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School Funding Adequacy

This indicator reports the average gap in dollars between actual and required spending per pupil among public school districts. Required spending is an estimate of dollars needed to achieve U.S. average test scores in each district. Data are acquired from the 2022 School Finance Indicators Database and are used in the 2025 County Health Rankings.

Source

Source Description

The School Finance Indicators Database (SFID) is a public collection of data and research on U.S. K-12 school finance compiled by researchers from the Albert Shanker Institute and Rutgers University Graduate School of Education. The SFID team publishes two primary databases—one for states and one for over 12,000 individual school districts—along with accompanying reports and resources using and presenting these data.

Citation: School Finance Indicators Database User Guide

Methodology

School funding adequacy data was acquired from the University of Wisconsin’s County Health Rankings (CHR). This measure represents the average gap in dollars between actual and required spending per pupil among public school districts. CHR uses 2022 data from the School Finance Indicators Database as the basis for their estimate. For more information, please review the County Health Rankings School Funding Adequacy indicator information.

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