Analysis of spending in America's largest school districts

Analysis of K-12 education spending
Table of Contents
Overview Quick facts Terminology School district spending References
See also
School board elections portal Largest school districts in the United States by enrollment

The top 1,000 American school districts, as measured by enrollment, spent approximately $318.2 billion during the 2011-2012 school year according to the United States Census Bureau.^[1] This is 53.59 percent of the approximately $593.8 billion that was spent by all 14,491 school districts.^[2]

Note: This research was last updated on November 17, 2014.

Quick facts

Total spending

• Combined total spending in the top 1,000 districts:
  • $318,211,779,000
• Average total spending per district:
  • $318,211,779
• Most total spending:
  • $24,814,225,000 (New York City Department of Education, New York)
• Least total spending:
  • $59,143,000 (Yuma Elementary School District, Arizona)

Per-pupil spending

• Average spent per student:
  • $9,562
• Average spent per classroom:
  • $147,255 (multiplying the "average spent per student" by the national average class size of 15.4 students in the 2011-2012 school year)^[3]
• Most spent per student:
  • $23,946 (Newark Public Schools, New Jersey)
• Least spent per student:
  • $5,273 (Joint School District, Idaho)

Classroom spending

• Average percentage of classroom spending:
  • 85.68%
• Highest percentage of classroom spending:
  • 98.43% (Acadia Parish Schools, Louisiana)
• Lowest percentage of classroom spending:
  • 44.47% (Val Verde Unified School District, California)

Terminology

• Expenditures per student refers to the total amount of school district spending divided by student enrollment in the district.
• Actual per-pupil expenditures refers to the amount that each school district reported spending per student. Some school district expenditures, such as debt payments, are generally not classified as classroom spending. Therefore, such spending is counted only in the total expenditures figure and not in the per-pupil expenditures figure.
• Percentage of total expenditures spent on pupils refers to the percentage of school district spending that is classified as classroom spending.

This table can be sorted in alphabetical or numerical order by clicking the column titles. For example, clicking "School district" will sort the table in alphabetical order according to the names of the school districts. Clicking it again will sort the table in reverse alphabetical order. Every column on this table can be sorted in this way. By default, the table is sorted by student enrollment.