FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE TUESDAY, MARCH 11, 2003

                                

Patricia Buscher                                       CB03-44
Public Information Office
(301) 763-3030/457-3670 (fax)
(301) 457-1037 (TDD)
e-mail: pio@census.gov                          Quotes and radio sound bites


              School Districts in New York and New Jersey Spent Most
                   Per Pupil on Education, Census Bureau Reports
                                
  School districts in New York and New Jersey led all states in the amount of 
money spent per student on elementary and secondary education in 2001,according 
to the Commerce Department's Census Bureau.

  The following table shows per-pupil expenditures from the 2001 Annual Survey of 
Local Government Finances — School Systems for the United States and the top five 
states or equivalents:

Other findings:
State governments contributed the greatest share of public elementary
and secondary school funding: $201 billion. Local governments followed 
at $173 billion and the federal government was the third largest 
contributor at $29 billion.


Public school systems spent $410.6 billion, up $30.1 billion from
2000. About $212.7 billion was spent on instruction, $118.7 billion on 
services that support instruction, $48.9 billion on capital outlay and 
$30.2 billion on other noninstructional items.


School districts invested $36.0 billion in school construction, up 13.3 
percent.


School district debt reached $201.6 billion, an increase of 13.0 percent. 
Texas, California, New York, Pennsylvania and Michigan borrowed more than 
$2 billion each for building construction, reconstruction and refinancing.
                                
  The tabulations contain data on revenue, expenditure and debt for
individual public elementary and secondary school systems with enrollments
of 15,000 pupils or more.

  Data for this report come from all elementary and secondary school
systems and are not subject to sampling error. The data are subject to
possible error from miscoding and misidentification of schools.