EXPERTS ADVISORY

As federal policymakers consider the future of the U.S. Department of Education, a new interactive data tool from Poverty Solutions at the University of Michigan shows the allocation of federal education funds to local school districts—making the data available by U.S. congressional district for the first time.

Also, U-M experts are available to comment on the DOE’s role in K-12 education and various methods of delivering federal funds to local schools (see below).

A combination of federal, state and local dollars funds traditional public schools and public charter schools. While the federal government is not the primary source of funding for public schools, federal education funds are earmarked for specific purposes, including: 1) Title 1 programs to support students from families with low incomes; 2) Child Nutrition Act programs that provide free and low-cost school meals for students from families with low incomes; 3) special education services for children with disabilities; and 4) vocational and technical education programs

The Federal Education Funding Data Dashboard shows how much federal funding is allocated to each of these purposes for the 2020-21 academic year, which was the most recent data available when the analysis was conducted. The funding allocations are searchable by state and U.S. congressional district. Totals are based on the sum of federal dollars allocated to school districts and do not include dollars allocated to each state’s department of education.

The dashboard also shows the total number of public schools and students in each state or congressional district, plus how many of those students are living in poverty and how many were identified as experiencing homelessness.

By region, local school districts in the South received the largest amount of federal education funding ($33.9 billion), followed by schools in the Western United States ($25.8 billion). Looking at divisions within the broader regions, the Pacific division received the largest amount in federal education dollars to local schools ($18.8 billion), followed by the South Atlantic ($15.2 billion) and the West South Central ($13.1 billion).

The 5 congressional districts with the highest percentage of funding for local schools coming from the federal government are:

1. Arizona Congressional District 2 (28.2%)
2. California Congressional District 42 (27.6%)
3. Mississippi Congressional District 2 (22.6%)
4. Kentucky Congressional District 5 (21.6%)
5. Michigan Congressional District 13 (21.1%)

U-M experts available for comment are:

Elizabeth Birr Moje is dean of the Marsal Family School of Education, the George Herbert Mead Collegiate Professor of Education, and an Arthur F. Thurnau Professor of Literacy, Language, and Culture.

Contact: [email protected]

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Brian Jacob is the Walter H. Annenberg Professor of Education Policy at the Ford School of Public Policy, a professor of economics and co-director of U-M’s Youth Policy Lab. He can discuss the role of the federal DOE in K-12 education.

Contact: [email protected]

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Christina Weiland is a professor at the Marsal Family School of Education and co-director of the Education Policy Initiative at U-M. She can comment on the role of the federal DOE in early childhood education.

Contact: [email protected]

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Jennifer Erb-Downward, director of housing stability programs and policy initiatives at Poverty Solutions, created the data dashboard and is available to comment on the data analysis.

Contact: [email protected]

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Amanda Nothaft, director of data and analysis at Poverty Solutions, can comment on different federal funding methods like categorical grants, which are how federal education funding is currently allocated to local schools based on specific purposes, and block grants, which are distributed to states for broad, general purposes allowing state governments to decide how the money is allocated within the block grant purposes and constraints.

Contact: [email protected]