The New York City education department on Friday released a report detailing per-student funding at every public school across the district, data that shows wide differences in spending.
Though the city projects it will spend an average of $24,200 per student next year, the total can vary by tens of thousands of dollars among schools.
Stuyvesant High School, among the most prestigious schools in the city, has one of the lowest budgets per-student: It is expected to spend more than $17,000 per student in the next year. At tiny P.S. 25 in Brooklyn, a school the city has tried to close as its enrollment has dipped below 100 students, the budget is almost $50,000 per student.
Check out our sortable table below and find your school’s budget. For a comparison tool, click here.
That variation is largely by design. New York City divvies up the bulk of school budgets through a formula called Fair Student Funding. Schools receive extra money for students who are harder to serve, like those who are poor, struggling academically, have a disability, or are learning English. But principals have complained the formula has never lived up to its promise and others argue that it doesn’t make up for the money that some powerhouse parent organizations can raise.
In the latest school budget, Mayor Bill de Blasio added an extra $125 million to bring every school up to at least 90 percent of the funding that they deserve under the formula.
Though much of the data was already available, this was the first time the city was required to issue a public report of its school-level finances, central budget, and other spending data under a new state law.
School funding has become a central issue in New York’s heated Democratic gubernatorial primary. Gov. Andrew Cuomo championed the new law, saying the state has dedicated significant money to education but that more transparency is needed to track whether districts are spending it fairly. (Schools were already going to be required to release the data under federal education law, but the state sped up the timeline for when the reports were due.) Cuomo’s opponent, the actress and activist Cynthia Nixon, has slammed the governor, arguing the state is shortchanging its neediest schools.
You can search for your school and compare it to others using our tool below. A caveat about the per-student spending: The figures here include fringe costs like pension payments, which come from central budgets. Also, many of the schools that spend far above the district average have special education or alternative programs, which are funded differently from traditional schools.
Find your school funding
Search for your school to see how much funding it receives. If a school has no data for the last two columns, it is a school that serves students with special needs or offers alternative programs. Their budgets are allocated through a different method than Fair Student Funding.