school funding
In 1889 the ND Constitution Article VIII, Section 1 mandated the state to “maintain a system of public schools open to all children of the state and free from sectarian control.” Since the 1930’s, the state has attempted to meet its constitutional directives by providing some level of financial assistance to local school districts.

Over the past forty years state foundation aid plans have been revised, adjusted, re-categorized and re-calculated. While committees and studies articulated the need to alter the states’ education funding system, they reached little agreement beyond recommending increases in the level of per student aid.

Thirty states, including North Dakota, currently include a factor in their school finance formula to compensate for additional costs necessary to provide education in rural, small schools or districts. North Dakota provides differential support levels based on separate population thresholds for elementary, junior high and high school.

The ND Department of Public Instruction reported that in 2002 Public School Revenue Resources comprised:

            State of ND      38.2%
            Local                47.8%
            Federal             14.0%

How those funds are disbursed among the North Dakota’s 213 school districts, particularly between the “big 8” and smaller, rural schools remains contentious.

States can help equalize funding across districts in two ways:

• by providing all or most of the total funding so there are no discrepancies across districts; and/or
•  by targeting more revenue to poorer districts that are not able to raise as much revenue locally.

Most states use a combination of those two strategies. The state equalization effort is the state share of funding adjusted by the degree to which funds are targeted to poorer districts.   

In an Education Week report Quality Counts, ND ranked lowest in the nation in equity and was one of only two states to earn an F.