The study [1] doesn't look at state-level averages, but uses school-district-level funding and demographics data. > there are public schools in Boston and NYC

The study [1] doesn't look at state-level averages, but uses school-district-level funding and demographics data. > there are public schools in Boston and NYC that have endowments larger than the total budgets of a dozen other schools combined Table 1 from the study also includes funding standard deviation data (the "SD" column). The highest one is $765, meaning that 99% of schools are within 3x that amount around the mean. There may be outliers like you say, but they are statistically irrelevant. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/2332858419872445 https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/23328584198724...