4. That’s what Polk County ranked on a recent WalletHub study on the Most & Least Equitable School Districts in Florida, with the state ranking fifth nationwide in terms of equitable school districts.

In terms of expenditures for elementary and secondary schools per student, Polk County ranked 25 ($9,900 per pupil), with the household income average by the district ranking at 33 ($50,584), meaning that PCPS is 1 of 6 schools listed experiencing a higher expenditure and lower-income result.

In comparison, districts such as Hillsborough rank in the low expenditure, high-income category, and Collier ranks with a high expenditure, high-income ranking. Some districts such as Hernando ranked both a low expenditure and a lower-income with expenditures ranking 63 and income ranking 29.

Source: WalletHub

What were the other districts in the top 5?

The number 1 school district on the list was Duval County, followed by Miami-Dade, Leon, Polk, and Brevard. Below them, were 62 other considered districts, with Monore coming in as the least equitable district.

How did this study come to fruition?

WalletHub scored over 12,000 schools nationwide and based the scoring off of the above chart (expenditures + income). Then, by utilizing a points system, every school scoring above 1% of the state’s average in terms of expenditures, were then deducted 1 point from the original base score of 50 points per district.

The same system was utilized for the income portion, except those ranking above the 1% were given an additional point with a deduction occurring only if the district fell below the 1%.

This is when math comes into play — to find the final results, the scores were calculated by finding the differences in the results from the expenditures points + the income points. Districts were then ranked based on those final scores.