How much do local school districts spend per student?

As local school districts prepare their budgets for next fiscal year, it’s a fitting time to consider how much money is spent on public education per student.

A new National Public Radio website helps answer that question.

According to the statistics at www.npr.org/schoolmoney, the national average for school district spending per student is $11,841, based on 2013 fiscal year data and adjusted by Education Week for regional differences in cost of living. Here is how our local school districts compare:

▪  Chattahoochee County: $12,488

▪  Muscogee County: $11,438

▪  Harris County: $10,004

▪  Phenix City: $8,609

▪  Lee County: $8,567

▪  Russell County: $8,243

The Georgia average was $9,288. The website doesn’t mention the Alabama average, but according to www.al.com, the Alabama State Department of Education reported its state average in FY 2013 as $8,692.

School Money, a nationwide collaboration between NPR’s Ed Team and 20 member station reporters, explained that the differences in per pupil spending begin with the revenue sources. The average school district’s funding comprises 45 percent local money, 45 percent from the state and 10 percent from the federal government, the report said. So disparities result from a funding formula substantially influenced by local taxes.

School Money cited a 1973 case out of Texas that reached the U.S. Supreme Court. In San Antonio Independent School District v. Rodriguez, parents claimed the school-funding formula violated the equal protection clause in the U.S. Constitution. The court ruled against Rodriquez in a 5-4 decision, declaring the right to be educated wasn’t “explicitly or implicitly” guaranteed in the Constitution.

"As a result of Rodriguez, the federal courts essentially washed their hands of the problem. And they turned it over to the states," Michael Rebell, executive director of the Campaign for Educational Equity at Teachers College, Columbia University, told School Money.

Plaintiffs from Sumter County, Ala., lost a 2011 lawsuit that alleged Alabama’s school-funding formula was discriminatory, School Money reported.

School-funding lawsuits are pending against 13 states, School Money reported: Arizona, California, Connecticut, Florida, Kansas, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas and Washington.

Georgia is in the midst of reworking its formula for the first time in three decades, a formula that never has been fully funded. Gov. Nathan Deal appointed an education reform commission, whose recommendations in November called for sweeping changes that include accounting for factors such as poverty, gifted education and special education.

In the budget it passed last month, the Georgia Legislature approved Deal’s proposed 3 percent pay raise for teachers, but he delayed a call for implementing the bulk of the commission’s recommended reforms to allow legislators another year to study them.

This story was originally published April 27, 2016 at 11:33 AM with the headline "How much do local school districts spend per student?."