EMBARGOED UNTIL: 12:01 A.M. EDT, MAY 23, 2002 (THURSDAY)


Patricia Buscher                                                   CB02-69
Public Information Office
(301) 457-3030/457-3670
(301) 457-1037 (TDD)
e-mail: pio@census.gov

        New Jersey and New York Spent Most Per Pupil on 
                Education, Census Bureau Reports

  New Jersey and New York led all states in the amount of money spent per
pupil on elementary and secondary education in 2000, according to the
Commerce Department's Census Bureau.

  The following table shows per-pupil expenditures in 2000 for the United
States and the top five states or state equivalents:

                         2000         1999               Change
                         Spending     Spending     Dollars    Percent
     State               Per Pupil    Per Pupil
  
  United States          $  6,835     $ 6,458      $377        5.8%
  New Jersey               10,283      10,230        53        0.5%            
  New York                 10,039       9,373       666        7.1%           
  District of Columbia      9,933       9,645       288        3.0%
  Connecticut               8,800       8,632       168        1.9%
  Alaska                    8,743       8,472       271        3.2%
  
 Other findings in the new tabulations include:

 -- State governments contributed the greatest share of total public
    elementary and secondary school funding: $186 billion. They were 
    followed by local governments at $161 billion and the federal
    government, $27 billion.

-- Public school systems spent $380.4 billion, up $25.8 billion from 1999. 
   About $198 billion was spent on instruction, $109 billion for services
   that support instruction,$45 billion for capital outlay and $28 billion
   for other non-instructional expenditures.

-- School districts invested $32 billion in school construction, up 
   12 percent.

-- School district debt reached $178 billion, an increase of 8 percent.
   Texas, Wisconsin, New York and California borrowed more than 
   $1.8 billion each for building construction,reconstruction and refinancing.

  The tabulations from the 2000 Annual Survey of Local Government Finances
School Systems provide financial data for public elementary and 
secondary education. They contain data on revenue, expenditure and debt 
for individual public elementary and secondary school systems with 
enrollments of 15,000 pupils or more.

  Also included are state rankings of per-pupil amounts of
elementary-secondary school revenues and expenditures and rankings based
on the relation of elementary-secondary revenues and expenditures to state
personal income.
                                
  Data for this report come from all elementary and secondary school
systems and are not subject to sampling error. Quality assurance
procedures were applied to all phases of collection, processing and
tabulation to minimize errors. However, the data are still subject to
possible error from miscoding and difficulties in identifying which units
should be included in the report.