Arizona School District Spending—Fiscal Year 2021—Analysis and data file

In fiscal year 2021, the State per pupil spending and instructional spending percentage continued an upward trend, and the State average teacher salary increased to $56,349—a 16.5 percent increase over 2017’s average, but short of the 20 percent cumulative goal by fiscal year 2021. We continued to see wide spending variations among similar districts, indicating possible opportunities for improved efficiency at some districts, which could free up dollars for teacher salaries or other district priorities. State-wide, the COVID-19 pandemic substantially impacted district operations and spending, primarily in the areas of food service and transportation.  

This year, we are providing our State-wide analysis results and individual district results in an interactive, user-friendly, web-based format. Similar to prior years, this format will allow you to easily view detailed results for a single district or the summarized State results, but in a new manner that provides more information about why this data is important and how it can be used. The website also defines and explains the measures we present, our objectives and scope, and data sources. Links to the website can be found under “Additional Links” on the right side of this page. Additionally, we continue to issue a Microsoft Excel data file, which contains the numbers and other information presented in the graphics on the individual district and State results pages and can be found under “Additional Documents” on the right side of this page.