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Educating the Student Body
state funding, mainly from income and sales taxes, ranged from 86 percent 
in Vermont to 28 percent in Illinois; local funding, mainly from property 
taxes, ranged from 60 percent in Nevada to 3 percent in Hawaii.
Substantial within-state variation in per-pupil expenditures also exists. 
A general assumption is that the quality of education is directly linked to 
the quantity of funding. However, different systems have different levels of 
efficiency, and living costs and workforce salaries vary among and within 
states. In addition, educating children from low-income homes, those with 
disabilities, or those for whom English is a second language costs more. 
Various methods have been proposed for comparing funding levels among 
different school districts, including simple dollar-to-dollar comparisons; 
cost-of-living adjustments; and “level-of-effort” adjustments, such as pro-
portion of total taxable state and local resources or state per capita gross 
domestic product (Epstein, 2011). 
While the best way to measure and resolve differences in educational 
opportunities among and within states is uncertain, it is clear that sub-
stantial differences exist. Children and adolescents from low-income fami-
lies are more likely to live in low-income school districts and have fewer 
resources for public education. It appears likely that fewer resources for 
education systems result in fewer opportunities for school-related physi-
cal activity. As noted above, however, information about the differences in 
physical activity behaviors among different racial/ethnic and socioeconomic 
groups is sparse and inconsistent.