How much does your state spend on public schools compared with other states? With recent state-wide budget cuts, you could do an interesting trend infographic. Make the story personal by relating it to an individual student, or showing how the money goes to teams or school programs that your readers care about. In Al's Morning Meeting, Poynter's Al Tompkins gives the stats.
Tompkins writes:School districts in the United States spent an average of
$9,138 per student in fiscal year 2006, an increase of $437 from 2005.
The
new data sets make it easy to compare cities in your state or nearby
cities separated by a state border. Of course, it would be even juicier
to compare student achievement scores to the spending data.
From the Census news release:
Public Education Finances: 2006
offers a comprehensive look at the revenues and expenditures of public
school districts at the national and state levels. The report includes
detailed tables that allow for the calculation of per pupil
expenditures. Highlights from these tables include spending on
instruction, support services, construction, salaries and benefits of
the more than 15,000 school districts. Public school districts include
elementary and secondary school systems.
Public
school systems received $521.1 billion in funding from federal, state
and local sources in 2006, a 6.7 percent increase over 2005. Total
expenditures reached $526.6 billion, a 6 percent increase.
State governments contributed the greatest share of funding to public school systems
(47 percent), followed by local sources (44 percent) and the federal government
(9 percent).
School district spending per pupil was highest in New York
($14,884), followed by New Jersey ($14,630) and the District of
Columbia ($13,446). States where school districts spent the lowest
amount per pupil were Utah ($5,437), Idaho ($6,440) and Arizona
($6,472).
