US Census: D.C. Spends Most Per Student

Fresh from the US Census Bureau:

Education revenues from federal, state and local sources reached $419.8 billion in the United States in 2002, up 4 percent from the previous year, the U.S. Census Bureau reported today. The District of Columbia spent the most money per student ($13,187) of any state or state equivalent.

These findings are from the 2002 Census of Governments Survey of Local Government Finances — School Systems.

State governments contributed the greatest share of public elementary and secondary school funding, $207.4 billion. Local sources followed at $179.7 billion, and the federal government was the third largest contributor at $32.7 billion.

Following the District of Columbia in per student expenditures were: New York ($11,546), New Jersey ($11,436), Connecticut ($10,001) and Massachusetts ($9,856). The lowest per pupil spending amounts were in Utah ($4,890), Mississippi ($5,382), Arizona ($5,524), Idaho ($5,923) and Tennessee ($5,984).

Other findings:

* Public school systems spent $435.3 billion, up 6.0 percent from 2001. About $224.8 billion was spent on elementary-secondary instruction, $125.5 billion on services that support elementary-secondary instruction, $52.9 billion on capital outlay and $32.1 billion on other items.

* School districts received $155.6 billion, or 37.1 percent of all revenues from local taxes and local government appropriations.

* Instructional salaries totaled $160.7 billion in 2002, up 5.0 percent.

The tabulations contain data on revenue, expenditure, debt and assets for all individual public elementary and secondary school systems. The data are not subject to sampling error, but are subject to possible error from miscoding and misidentification of schools.

Now can we stop with the meme that DC public schools are under funded? How about we can focus on the real cause of problems in the D.C. public school system: mismanagement and the lack of accountability.