visit http://nces.ed.gov/pubsearch/pubsinfo.asp?pubid=2022303.