State Funding For Schools Is A Mess This Year Too Here S Why

Many school districts’ biggest budget concerns this year have centered on the federal government: The Trump administration has moved aggressively—generally without warning or congressional approval—to withhold formula dollars, terminate in-progress grants, and change funding... But in a number of states, political debates and administrative turmoil are piling distinct and varied challenges on school districts at the start of a new school year. Lawmakers in Michigan, North Carolina, and Pennsylvania blew past their deadlines for finalizing their respective state budgets, jeopardizing tens of millions of dollars for public schools. Courts have recently issued rulings that education funding systems in Arizona, New Hampshire, and Wyoming violate state constitutions—setting up what will likely be yearslong battles over ensuring all students have equal access to schooling. Independent of those fights, state-level school funding debates are already raging widely, over private school choice investments in Arizona and Texas; property tax reforms in Indiana, Ohio, and Wyoming; and outdated funding formulas in... Many school districts’ biggest budget concerns this year have centered on the federal government: The Trump administration has moved aggressively—generally without warning or congressional approval—to withhold formula dollars, terminate in-progress grants, and change funding...

But in a number of states, political debates and administrative turmoil are piling distinct and varied challenges on school districts at the start of a new school year. Lawmakers in Michigan, North Carolina, and Pennsylvania blew past their deadlines for finalizing their respective state budgets, jeopardizing tens of millions of dollars for public schools. Courts have recently issued rulings that education funding systems in Arizona, New Hampshire, and Wyoming violate state constitutions—setting up what will likely be yearslong battles over ensuring all students have equal access to schooling. Independent of those fights, state-level school funding debates are already raging widely, over private school choice investments in Arizona and Texas; property tax reforms in Indiana, Ohio, and Wyoming; and outdated funding formulas in... Editor’s note: “Study Hall” from School News Network is a podcast highlighting the students, teachers and others making education magic happen every day in classrooms across Kent County and beyond. All districts — As local schools begin to reopen this week, their leaders lack the answer to a crucial question: How much money will they have to teach students?

Political gridlock in the state Legislature and proposed drastic downsizing of education spending by the Trump administration have left major chunks of state and federal funding in limbo. Dan Behm, executive director of Education Advocates of West Michigan, breaks down the reasons for the logjam — and what lawmakers and citizens can do about it. You can download this episode of “Study Hall” by clicking on the embed above, or listen to it right here on School News Network. If you would rather read our conversation, click on the Transcript tab here. You can also subscribe to the podcast through the RSS feed here, find it on many of your favorite streaming platforms, or listen to more episodes in the player below.If you have ideas for... Thanks for listening, and happy studying!

Recent moves on both sides of the aisle show that lawmakers may not be in favor of the Trump administration’s agenda to reduce federal spending on public education. On July 31st, the bipartisan Senate Appropriations Committee voted 26-3 in favor of a bill that rejects most of Trump’s recommended $4.5 billion cuts to K-12 education and, in fact, increases funding to Title... Yet, with the budget not due to go into effect until October 1st (and the full Senate and House still needing to weigh in) there’s ample opportunity for federal cuts to go back on... And while the overall amount of money may not seem like a lot compared to total education funding, reductions, impoundments, and rescissions in federal education funding disproportionately impact some states, some schools, and some... Receive ERS’ latest research, analyses, district stories, and interactive tools. As we look ahead to two more months of discussion and debate, we analyzed three significant factors that affect how keenly each state experiences disruptions or reductions in federal funding:

This is one in a series of five articles examining key debates that will unfold in the nation’s statehouses in the year ahead. Debates about how to approach public school funding are reaching a boiling point nationwide. Although the pressures have been building for years, the $190 billion in Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief (ESSER) Program funding from the federal government and the wave of state tax revenue have masked... Now in 2025, most of the federal aid tied to the COVID-19 pandemic has expired and many school districts are dealing with budget deficits. And—following a slowdown in tax revenue—states are tightening their belts. Meanwhile, enrollment rates, part of the calculation of district funding, are stagnant and still below pre-pandemic levels, even as demand for additional education spending grows and interest in alternatives such as school voucher programs...

These competing forces are expected to start coming to a head in this year’s legislative sessions, and policymakers are revisiting their states’ school funding formulas and considering other courses of action. Declining enrollment, rising staffing and administrative costs, and increasing numbers of students with additional educational needs are increasing pressure on traditional state funding formulas. Public schools across the United States are facing a financial reckoning in 2025 as federal pandemic relief funds expire and student enrollment continues to decline, according to data from the Georgetown Edunomics Lab. The funding crisis stems largely from the end of the Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief funds, which pumped billions of federal dollars into school districts during the Covid pandemic. As of September 2024, those funds have dried up, leaving an estimated 250,000 education jobs, worth $24 billion in labor, in jeopardy. "We actually warned school districts in advance, be careful about this money," said Marguerite Roza, director of the Edunomics Lab at Georgetown University.

"Because if you take on recurring commitments, financial commitments, you're going to really find that in 2025, we will be calling it the bloodletting." At the same time, public school enrollment has fallen nationally since 2020. In California, the drop has been especially steep, driven by lower birth rates and increased migration out of the state. This drop in enrollment means not only that there is less money from the state, which typically funds schools based on the number of students, but that districts now have too many staff members. The staffing surge during the pandemic, which was intended to address student learning loss and provide social-emotional support, has left many districts overextended. Average annual per-student costs grew 36% across local, state and federal sources between 2002 and 2023 after adjusting for inflation.

Public K-12 school funding in the U.S. grew 35.8% between 2002 and 2023, with the average annual per-student cost increasing from $14,969 to $20,322 during that time frame after adjusting for inflation, according to Reason Foundation’s K-12 Spending Spotlight 2025. Nationally, public schools received a collective $946.5 billion in local, state and federal funding in 2023. New York had the highest per-student budget at $36,976, followed by New Jersey at $30,267 per student. Idaho spent the least at $11,937. Much of the increases in K-12 spending between 2020 and 2023 can be attributed to the influx of federal COVID-19 emergency funds to help schools recover from pandemic hardships.

The one-time, congressionally approved funds pumped nearly $190 billion into K-12 schools, which equaled to about $1,181 per student. While all 50 states increased their K-12 funding from 2002 to 2023, inflation-adjusted average teacher salaries dropped by 6.1% between 2002 and 2022, falling from $75,152 to $70,548, according to the analysis by the... Far too many US public schools suffer from a lack of adequate funding. Solving the problem will require ending public education’s dependence on local property taxes, a funding mechanism that heavily reproduces inequality. Many well-off suburban voters are unwilling to adequately fund public schools or redistribute tax dollars to districts that are hurting for resources. (Deb Cohn-Orbach / UCG / Universal Images Group via Getty Images)

Jacobin‘s winter issue, “Municipal Socialism,” is out soon. Follow this link to get a discounted subscription to our beautiful print quarterly and get it right when it’s released. Review of As Public as Possible: Radical Finance for America’s Public Schools by David I. Backer (The New Press, 2025) As the carnage wreaked by the Trump administration on the federal government continues apace, the relevance of progress by other means assumes greater importance. The United States happens to be blessed, or saddled, with the most decentralized public sector among relatively rich nations.

TRENTON — Nearly 140 New Jersey schools are losing millions in state aid as part of Gov. Phil Murphy's proposed budget. Murphy's budget for the 2024-25 fiscal year, revealed last week, increases school funding by $908 million up to $11.7 billion. "It was a seven-year marathon to fully invest in the success of every student, in every school district. And with our budget, we are going to do exactly that," Murphy said. However, Republicans in the state Legislature, such as Sen.

Declan O'Scanlon, R-Monmouth, said that Murphy's claim to help every student was "blatantly false." "Tell that to the kids in districts that have cut art, music, and sports. Tell that to districts having to fire teachers, increase class sizes and raise property taxes due to these cuts," O'Scanlon said.

People Also Search

• State Funding for Schools Is a Mess This Year, Too. Here's Why
• U.S. investment in public education is at risk: Vouchers, state budget ...
• State, federal funding 'mess' complicates return to school
• These 12 States Are Most Affected by Federal Education Funding Cuts
• Competing Forces Complicate State Education Funding
• Enrollment decline hits school funding, triggers cuts - CNBC
• Public school funding nears $1 trillion, Reason Foundation finds
• How to Fix Public School Financing - Jacobin
• Murphy is cutting aid to these 137 school districts in NJ