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Elementary and Secondary Education
Quartiles | Findings | Description
Elementary and secondary public school current expenditures as share of gross state product: 2003
Elementary and secondary public school current expenditures as share of gross state product: 2003
Quartiles
Elementary and secondary public school current expenditures as share of gross state
product: 2003*
| 1st Quartile (5.09%–3.97%) |
2nd Quartile (3.92%–3.57%) |
3rd Quartile (3.56%–3.21%) |
4th Quartile (3.19%–1.28%) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Alaska | Arkansas | Alabama | Colorado |
| Maine | Connecticut | Arizona | Delaware |
| Michigan |
Georgia | California | District of Columbia |
| Mississippi | Idaho | Illinois | Florida |
| Montana | Indiana | Kentucky | Hawaii |
| New Jersey | Iowa | Louisiana | Nevada |
| New Mexico | Kansas | Massachusetts | North Carolina |
| New York | Maryland | Minnesota | South Dakota |
| Ohio | New Hampshire | Missouri | Tennessee |
| Rhode Island | Oklahoma | Nebraska | Utah |
| Vermont | Pennsylvania | North Dakota | Virginia |
| West Virginia | South Carolina | Oregon | Washington |
| Wisconsin | Texas | Wyoming | |
| *States in alphabetical order, not data order.
SOURCES: U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), NCES Common Core of Data, National Public Education Financial Survey; and U.S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of Economic Analysis, Gross State Product data. See |
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Findings
- The 2003 national average for spending on elementary and secondary education was 3.55 % of gross domestic product, an increase from 3.37 % in 1994.
- Among individual states, it ranged from 2.23% to 5.09% of GSP.
- States spending the highest percentage of their GSP on elementary and secondary education tended to have relatively small student populations (100,000– 300,000 students), indicating that some level of state spending may be required regardless of the size of the student population or the GSP.
- Actual spending for elementary and secondary current expenditures as a share of GSP decreased in 17 states during the 1994–2003 period.
Description
The priority that state residents place on their elementary and secondary schools is reflected in the percentage of a state’s wealth spent for these purposes. Nationally, state support represented the largest source of revenue for elementary and secondary education: 49% in 2002–03; local sources made up 43%; and the remaining 8% came from the federal government. In this indicator, current expenditures for public education in pre-kindergarten through grade 12 are reported as a share of gross state product (GSP).
In school year 2002–03, current expenditures (excluding capital projects and interest on debt) totaled approximately $388 billion, or 88% of the $440 billion in total spending for public education in pre-kindergarten through grade 12.
Financial data on public elementary and secondary education are reported by the National Center for Educational Statistics (NCES), U.S. Department of Education. The data are part of the National Public Education Financial Survey and are included in the Common Core of Data, a comprehensive annual national statistical database covering all 94,000 public elementary and secondary schools. Current expenditures are expressed in actual dollars. The year is the latter date of the academic year.
