Comment by ryandamm

This is interesting news to me, thank you. I'm curious if the per-pupil spending includes locally raised funds; the reality in California is that the state level funding is poor, and districts that are above some threshold don't get enough funding to operate. So public schools function as local charities and inevitably have fundraising arms to make up the shortfall. This has been true since at least the 1980s when I was in school, and is definitely still true today.