Nationwide School Districts Face $3.2 Billion Bill for Handling Cultural Conflicts

For the nation’s public school districts, heightened conflict over culturally divisive topics like efforts to ban books and teaching about race, racism and LBTQ issues has disrupted operations, negatively impacted classrooms and cost billions of dollars that could have been better used serving students, according to a study published today by the Institute for Democracy, Education and Access at UCLA.

Based on a survey of 467 public school superintendents across 46 states, the study found that nearly 66% of districts experienced moderate to high levels of conflict across several cultural issues — conflict many times characterized by incidents of harassment, the spread of misinformation, vandalism, and violent rhetoric or threats.

The cost in dollars? A total of $3.2 billion across all public schools for 2023–24 alone, the research team estimates. That figure includes district expenditures for additional security, communications and legal work, as well as costs related to redeploying staff to respond to social media misinformation, media inquiries and public records requests.

Culture-related school conflicts have also taken a significant toll on the well-being of superintendents, teachers, school staff and students, the report shows, with increased job turnover, higher rates of absenteeism and a negative impact on teaching and learning.

“This research makes clear that culturally divisive conflicts in the nation’s schools are generating fear, stress and anxiety that is disrupting school districts and taking a personal toll on the educators and staff members who work in them,” said lead researcher John Rogers, a UCLA professor of education and director of the Institute for Democracy, Eduation and Access. “Sadly, as superintendents have told us, the cost of these conflicts not only has a financial impact but is also eroding teaching and learning and undermining the trust between schools and the communities so essential to our democracy and civic life.”

In addition to faculty from UCLA, the research team included scholars from the University of Texas at Austin, American University and UC Riverside.