Is Your District Underfunded?

A quick perusal of the news lately, not to mention the public comments at some recent school board meetings, finds plenty of people convinced that the state has reduced its investment in public education.  

There is no mention that for the most recent fiscal year, “the state of Ohio spent more on primary and secondary education than at any other time in state history. And state education spending will continue to increase” per the Ohio Department of Education and Workforce.   Nary a word can be heard about the 24.9% increase in state appropriations over the 6 years of phasing in the Cupp-Patterson Fair School Funding plan, from $12.2 Billion in FY2021 to $15.3 Billion in FY2027 according to LSC Greenbooks. Mind you, that is merely the state portion, on top of the soaring property tax revenues funding traditional public schools, which combined amounted to $32.8 Billion in total K-12 spending in FY2024, the most recent year for which combined data is available. 

If only there were some place that the public could look to see the fiscal health of their own districts…  But of course, there is! And there has been for the last twenty years, as any objective education reporter ought to know.  Ohio’s District Profile Report, a.k.a. “The Cupp Report” is a comprehensive compilation of several major statewide data systems and official sources designed to complete, transparent, and comparable profile of each district. Every district in Ohio is available here.

The reports are named for Bob Cupp, who championed their creation during his first service in the legislature to promote transparency for public school districts. He later co-led the “Cupp‑Patterson” Fair School Funding Plan, which began implementation while he served as Speaker of the House (2020–2022). Since their introduction in 2006, the reports have become the gold standard for unbiased information on public school districts.

Clearly delineating revenue from local, state, federal, and other sources, as well as breaking down expenses by buildings, instructional, staff, pupil support, and administration, the reports also feature demographics, tax information, and key ratios that are vital for the school funding formula, presented as averages for each district and the state.

With this view, both the increase in  funding from the state as well as the rising local tax revenues are apparent, as displayed in the above chart (note: nominal values are not adjusted for inflation).

While excepting the highest outliers, such as the Lake Erie islands, the average increase in annual operating expenditures for districts in the first 4 years of the phase-in have been 31.1% (with a standard deviation of 14.8%, indicating substantial variability). The FY2026 year will undoubtedly be more once the books are closed, followed by further growth next year. 

The Truth

Our taxpayer funded public school districts have been curiously quiet about these gains. Perhaps there is some gratitude expressed at the local level, or in school board meeting minutes, but that would be whispers at best compared to the loud shouting of histrionics claiming underfunding and specifically attacking EdChoice.

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The Cleveland-Heights University-Heights City School District, Both in filings that were cited in last year’s common pleas court decision, and in recent anti-voucher propaganda, actually blamed EdChoice, claiming it was the reason that their schools, with revenues currently near $27,000 per pupil, had “[i]nadequate funding” that “has caused CH-UHCSD to lay off or suspend teachers and other staff members…”  Apparently it was not their failure to manage the predictable decline in enrollment demographers have been projecting, but rather… EdChoice.   

With one of the state’s highest local tax bases, the district claims it “cannot afford to repair its many facilities and most of its buildings operate with no air conditioning and inadequate roofs, doors, windows and masonry.” The reason? EdChoice.  Meanwhile, nearby St. Dominic has just installed a 290-panel solar array, which should power the century-old church efficiently for generations, along with its  76-year-old school building that provides high-quality faith based education at not even a quarter of the price to taxpayers for pupils who elect to use a state scholarship there. 

The district’s complaint is meritless because state scholarships are funded separately from the recently enhanced district formula, a truth that even the most overzealous scholarship opponents have begun to acknowledge following this month’s circuit court hearing. 

A lack of veracity has not slowed the coordinated effort of district’s public comments repeating a set of talking points against EdChoice, as if the fact that the ability for parents to opt their children into a sliding-scale scholarship program has placed traditional public schools, who have never been better funded, in the poorhouse.  And so I hope this map will provide helpful transparency and support to those who prefer to discuss facts about education policy over cherry-picked propaganda.

• Did your district refer to “vouchers” costing a billion dollars without any reference to the number of students served or the amount public school districts spend? Look em up!
• Did your district claim that the legislature has “reduced its spending on public school funding” because the state’s actual 3.68% increase this biennium is not as high as they wanted? Why not take a look at the facts?
• Did your district’s board feign outrage that some lawmakers, who communicated in advance they would not be attending your district board’s special meeting and instead offered alternatives, did not, in fact, attend? Look up the policy effects, instead of political grandstanding. 

Data on the map comes from the District Profile Reports (Cupp Reports) as well as the ODEW Reports Portal, featuring data from both non-public and public schools.