The Adequacy and Fairness of State School Finance Systems, School Year 2020-21. Sixth Edition

In the United States, K-12 school finance is largely controlled by the states. Every year, hundreds of billions of dollars in public funds are distributed based on 51 different configurations of formulas, rules, and regulations to over 13,000 districts that vary in terms of the students they serve, their ability to raise revenue locally, and many other characteristics. Good school finance systems compensate for factors states cannot control (e.g., student poverty, labor costs) using levers that they can control (e.g., driving funding to districts that need it most). The authors have devised a framework that evaluates states based largely on how well they accomplish this balance. Each state's funding is assessed while accounting directly for the students and communities served by its public schools. In this sixth edition of the annual report, the K-12 school finance systems of all 50 states and the District of Columbia is evaluated. The latest year of data presented is the 2020-21 school year. [This report was co-prepared by University of Miami School of Education and Human Development.]