Read Part 2 of this piece, focused on the “fully public” notion, here.

Fully funded, fully public. It’s a slogan that gets tossed around regularly by public school advocates. Just take this past legislative session. The Central Indiana DSA ran a campaign on the slogan this spring, asking people to sign their “Fully Funded Fully Public Pledge.”

Indiana State Teachers Association (ISTA) President Keith Gambill used the phrase when speaking at a rally hosted by the ISTA in the final days of the legislative session. He said, “Our schools deserve to be fully funded, and fully public, so all kids receive a quality education.”

Fully funded. Fully public. Hard to argue with, right? I’m certainly not here to poo poo with the spirit of the terms. But I am interested in what those terms would mean in practice. 

Current Education Funding Levels in Indiana

At what level would Indiana education be fully funded (let alone education across the United States)? In what scenario would it be fully public? Today, I’m embarking on a two-part series exploring just that. Part 1 will focus on the “fully funded” side of things and Part 2 will focus on the “fully public.” Here we go.

As of the 2024-25 school year, the average public school district across Indiana received around $14,200 in per-pupil funding. That’s below the national average by around $3,000 per student and below each of our geographic neighbors. For example:

• Illinois – $21,800
• Michigan – $16,200
• Ohio – $16,700
• Kentucky – $15,300

Scratch below the surface and funding levels tend to differ at least slightly from district to district based on the needs of the population they serve. So Indianapolis Public Schools (IPS) receive more than the statewide average in per-pupil funding (somewhere in the ballpark of 18k).  

Another point for context: the K-12 funding line item in the Indiana General Assembly’s two-year state budget remains the biggest single expenditure at just under 50% (though that includes funding for virtual schools and private school vouchers, which are distinct and separate from any calculation around per-student funding at public schools). 

It’s striking to see just how much per student funding diverges across all 50 states. At the high end of the scale there’s New York at $33,400 per student. At the bottom, there’s Idaho, not even cracking five digits with $9,390 per student. And literally everything in between. 

Does More Funding Guarantee Better Outcomes?

But back to Indiana. What would it mean to be fully funded across the Hoosier state? I’ll start by noting that more funding does not always equal better outcomes. I start with this because I think that’s at the core of this slogan. People want better outcomes. To get them, they demand more funding.

But just look at NAEP scores. There’s no direct correlation between per student funding and NAEP outcomes. Take Illinois and Indiana. While they direct about $7,000 more to schools in per student funding, we equal or outperform them in NAEP across 4th grade math, 8th grade math, 4th grade reading, and 8th grade reading. That’s not to say more funding in Indiana wouldn’t help us outpace Illinois even more. But clearly their increased investment isn’t matriculating to improved academic outcomes across the board. At least where NAEP is concerned, we’re getting more for less.

I largely believe spending more on education is a good thing. If I had to choose between sending my kid to school in New York state or Idaho, based on education spending alone, I’d always pick New York. Yet mere influxes of cash do not on their own produce better results. Cash alone can’t fix our education system.

Two reasons. 1) The money is not or may not be directed toward levers that actually produce better outcomes. 2) What happens in school is necessary but not sufficient for positive student outcomes.

What do I mean by the second? Something I appreciated about the list of the Central Indiana DSA’s demands was their recognition (implicit, but still) that the challenges schools face go well beyond their locus of control.

Things like universal healthcare, universal housing, universal pre-K, universal childcare, etc. would all have an enormous impact on student wellbeing because it would transform what for so many students is a life of precarity into a life of stability.

It’s easy as an education advocate of any persuasion to get laser-focused on policies and programs that target curriculum or teacher pay or funding mechanisms. Don’t get me wrong, those are all important! I’ve written about all of them. But anything that benefits students and families, whether or not it takes place within the walls of a K-12 school, is good for education and students’ academic outcomes at the end of the day.

An Example of Fully Funded Public Schools, Via UNESCO

Still, let’s restrict ourselves to just education funding for now. Here’s one way to consider the fully funded question. UNESCO, of which the United States is a member, has a benchmark for member nations to spend a 15% share of its total public expenditures on education. The most recent data puts us nationally at 12.7% (which combines local, state, and federal spending into one enormous pool). That 12.7% leads to a national average across all 50 states of just over $20,000 per student. Meeting that 15% threshold would mean spending around $24,000 per student across the country.

Putting aside the feasibility of spending $24,000 per student in Indiana (given national, state, and local constraints), you could argue for that to be our goal. Or, perhaps more realistically, Indiana’s per student funding would rise but continue to track at a level that remains similarly below the national average. So then we’d be looking at somewhere in the ballpark of $17,000.

So here’s my version of “fully funded” in our present moment. At least a $17,000 average in per student funding across the state with biannual budget increases pegged, at a minimum, to the inflation rate. Simplistic? Perhaps. Limited in my analysis? I’m sure, especially given UNESCO’s benchmark is, at the end of the day, pretty arbitrary. But it’s a starting point I’m happy to embrace. And we need those to know where we might want to go from there.

(Quick aside. Feasible? It would be if we diverted the approximately half billion we currently spend on the private school voucher program back toward public schools. I’m not sure that ship is ever coming back to port. But we could at least send up a signal flare.)

Funding Disparity Between Traditional Public and Public Charter Schools

One last detour before we wrap up the funding question. There’s a funding stratification within the public school sector I’d be remiss not to touch on. Traditional public schools and charter schools are funded differently. The biggest reason is that, historically, charter schools have not had access to local property tax dollars.

Other mechanisms have filled some of the gap, but a gap has remained, at least for charter schools in many localities, including Indianapolis. For example, a 2023 study by the University of Arkansas found that charter schools in Indianapolis, on average, received almost $8,000 less in per student funding than traditional public schools in the city.  

The recent legislative session (namely SEA 1) narrowed this gap considerably by allowing charter schools to access more local property tax dollars. But the gap is not entirely eliminated by this legislative update.

So fully funding one type of public school would not by definition fully fund all types of public school. Transparently, my notion of “fully funded” would also be one where charter schools receive an equitable level of per student funding, regardless of whether or not the overall per student average across the state is increasing or decreasing.

Perhaps this disparity is no problem for you. Perhaps you don’t consider charter schools to be public schools. Well, click the link on the next line for Part 2.

Read Part 2, focused on the notion of “fully public.”