Statistics refute rhetoric on school spending

Dan Walters:

California's perennial debate over how much it is and should be spending on its largest-in-the-nation public school system has escalated sharply this year as the state faces a whopping budget deficit and Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger proposes – whether seriously or not is uncertain – to take a big bite out of the schools' money to close it.

The educational establishment and its allies in the Democratic leadership of the Legislature are howling about the governor's proposal that school spending be whacked by $4.8 billion from what the constitution otherwise would require it to be through the 2008-09 fiscal year.

The Democrats have vowed to block any budget that makes a substantial reduction in state school aid and the California Teachers Association and other school groups have resumed their high-decibel complaint that California's per-pupil spending is already near the bottom of the states.

Republicans and other critics, meanwhile, complain that California is wasting much of its school money on bloated administration and ineffective, faddish educational nostrums. They cite the state's near-bottom rankings in national educational achievement test scores.

In the midst of this Sturm und Drang, the Census Bureau on Tuesday issued an extremely detailed accounting of what states (and the District of Columbia) are spending on their schools. It undercuts the mantras being chanted by both of the Capitol's warring political factions.

Posted by Jim Zellmer at April 4, 2008 5:33 AM
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