Wednesday, June 15, 2011
When NC drops to 49th in school funding, we'll still be ahead of —
If you've seen the ads, it's not Mississippi.
Mississippi will spend more on public schools than we do.
It's not South Carolina. (Really? Not even with Nikki Haley in the Gov's Office?)
Nope.
Together NC coalition leaders just sent a letter of apology to South Carolina for their mockery back when our state was never gonna be like their state.
So our all-but-adopted state budget, when the Senate Republicans are finished overriding Gov. Bev Perdue's veto, will drop us to 49th out of 50 states in taxpayer support for K-12 schools. Which I've read over and over in progressive cyber-circles, and begs the question —
Who's last?
The answer is ...
... the answer is Utah.
It's in The Book of Mormon.
(Or ask Jon Huntsman, the "moderate" Republican running for president.)
Comments (5)
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This is the STATE level expenditure per pupil. What is the TOTAL average expenditure per pupil at public schools, including local contributions, and how does that match up nationally? And how do each of the NC school systems compare?
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I hope in 2012 we can come together and assert "This is why you were not re-elected".
However, I fear a lot of campaign cash will convince too many voters that underfunding the "crap" (lower and middle income students) in public schools and handing money over to people who won't hire the future, less educated NC workforce magically "improves" the state.
I hope Judge Manning is successful in upholding the state constitution's guarantee of access to education to all of NC, since the General Assembly has proven it has no interest in it.
How much is the per pupil (pp) spending in NC public schools vrs. NC private schools? I don't know, but would guess that private schools spend about 35% less pp than public schools. If that is true, then money is not the issue. It is environment. Private schools do not tolerate the crap the public schools tolerate.
I would've guessed that Utah, with such low per-pupil funding, had a high private-school population. I see that correlation coming in NC if charter schools take off in upscale areas -- no need to pay big bucks in taxes for those "other" public schools any more (would be the logic).
Charter schools are tax-funded at about 90% of regular public schools, but of course they are nonprofit organizations into which parents and local donors can pour tax-deductible gifts. And, charter schools can arrange things, if they want to, so few or no poor kids can attend ... ditto, special-needs kids ... and that helps keep the overhead down. (Also, no football players with giant stadium needs will enroll in a charter school.)
But, not true of Utah, apparently. It's one of a handful of states where private-school attendance is less than 6% of the total student population (the national average is about 10%). At least, that was the case in 2000 Census data; I doubt it's changed much since then: http://www.census.gov/prod/2003pubs/c2kbr-…
While there isn't a direct straight line correlation between per pupil expenditures and student achievement (as, actually in the case of Utah whose students generally do well), the broad relationship is obvious.
Our cynical politicians who consciously voted to make us a laughing stock and then idiotically rationalize their decision insult the public, disgrace their office, and should be run out of government.
It's even worse when they assert, "This is why we were elected."
Get outta here!
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