The Condition of Education and the Education Marketplace

The National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) has a mandate to report to Congress on the condition of education by June 1 of each year. Their recently released report, The Condition of Education 2018, gives us a look at the trends and developments in education using the latest available data. When looking at enrollment, public school enrollment has increased from 50.31 million in 2015 to 50.44 million in 2016. The number of students enrolled in public charter schools has increased from 2.7 million in 2014 to 2.8 million in 2015.

While the number of students continues to increase, the revenues stayed the same at about $664 billion. In the 2014-2015 school year, revenues for public schools looked like this: $56.4 billion from federal sources, $309 billion from state sources, $298.5 billion from local sources. Compared to the prior year, the federal contribution stayed about the same, while the state sources increased by $11 billion and the local funding increased by about $9 billion. During that same school year, total expenditures rose to $668 billion, or about $11,734 per student.

While it is nearly impossible to predict where education funding will end up in the next few years, indications are that this trend may continue, or, even more likely, schools will be forced to do more with less.

With this in mind, we present our annual Facilities Sourcebook, which is designed to serve as a year-round reference guide to facilities, security, technology and business services and products for the K-12 market. The businesses that are featured in this special section are advertisers that regularly support this magazine. Without them, we would not exist. We ask that you take that into consideration when you make future decisions about purchasing materials and services.

By the time you receive this issue, most of you will have begun a new school year. May it be a successful one!

A reminder, you can follow me on Twitter, @SPM_editor, and you are always welcome to contact me with your thoughts and ideas at [email protected].

This article originally appeared in the School Planning & Management July/August 2018 issue of Spaces4Learning.

Featured

  • Springfield Breaks Ground on $53.7M Pipkin Middle School Rebuild

    Construction is underway on a new, state-of-the-art Pipkin Middle School in Springfield, Mo., a major step in Springfield Public Schools’ (SPS) long-term facility improvement plan, according to local news. The $53.7-million project officially broke ground in early June, following years of planning and community input aimed at modernizing aging infrastructure and addressing student capacity concerns.

  • ProTeam Launches GoFit 6 HEPA Backpack Vacuum

    Technology leader Emerson recently introduced the new ProTeam GoFit 6 HEPA backpack vacuum, according to a news release. The vacuum was designed to capture 99.97% of particulates down to 0.3 microns—including atmospheric hazards like lead dust, mold spores, and other particulates—through an advanced filtration system.

  • California High School Starts Construction on New CTE Building

    Analy High School, part of the West Sonoma County Union High School District (WSCUHSD) in Sebastopol, Calif., recently broke ground on a new Career Technical Education (CTE) Building, according to a news release. The 15,000-square-foot facility will offer specialized facilities for students in engineering, welding, culinary arts, agricultural sciences, and design thinking.

  • modern college building with circuit and brain motifs

    Anthropic Introduces Claude for Education

    Anthropic has launched a version of its Claude AI assistant tailored for higher education institutions. Claude for Education "gives academic institutions secure, reliable AI access for their entire community," the company said, to enable colleges and universities to develop and implement AI-enabled approaches across teaching, learning, and administration.

Digital Edition