Archived: The Educational System in the United States: Case Study Findings

Learning Environment at School
Financial Support for Schooling
Statistics on funding sources for public elementary and secondary schools for the
1992–93 school year indicate that nationally 46 percent of school funding came
from the state level, 47 percent from the local level, and 7 percent from the fed-
eral level (USDE 1995). However, according to the same source, the distribution
of funding for schools in the states in which our research sites were located was
quite different. Schools in East State and West State received approximately 62

---

41
percent of their funding from the state. However, schools in the state in which
our primary site, Metro City, was located, received approximately 29 percent of
their funding from the state, 7 percent from the federal level, and the remaining
62 percent from local tax revenue in the 1992–93 school year. This heavy reliance
on local tax base revenues meant that school budgets varied across school dis-
tricts, with the high-income, high property value school districts able to support
higher spending levels for their schools.
State money, local money, and federal money were all funneled to individual
schools through the district office. Schools typically received state and local funds
from the school district based on the number of students enrolled. Federal funds
were awarded to individual schools, although the application generally went
through the school district, based on the number of students they enrolled who
had special needs. Schools enrolling special education students, students from
low-income families, and students whose native language was not English received
federal funding to support programs for these students. Although the funds were
distributed by the districts, it was the responsibility of the principals and vice
principals of the individual school’s to manage the budgets for each of these allo-
cations. Principals in Metro City indicated that this recent shift to school-based
management had its benefits, but had also greatly increased the administrative
workload in the schools. Budget expenditures were approved by local school
councils (boards) and, in some cases, also by the district’s school board.
The fact that schools within particular districts in Metro City shared the same tax
base and received over half of their funding from local tax revenues meant that
schools within the same school district generally worked with fairly equitable
budgets. However, there were often large differences in funding between districts
in Metro City. These differences in funding were often reflected in differences in
schools’ physical facilities, educational resources, and teachers’ salaries.