Thirty years of Seattle school spending, to 2022
Seattle Public Schools spent $23,519 per pupil in 2022, in constant dollars — down 2.1% on the year, and 72% above the series low of $13,702 in 1995. The real peak was $24,313 in 2020.
The per-pupil post runs on OSPI’s figures, which start in 2019 and are the right source for what the district spends now. This chart trades precision for reach: it is the federal F-33 collection, which is coarser and lands two years late, but goes back three decades. Only over that span is the shape visible — a decade of real spending going nowhere, then the McCleary years, when the state supreme court held that Washington was not meeting its constitutional duty to fund basic education and the legislature raised the state property tax to fix it.
Everything here is inflation-adjusted, which is the only honest way to chart a thirty-year budget series: in nominal dollars this line rises almost every year and says nothing. Per-pupil figures also move when enrollment does — a district losing students spends more per head without spending more.
Source: NCES F-33 local education agency finance survey — Urban Institute Education Data Portal through 2019-20, U.S. Census govsschfin thereafter — for LEAID 5307710 (Seattle Public Schools), divided by October headcount enrollment and expressed in constant 2025 dollars. Auto-generated each build.