$23,108 per pupil: Rhode Island school districts’ spending in fiscal 2023–24, district by district

Spending per pupil in 31 Rhode Island school districts, fiscal 2023–24: median $23,108, range $16,887 to $47,239. Every figure from RIDE Report Card public records, with what the figure includes and leaves out.

Half of the 31 Rhode Island school districts that run both elementary and high school grades recorded spending of more than $23,108 per pupil for fiscal 2023–24, and half recorded less. That middle figure, the median, comes from the Report Card finance file published by the Rhode Island Department of Education (RIDE). It is the most recent year DistrictFacts publishes for the state.

The lowest figure among those districts is $16,887 per pupil, at Cumberland (4,881 students enrolled, 2024–25). The highest is $47,239, at New Shoreham (126 students enrolled, 2024–25), about 2.8 times the lowest. The middle half of districts fall between $20,893 and $25,603.

Per-pupil expenditure, fiscal 2023–24: the 5 lowest and the 5 highest of 31 Rhode Island districts

Cumberland
$16,887
North Smithfield
$19,175
Smithfield
$19,624
East Greenwich
$19,940
Barrington
$20,066
Providence
$29,469
Westerly
$29,821
Newport
$31,376
Narragansett
$32,013
New Shoreham
$47,239

10 of 31 districts shown: the 5 lowest and the 5 highest. Bars start at zero and the line marks the median of all 31, $23,108. Each bar links to the district’s page.

Rhode Island Department of Education (RIDE), Report Card finance file, fiscal 2023–24

The largest district

Providence is the largest Rhode Island system reporting this figure, with 20,250 students enrolled (2024–25). Its figure is $29,469 per pupil for fiscal 2023–24, 28% above the $23,108 median of the 31 districts compared here. The DistrictFacts homepage compares the same figure with a wider group: all 64 Rhode Island systems reporting it for the year, including the kinds of district left out here. That median is $22,236, and Providence is 33% above it.

What “per-pupil expenditure” means in Rhode Island

In Rhode Island the figure is the total per-pupil expenditure in RIDE’s Report Card: spending divided by the district’s average daily membership (the average number of students enrolled on each school day), as RIDE computes it for its federal Every Student Succeeds Act per-pupil report. Each Report Card reports the prior fiscal year. The published description lists no category of spending left out. RIDE’s separate Uniform Chart of Accounts totals (its standard accounting reports), shown on district pages, are a different series and are not used here.

Each state defines this figure differently: what spending is counted, and which count of students it is divided by. The Rhode Island figure should not be set beside another state’s, and DistrictFacts does not rank states on it.

Which districts are counted

DistrictFacts publishes pages for 64 Rhode Island districts and other local education agencies. 64 of them report this figure for fiscal 2023–24. The median and the range above cover 31: regular school districts whose schools span both elementary and high school grades. The other 33 are left out so that different kinds of district are not mixed in one median:

What this does not tell you

A per-pupil figure does not show whether money was spent well, and it is not a measure of school quality. Districts differ in the students they serve, the services they must provide and their size. In a district with few students, a small change in spending or in the pupil count moves the figure a long way. This is one year of data and it says nothing about the trend. A useful question to ask a district is what is included in its figure and how it has changed over time; each district page linked here shows the detail and the source file.

This report was generated from public records by the DistrictFacts Data Desk. Every figure in it is read from the Report Card finance file of the Rhode Island Department of Education (RIDE), as published on the district pages; none was typed by hand. The method is described on the DistrictFacts methodology page, and a correction can be requested from this story.

Sources

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