Basically each city or county is mostly responsible for paying for the education of the children within its boundaries.
EDIT: I am slightly off on the percentages. See the comment below.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_school_funding_in_the_U...
How can such a system not lead to massive disparities in quality and access to education, if there isn't a federal backstop to make up for differences in funding available from the state/county. Is there such a thing?
Glad I live in a country where schools get funding based on factors like socio-economic status of surrounding community (the poorer the community, the more funding from central government).
No. Plenty of poorer states would oppose it if there were anyway.
>Public schools are the responsibility of individual provincial departments of education and funded mainly from local and provincial taxes, with some federal funds.
https://www.justlanded.com/english/Canada/Canada-Guide/Educa....
Property tax revenues will also probably be dropping.
Because the bulk of the funding comes from local sources, when a local economy collapses the school district has no backstop, and their funding can get much closer to just the state and federal funds. When states reduce budgets due to those same economic issues, those areas get devastated.