June 29, 2011 — Surprisingly, the U.S. Department of Education does not publish current statistics on state-by-state aid to schools for K-12 education. The latest available report from the independent National Association of State Budget Officers contains information only as recent as 2009 (that is, information for Fiscal Year 2009-2010).
Remapping Debate has begun a project to collect the most up-to-date data on basic state aid to public schools for K-12 education (that is, Fiscal Year 2011-2012 data). We put that aid in context by comparing it to Fiscal Year 2007-2008 aid (the Fiscal Year 2011-2012 data we report are inflation-adjusted, reported in Fiscal Year 2007-2008 dollars for an apples-to-apples comparison).
We started by gathering information from the 10 states with the lowest household median incomes, and included Maryland (the state with the highest household median income) as well.
Updated July 27, 2011: We now have available a total of 26 states. 20 of these 26 states have reduced overall aid (21 of 26 have reduced aid on a per-puil basis). The project is continuing, and is scheduled to be completed early in September.
The table on the next page provides additional information: data and ranking in terms of median household income, eighth-grade reading and math achievement, and state-level income inequality (measured by the GINI index). It reports the changes in aid on a percentage basis depicted in the chart below, and the numbers behind the chart as well.
Please review our notes on sources and methodology, which include an explanation of what aid is and is not being included to facilitate state-to-state comparison.
Please review our notes on sources and methodology, which include an explanation of what aid is and is not being included to facilitate state-to-state comparison.
