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Issue Report
State Education Budgets, 2024–2026
How final state education budgets have trended across three enactment years: every state-level budget law in the K-12 tracker, scored by W/A analysts on the Bad–Good scale (trending unfavorably, about level, trending favorably). Public K-12 education now spends nearly $1 trillion a year nationally ($983.7 billion in fiscal year 2024; Census Bureau, Annual Survey of School System Finances), so the question in most capitols is not just how much money is available but how it gets prioritized, and that is more art than science. Many states are also redefining school accountability and what counts as student success, which shifts dollars among programs even where totals hold steady. Each year below carries the key points; open the drill-down to browse the underlying laws by theme, score, and state.
Budget trend map ·
Biennial-budget states. Odd-year cycle (two-year budget written in odd-numbered years): Connecticut, Hawaii, Indiana, Maine, Minnesota, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Oregon, Texas, Washington, and Wisconsin. Even-year cycle: Kentucky, Virginia, and Wyoming. Every biennial state carries stripes in its off year: a gray striped tile means no budget action, and a colored striped tile means the state passed only supplemental or amendment laws between budgets. Virginia in 2025, for example, shows color with stripes because its two-year budget was written in 2024; Texas in 2026 is gray striped because its next biennium is written in 2027.
Trending unfavorably ·
About level ·
Trending favorably ·
Method. Items are final enacted budget laws (Issue: Budget, Level: State, Type: Laws) from the W/A K-12 tracker. The score is the analyst-assigned Bad–Good direction: 1 trending unfavorably, 2 about level, 3 trending favorably. Themes are assigned from the law summaries; a law can carry more than one theme. 2026 includes biennial states' supplemental and amendment laws between budgets.