Demystifying School Funding
In Indiana, the average traditional public school received $12,380 per student for the 2022-23 school year (not including the $2.8 billion in federal COVID-19 relief funds). In contrast, the average Choice Scholarship amount was $6,263.66 for the 2023-24 school year.
by Rep. Jake Teshka
You can tell a lot about what a person values by examining how they spend their money. In fact, right in the middle of the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus said, “For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also,” (Mt. 6:21). By extension, you can tell — or rather you should be able to tell — what society values by examining government expenditures.
As the 2025 budget session of the Indiana General Assembly approaches, I thought that it would be worthwhile to level set about what we value, and specifically to look at the area which receives by far the largest share of our state’s biennial budget: K-12 education. There are misconceptions and myths about how and at what levels the state funds education.
A persistent myth propagated by our state’s minority party is that the Legislature has somehow cut overall education funding in recent years. In fact, we have delivered historic increases to education funding in each of the last two budget cycles. In the 2024-25 budget, we increased tuition support by a whopping $1.5 Billion. Since 2011, the legislature has increased tuition support by 42 percent while overall enrollment has only increased 5.7 percent during the same period.
You may be thinking, “It’s great that overall funding has increased but aren’t private schools syphoning dollars away from traditional public schools through the state’s Choice Scholarship Program?” That’s another misconception. The truth is that while only 91 percent of Hoosier students attend traditional public schools, those schools receive 93 percent of state funding. And that is just state funding. When you combine state, local and federal dollars, the average traditional public school received $12,380 per student for the 2022-23 school year (not including the $2.8 billion in federal COVID-19 relief funds). In contrast, the average Choice Scholarship amount was $6,263.66 for the 2023-24 school year.
Now, you may ask, “If funding for traditional public schools is increasing, then why aren’t teacher salaries?” The first point I would make is that the Legislature doesn’t set teacher salaries and, quite frankly, I don’t think you’d want us to. What an educator might need to earn to live comfortably in Paoli or Rensselaer is going to be markedly different than what that same educator would need in Noblesville or Fort Wayne. And perhaps educators in a certain district prefer to negotiate for more robust fringe benefits and forgo some amount of salary. Lawmakers are not best suited to hash out these specifics. Rather, it is locally elected school boards and hired administrators that should make these decisions.
With that being said, it is certainly important to note that only 58.7 percent of state expenditures actually made it to the classroom during the 2020-21 school year and, assuming the average classroom is 20 students (a conservative estimate), teacher salary only accounts for roughly one quarter of the revenue generated by a traditional public-school classroom. However, between 2011-2021 the number of administrative staff increased 25.2 percent nationwide.
Lastly, I would note that teacher salaries have indeed increased. During the 2022-23 school year, the average Hoosier teacher made $58,531 with total compensation including benefits at $76,608. That was up 3.4 percent from the year before and nearly 10 percent more than the average Hoosier worker.
Article 8 of the Indiana Constitution mandates that the General Assembly “encourage, by all suitable means, moral, intellectual, scientific and agricultural improvement.” My hope is that by dispelling some of these myths we can have a more productive conversation about how those efforts are funded during the next legislative session.
Jake Teshka represents House District 7 which includes parts of St. Joseph, Marshall and LaPorte counties. He is a member of the House Education Committee.” He wrote this at the request of the Indiana Policy Review Foundation.
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