Congress is debating a US Department of Education budget that could change federal funding streams that provide supports for students. In the House funding bill, lawmakers proposed reducing Title I spending, which supports low-income students, by 26 percent and proposed eliminating federal funding that supports professional development (Title II) and English language learners (Title III). In the Senate funding bill, levels for major federal funding streams are generally held at the same level as last year, and the bill includes a small increase for Title I spending. These proposals follow the president’s budget request, which proposed maintaining Title I, zeroing out several smaller federal funding streams, and consolidating some of them with a new simplified funding program.
As district leaders face the uncertainty posed by these vastly different proposals and other downstream changes from the One Big Beautiful Bill, this data tool allows users to see how changes to federal grant programs funded under the Every Student Succeeds Act could filter down to districts. The tool shows that changes to different federal funding streams may amplify the different shares of federal funding that different districts receive, and it illustrates that all districts receive large shares of their revenue from state and local funding for K–12 education.
This tool uses the most recent year of fiscal data that includes public and public charter schools (2022–23) in its actuals and scenarios to see how different funding scenarios might affect districts differently, in the context of all revenue sources. We use a consistent year in the scenarios to show differences without introducing noise from inflation and other factors, but the budget proposals would go into effect in 2025–26 if passed.
Note: Because not all states report program-level data for federal funding programs, districts that appear to have a $0 revenue stream might receive funding for that program. More information on these state differences and other adjustments to the data are available in the technical documentation below the tool.
This data tool is part of a series of resources developed to help education policymakers and communities understand how proposed or likely federal K–12 policy changes could affect the reach and impact of education resources. By allowing users to specify different scenarios, the tool aims to show how shifting policy proposals and related changes could affect district K–12 revenues.
- EdTrust has created an interactive dashboard that shows potential impact to school districts of the House, Senate, and president’s budget proposals and how this may affect different student groups.
- New America has published an analysis of the funding proposals’ potential impact from the president and House in each congressional district.
- The Learning Policy Institute has published an analysis comparing the impact of the president’s and Senate’s proposed education formula changes at the state level.
The data for this analysis come from the National Center for Education Statistics’ Common Core of Data (CCD). The fiscal data are from the most recent district-level file, the Local Education Agency (School District) Finance Survey (F-33) for the 2022–23 school year. School name and state information are sourced from the most recent Local Education Agency (School District) Universe Survey data from 2023–24. Districts that appear in both the fiscal and nonfiscal data are presented in the tool.
The 2022–23 school year included substantial federal funding for districts to support education during the pandemic. Because 2025–26 will not include this funding, we subtracted federal revenue received for pandemic support (e.g., from the Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief Fund) from each district’s total.
Some states do not report federal revenue by specific funding streams. As a result, the outputs of this tool should broadly be considered a minimum estimate of the effects of changes to title funding.
In some cases, revenue reported to be received by districts in the CCD fiscal data may be “passed through” via payments to charter schools, private schools, and other school systems. Our previous research indicates that pass-through funding is most common in Connecticut, Louisiana, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Rhode Island. In broader analyses of K–12 funding, we implement a rudimentary adjustment for this revenue pass-through based on payment size. But because we cannot determine how federal dollars might be passed through, we opt not to implement the adjustment in this analysis.
PROJECT CREDITS
This research was funded by the Walton Family Foundation. We are grateful to them and to all our funders, who make it possible for Urban to advance its mission.
The views expressed are those of the authors and should not be attributed to the Urban Institute, its trustees, or its funders. Funders do not determine research findings or the insights and recommendations of Urban experts. Further information on the Urban Institute’s funding principles is available at urban.org/fundingprinciples.
RESEARCH Kristin Blagg and Maggie Reeves
DATA VISUALIZATION AND DEVELOPMENT Thiya Poongundranar and Erika Tyagi
DESIGN Christina Baird
EDITING David Hinson
