In 2021, 36% of all funding for public K-12 schools in the U.S. came from local property taxes. From 1920 to 2021 the portion of K-12 public school funding provided by local governments decreased from 83% to 44%. As explained by the Urban Institute, “In the past, because public schools were funded largely by local property taxes, property-rich and -poor school districts differed greatly in expenditures per pupil. Since the early 1970s, however, state legislatures have, on their own initiative or at the behest of state courts, implemented school finance equalization programs to reduce the disparity in within-state education spending.” With added federal funding, school districts with higher portions of minority students have spent about the same average amount per student as school districts with smaller portions of minority students since at least the early 1970s.