The Numbers Behind the Story: How Data Makes the Case for Fair School Funding Undeniable

Publish Date: September 21, 2026

By Zahava Stadler, Director of Education Funding Equity at New America

Lawmakers and their staff have many competing priorities, and what they really want to know is: why is the priority that you’re proposing the place to put our time, capital, and our resources?

The way to really make the case that education is the most worthwhile investment is with data that shows them how big the challenge is, how much it matters, and how much they can help.

I don’t consider myself a data person either, but I think the important thing to remember is that most lawmakers and most potential partners aren’t data people either. 

You’re not looking to show up with some multivariate regression, testing how strong a trend is or whether it’s resilient to robustness checks. It’s about evidence; it’s about making people feel like the story you’re telling is a true story.  And the way to truly back that up is to say: here’s the story I’m telling about the experience that students are having in my community, and here are the numbers that show you that it’s not just that one story; it’s the broad reality in our community or our state. 

The numbers you need are simple numbers. They’re clear numbers, not only because that’s easier for you as an advocate, but also because that’s what’s going to land with your audience, and that’s what’s going to engender trust with the folks that you’re talking to.

You don’t start with numbers. The first thing you say shouldn’t be, “Look at my graph,” because then you’re asking your audience, your lawmaker, your partner, your community member, to interpret first, and that’s daunting for people. It creates a barrier between you and the person you’re trying to speak to. 

There are three things you need, in this order: 

1. First, you tell them, “Here is my fact.”
2. Next, reassure them that you brought evidence, which is your data.
3. Finally, if they prefer visuals over words and numbers, show a picture, like a line graph with a clear upward trend.

The data is not the information you want them to absorb or take away; the data is the reassurance that the information is true.

Let’s say you didn’t. If you show up to a school funding conversation with only data about school funding, you’re not thinking about the why behind the school funding investment.

The question is, why do we need to invest in schools? It’s because we care about the experience kids have in school, and the outcomes that they see after school. If you are making the argument that school funding isn’t enough to deliver those outcomes, then you have to show up with data on those outcomes.

You need data about the experiences that students have. Do they have the right course materials? Do they have qualified teachers? Do they have the technology they need to learn? Are they in a well-equipped school building that is a healthy place for them?

School funding buys that experience. You need to bring data on the things that school funding can produce, not just about the funding itself.

When we think about how much school funding is enough, it isn’t a static number for everyone, and it’s not a static number over time. What we need to think about is the context in which kids live, learn, and grow up. 

You might think that a certain number of dollars is sufficient, but when the school district next door has twice that amount per student, and those graduates are going to go on to apply to the same state colleges, to compete in the same job market, and to participate in the same democratic and civil society, we need all our kids to be prepared to do those things on equal terms with each other.

That means that the definition of enough when it comes to school funding isn’t just a shopping list total, so when we think about what data is important, it’s not some theoretical cost model about how much a certain set of inputs and a certain set of academic outcomes cost.

It’s about what standard has been set for thriving in our state, and what indicators we need to look at to understand that goalpost.

Zahava Stadler and Jordan Abbott (New America) provide a live demonstration of the ECHO (Education, Community, and Housing Open) Data Dashboard. This tool puts education, housing, and community data side by side so advocates, coalitions, and policymakers can see the full picture of what students and families are up against, and what fair school funding could change. These are the numbers behind the story, and they make the case for fair school funding undeniable.

Explore the ECHO Data Dashboard and bring data into your next policy conversation.

We know, as education advocates, that schools don’t exist in a silo – they exist within communities and kids show up every day carrying the assets, the aspirations, and the challenges of their families, their communities, their contexts. We need to understand the environment that comes with students into the classroom to really understand the whole picture.

We want to bring data, like health, community income levels, access to broadband internet, or whether they have health insurance. All of these things affect the welfare of kids and the communities that they come from. The problem with the current data reported by states and the federal government is that it is reported in different ways. We have school data that’s reported at the school district level; we have a lot of community data points reported at the census tract, or sometimes county level. Then we’re trying to bring all that to the statehouse to talk to lawmakers who are most interested in data at the legislative district level, and none of these data points talk to each other.

It’s very difficult to create a whole story out of this data, because it just doesn’t match.

ECHO stands for Education, Community, and Housing Open Data Dashboard, so it brings data from all of these domains, and presents them at all the levels of geography that might be useful to your advocacy, school district, county, census tract, state legislative district, both House and Senate, and federal congressional district.

That means you can speak to lawmakers in their terms; you can engage with advocacy partners from the housing, health, or community development sectors in their terms. You can all come together and have a unified conversation, and that’s really important. 

We’re hoping that this tool will help advocates break through those silos and be able to collaborate for effective coalition building and effective case-making.

One really difficult thing about advocacy is that different interests are often pitted against each other. The state budget is a finite number of dollars, and sometimes people worried about housing insecurity are fighting for the same dollars as people worried about child nutrition or school funding. Instead of participating in this zero-sum conversation where we’re fighting each other for scraps, wouldn’t it be better if we were all able to come together to have a unified conversation around the best interests of kids and communities?

The ECHO Data Dashboard is designed to help have a unified conversation across all the different constituencies that are advocating for kids in communities.

As advocates, journalists are really key partners in bringing our case to the public, and journalists need to know that the story you’re telling is a true story backed by hard evidence. The ECHO Data Dashboard can be a really powerful tool for helping journalists understand the truth and the importance of what you’re saying, and can even provide visuals that a journalist could use in their story. If you are connecting with a reporter about an important issue during this legislative session, think about bringing this tool to the table in that interview.

I would recommend that if you open the data Dashboard for the first time, start with something that’s familiar to you, a place that’s familiar to you, and a geographic unit that’s familiar to you.

 If you’re an education advocate, start with school districts. Look at something that’s in your usual wheelhouse, whether that’s school funding or the enrollment of students in different need categories. Explore how those familiar things intersect, and then see those exact same data points by a new level of geography. So, if you’re used to looking at it by school district, pull up those same pieces of data by legislative district, and say, oh, I haven’t thought of targeting that lawmaker before, but I see where they fall on this graph. I see where they fall in these numbers. I can now make that connection. 

Start with the familiar, establish a little bit of a basis with the tool, and then push it just a little. Add some nuance, add a new dimension, explore those boundaries, see where it takes you.