Forty-two states in 2022-23 dedicated a smaller portion of their total funding to K-12 public schools compared to 20 years ago, representing a loss of nearly $600 billion in state and local funds between 2016 and 2023 alone, according to a report released Tuesday by the Albert Shanker Institute.

Black students were twice as likely as their White peers to attend districts with less than adequate funding levels, and three times more likely to be in chronically underfunded districts, according to the study by the University of Miami and Rutgers University.

About 2 in 3 of the nation’s students enrolled in chronically underfunded districts are disproportionately concentrated in just 10 states, the institute found, while comparing with data from 20 years ago. Yet these states — Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, Nevada, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Texas — serve only about a third of the nation’s students.

States’ K-12 funding contributions have decreased despite the concurrent growth of their economies, according to the research.

The report ranked 47 states based on federal data from 2022-23 according to three indicators:

  • How much of the states’ total resources were spent directly on public education.
  • How many students were in districts funded adequately enough to meet outcome goals.
  • How funding was distributed among lower- and higher-poverty districts.

Alaska, District of Columbia, Hawaii, and Vermont were not ranked due to a variety of factors like missing data, having unique costs, or being single-system states or territories.

New Jersey ranked first among the 47 states in those measures, with Wyoming, New Hampshire, Maine, and New York trailing behind in that order — meaning these states put the most effort into the well-being of their K-12 finance systems, according to the weighted average of the three measures. North Carolina was ranked lowest, with Nevada, Florida, Texas and Mississippi rounding out the lowest five states.

Some of the states with the lowest rankings also have robust school choice programs, such as North Carolina, Florida and Texas.

Read the full article about funding for K-12 public schools by Naaz Modan at K-12 Dive.