• School district revenues from state and local sources: revenues from state and local sources for the 2015-16 school year come from the Census, Annual Survey of School System Finances (F33).

• Cost of living index: county-level cost-of-living index for 2016 comes from the Council for Community and Economic Research (C2ER).

• School district enrollments and racial composition: school district enrollment characteristics from the 2015-16 school year come from the US Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics, Common Core of Data (CCD).

• District-level, school-age poverty rates: school district-level data on poverty rates among relevant school-age children in 2016 come from the Census, Small Area Income and Poverty Estimates (SAIPE).

• School district median owner-occupied property value and median household income for the 2015-16 school year come from the US Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics, Education Demographic and Geographic Estimates (EDGE).

• Native American reservations: American Indian Areas/Alaska Native Areas/Hawaiian Home Lands Boundary File from the Census Bureau’s MAF/TIGER geographic database.

Figures in the report and website come from the data sources described above. Further details about these figures are presented below.

Percent nonwhite calculations. The proportion of students enrolled in a district that are nonwhite was calculated by dividing the number of nonwhite students by the total enrollment within a given school district.

Revenue calculations. All of the revenue figures presented are cost-adjusted to convert per-pupil revenues into figures that account for variation in the purchasing power of a dollar across different regions. We applied a cost-adjusting conversion by applying 2016 county-level revenues (each district’s county was identified using National Center for Education Statistics, CCD data).

Per-pupil state and local revenues were calculated by dividing state and local revenues (adjusted to exclude the monies described below) by fall enrollment counts as reported in the F33 survey. Per-pupil state and local revenues for school districts displayed in the map on the website and in the report’s tables and text are from the 2015-16 school year.

Prior to computing per-pupil revenue amounts, the following subtractions were made from total state and local revenues for each school district:

1. Because it can contribute to large fluctuations in district revenues from year to year, we exclude revenue for capital from the calculation of state revenues.

2. Similarly, we exclude money generated from the sale of property from local revenues, because it too can contribute to large fluctuations in revenues.

3. In just under 2,000 districts, revenues received by local school districts include monies that are passed through to charter schools that are not a part of the local school district but are instead operated by charter local education agencies (charter LEAs). This artificially inflates the revenues in these local school districts because they include money for students educated outside of the district who are not counted in enrollment totals. To address this, we subtract from state and local revenues a proportional share (based on the percent of each districts’ revenues that come from local, state and federal sources) of the total amount of money sent to outside charter LEAs—an expenditure category included in the F33 survey.

4. In Arkansas, large portions of districts’ revenues that should be considered local are categorized as state revenues. The value of this misattribution for each district is described in the F33 documentation as C24, Census state, NCES local revenue. Before analysis, the value of C24 is subtracted from state revenues and added to local revenues for the state of Arkansas.

5. In Texas, many districts report exorbitantly high per-pupil revenues. This is in part because of the policy and procedures for recapturing and redistributing local revenues raised by property-wealthy districts in the state. In the F33 survey, recapture is reported as expenditure code L12. Because these monies are included in the state revenue for other, receiving districts, we subtract a districts’ L12 expenditures from their local revenues for the state of Texas.

See the F33 Survey Documentation and File Layout for state-specific notes relation to education finance data.

School district exclusions. Our analysis includes all school districts in the country that meet our standard requirements for a finance-based analysis:

Racially concentrated nonwhite school districts
Proportion of students that are nonwhite > 75%

Racially concentrated white school districts
Proportion of students that are white > 75%

Racially concentrated nonwhite, low-poverty school districts
Proportion of students that are nonwhite > 75%
Student poverty rate ≤ 20%

Racially concentrated nonwhite, high-poverty school districts
Proportion of students that are nonwhite > 75%
Student poverty rate > 20%

Racially concentrated white, low-poverty school districts
Proportion of students that are white > 75%
Student poverty rate ≤ 20%

Racially concentrated white, high-poverty school districts
Proportion of students that are white > 75%
Student poverty rate > 20%

National analysis. In the national analysis, we summarized cost-adjusted state and local revenue within each of the six categories listed above. We then conducted the following analyses:

1. Compare the average, cost-adjusted total revenue between:

a. Racially concentrated nonwhite school districts
b. Racially concentrated white school districts

2. Compare the average, cost-adjusted total revenue between:

a. Racially concentrated nonwhite, high-poverty school districts
b. Racially concentrated white, low-poverty school districts

3. Compare the average, cost-adjusted total revenue between:

a. Racially concentrated nonwhite, high-poverty school districts
b. Racially concentrated white, high-poverty school districts

State analysis. Not every state has a school district in each of the six categories. We performed these analyses at the state level for each state that meets the following requirements:

To be included in the state-level analysis, a state must have at least five school districts in each category for analysis OR at least 2% of its total enrollment in each category for analysis. For example, racially isolated white, high-poverty districts in Massachusetts include only three districts and less than 1% of the state’s enrollment. Massachusetts, therefore, is not included in the analysis which compares racially concentrated white, high-poverty school districts to racially concentrated nonwhite, high-poverty school districts.

Other variables included in analysis

Enrollment variables:

• Districts—number of districts in the category
• Students—number of students enrolled in the districts included in the category
• Percent districts:

• National—proportion of all school districts in the country that are included in the category
• State—proportion of all school districts in the state that are included in the category

• Average enrollment: average number of students enrolled in the districts included in the category
• Percent enrollment:

• National—proportion of all students in the country that are enrolled in the districts included in the category
• State—proportion of all students in the state that are enrolled in the districts included in the category

• Average poverty rate—average poverty rate of the districts included in the category

Revenue variables:

• State and local revenue, per pupil, coli—average total revenue, per pupil for the districts included in the category, cost-adjusted

• Local revenue, per pupil, coli—average local revenue, per pupil for the districts included in the category, cost-adjusted

• State revenue, per pupil, coli—average state revenue, per pupil for the districts included in the category, cost-adjusted

• State and local revenue, coli—sum of total revenue for all districts included in the category, cost-adjusted

• Local revenue, coli—sum of local revenue for all districts included in the category, cost-adjusted

• State revenue, coli—sum of state revenue for all districts included in the category, cost-adjusted

• Average MHI—average median household income for the districts included in the category

• Average MPV—average median property value for the districts included in the category