Per-Pupil Spending Doesn’t Mean Higher Academic Achievement, Federal Data Show

With all the money from the federal government’s COVID-19 relief, states received a huge influx of funds in 2022 for schools. But how much did an increase in taxpayer dollars toward school districts affect student performance? According to data from the National Assessment of Educational Progress and the United States Census Bureau, despite the largest increase in per-pupil funding in two decades, student academic achievement in the top-spending states sometimes trailed that of their lower-spending counterparts. According to the Census Bureau, schools received the largest increase in per-pupil funding year over year in 2022.