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Public school funding formulas in the states
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Public schools receive funding from a combination of federal, state, and local governments. According to the Department of Education, public schools received about half their funding during the 2018-2019 school year from state governments.[1] How states allocate funding to schools varies. According to the Congressional Research Service, states use funding to try to equalize spending and resources across school districts.[2]
All states rely on a primary funding formula to determine how much funding schools receive each year. States also use a variety of mechanisms for allocating additional funding to categories of students or schools, such as special education students or geographically isolated schools. This is known as categorical funding.[3] This article only covers primary funding mechanisms.
According to a 2021 report on school funding by the Education Commission of the States (ECS), a nonpartisan organization that focuses on state-level education policy, most states rely on one of two general funding formulas.[4] The first, known as a student-based foundation model, provides school districts with a certain amount of funding per student. The second, known as a resource-based allocation model, allocates funding on the basis of the costs of purchasing educational material and hiring teachers and staff for a given number of students.
Types of school funding formulas
The four types of general school funding formulas identified by ECS are:[5]
- Student-based foundation: "Districts receive a base amount of funding per student, with additional money or weights added to provide additional support to students with a higher need."[4]
- Resource-based allocation: "All districts receive a minimum base amount of resources. Resources could be staffing, services or programs, and are often based on a ratio of students to staffing"[4]
- Guaranteed tax base: "Funding levels are determined by a formula that equalizes the taxes paid on the base amount of property within the district. The state provides higher levels of funding to lower property-wealthy districts than higher property-wealthy districts."[4]
- Hybrid model: "Hybrid models often combine aspects of student-based foundation models, resource-based allocation models and various cost factors."[4]
Funding mechanisms by state
According to the Education Commission of the States, in 2021, 33 states used a student-based foundation model to allocate school spending, 10 used a resource-based allocation, five states used a hybrid model, and two states used a guaranteed tax base model.[4]
Hover over a state on the map below to see the funding formula.
| Public school funding mechanisms, 2021 | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| State | Mechanism | ||||||||
| Alabama | Resource-based allocation | ||||||||
| Alaska | Student-based foundation | ||||||||
| Arizona | Student-based foundation | ||||||||
| Arkansas | Student-based foundation | ||||||||
| California | Student-based foundation | ||||||||
| Colorado | Student-based foundation | ||||||||
| Connecticut | Student-based foundation | ||||||||
| Delaware | Resource-based allocation | ||||||||
| Florida | Student-based foundation | ||||||||
| Georgia | Hybrid | ||||||||
| Hawaii | Student-based foundation | ||||||||
| Idaho | Resource-based allocation | ||||||||
| Illinois | Hybrid | ||||||||
| Indiana | Student-based foundation | ||||||||
| Iowa | Student-based foundation | ||||||||
| Kansas | Student-based foundation | ||||||||
| Kentucky | Student-based foundation | ||||||||
| Louisiana | Student-based foundation | ||||||||
| Maine | Hyrbid | ||||||||
| Maryland | Student-based foundation | ||||||||
| Massachusetts | Hybrid | ||||||||
| Michigan | Student-based foundation | ||||||||
| Minnesota | Student-based foundation | ||||||||
| Mississippi | Hybrid | ||||||||
| Missouri | Student-based foundation | ||||||||
| Montana | Student-based foundation | ||||||||
| Nebraska | Student-based foundation | ||||||||
| Nevada | Student-based foundation | ||||||||
| New Hampshire | Student-based foundation | ||||||||
| New Jersey | Student-based foundation | ||||||||
| New Mexico | Student-based foundation | ||||||||
| New York | Student-based foundation | ||||||||
| North Carolina | Resource-based allocation | ||||||||
| North Dakota | Student-based foundation | ||||||||
| Ohio | Student-based foundation | ||||||||
| Oklahoma | Student-based foundation | ||||||||
| Oregon | Student-based foundation | ||||||||
| Pennsylvania | Student-based foundation | ||||||||
| Rhode Island | Student-based foundation | ||||||||
| South Carolina | Student-based foundation | ||||||||
| South Dakota | Resource-based allocation | ||||||||
| Tennessee | Resource-based allocation | ||||||||
| Texas | Student-based foundation | ||||||||
| Utah | Student-based foundation | ||||||||
| Vermont | Guaranteed tax base | ||||||||
| Virginia | Resource-based allocation | ||||||||
| Washington | Resource-based allocation | ||||||||
| West Virginia | Resource-based allocation | ||||||||
| Wisconsin | Guaranteed tax base | ||||||||
| Wyoming | Resource-based allocation | ||||||||
See also
- Education policy in the United States
- Public education in the United States
- School responses to the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic during the 2020-2021 academic year
- State Politics
Footnotes
- ↑ National Center for Education Statistics, "Public School Revenue Sources," accessed June 6, 2022
- ↑ EveryCRSReport, "State and Local Financing of Public Schools," accessed February 7, 2021
- ↑ National Center for Educational Statistics, "Chapter II: Categorical versus General Revenues," accessed February 2, 2021
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 4.3 4.4 4.5 Education Commission of the States, "K-12 and Special Education Funding: Primary Funding Model," accessed June 6, 2022
- ↑ Cite error: Invalid
<ref>tag; no text was provided for refs namedESC
