Money not the issue when it comes to K-12 performance in California
April 2, 2008
A recent column by the SacBee’s Dan Walters analyzes education spending data in California’s public schools with some surprising results. The data comes from a Census Bureau report released this week called “Public Education Finance 2006.” It turns out that California is not at the bottom of per-student education spending as is often claimed - there are 22 states below California. The full Census Bureau report can be found at: http://ftp2.census.gov/govs/school/06f33pub.pdf
Here are some excerpts from the article:
The Census Bureau report strongly refutes the oft-cited “fact” that California is near the bottom in per-pupil school spending. The national average was $9,138 in 2005-06. California was at $8,486, with New York the highest at $14,884 and Utah the lowest at $5,437 – one of 22 states, in fact, that fell below California’s level.
In terms of school revenues, California was 25th among the states at $10,264 per pupil, just under the national average. It was above average in per-pupil income from federal and state sources and about $1,700 per pupil below average in local revenues, thanks to Proposition 13, the 1978 property tax limit measure.
Overall, therefore, California isn’t nearly as deficient in school financing as the education establishment would have us believe. But neither is it wasting money on administrative overkill, as critics on the right contend. Its per-pupil spending on non-instructional “support services” was in fact, slightly below the national average at $3,050, although the sub-categories of overall and school site administration were a bit above average.
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