That's from 1996 and definitely not true today. The $$ numbers there are also hilariously low now. Compare them to:

https://www.aaastateofplay.com/school-districts-ranked-by-th...

Especially in inner cities, many of the better performing school districts spend far less than the places serving poor communities. Camden NJ is one of the highest spenders, so are a lot of city schools in Illinois. Famously "good" schools, like Stuyvesant which spends about $17,000 per student, don't even make the list. It's far below the average for NY!

A more recent report echoing similar findings: http://hechingerreport.org/a-decade-of-research-on-the-rich-...

https://hechingerreport.org/new-data-even-within-the-same-di...

https://www.epi.org/publication/public-education-funding-in-...

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/09/upshot/biden-school-fundi...

That is from 1996. Not sure that is why all of the sudden kids aren't attending school.