Local districts contribute around 44 percent, drawn mostly from local property taxes. And approximately 6 percent of the budget comes from Washington. But school funding isn't so simple. The money often comes with strings attached. It can be redirected and reprioritized on a whim by politicians and administrators.
Every state does things slightly differently.
And funding tends to vary dramatically, depending on property values, not just from state to state but from neighborhood to neighborhood, and from year to year. Issues of school finance quickly became constitutional issues. Recent court battles have repeatedly determined that states are responsible for all education spending and that states, even when their funds are simply a minor supplement to local funds, should not allow one district to spend vastly more than another. The wave of state school-finance lawsuits that began in California in 1971 reached its height in the 1980s in Kentucky, Montana, New Jersey, and Texas. Today, more than 20 lawsuits seeking reform of state financing of K-12 education are pending.