Some school districts spend more per student than others, and that, as you can imagine, directly affects the resources students and teachers have at each school. This map points out the disparities between school districts in every state.


The national average spending per child in 2013 was $11,841, but the NPR points out that many school districts spend substantially less than that. A big part of it is the local taxes small businesses and homeowners pay for school funding—the more successful businesses the district has, the higher the property values, and, thus, the higher the local revenue for public schools. The numbers were adjusted for cost of living using the NCES Comparable Wage Index 2013 from Texas A&M University.

This tale of two schools isn’t specific to Illinois. It plays out across the U.S., with kids the same age, in the same grade attending schools that try to educate them with wildly different resources. On average, New York, Alaska, and Wyoming each spent more than $17,000 per student in 2013, while California, Oklahoma and Nevada spent roughly half that.


More spending per student doesn’t necessarily mean a better education for those students, but it’s not hard to imagine that kids in districts with higher school funding and spending have more resources at their disposal—and, thus, a leg up on their less well-funded peers.

The interactive map, based on data from the US Census Bureau and Education Week, could be interesting to not only data scientists and sociologists, but parents and educators alike. Enter your school district name to see how it compares to your state’s per-student spending and the national average.

Why America’s Schools Have A Money Problem | NPR