School Cuts Add Up
http://www.offthechartsblog.org/school-cuts-add-up/
Posted by: Phil Oliff
Posted in: Budgets, Federal-State Issues, State Budget and Tax, States in the Recession
Our new survey finds that more than half of the states have cut K-12 education funding this year, as I explained earlier this week. Ten states cut more than $100 per pupil for the 2012-2013 school year alone (see the first chart, below).
Those cuts have largely been modest, but in many cases they come on top of severe cuts from past years. The cumulative damage adds up. Per-student funding is below pre-recession levels in 35 states, in inflation-adjusted dollars. Fifteen states have cut more than $500 per student since 2008; Alabama, California, and Idaho have slashed more than $1,000 each (see second chart, below).
A number of states have started to restore education funding this year. While this is good news, those returning dollars generally aren’t nearly enough to make up for the past few years of cuts.
More About Phil Oliff
Oliff joined the Center as a Policy Analyst with the State Fiscal Project and his work includes tracking state revenue collections and property tax issues, among other areas.
Full bio | Blog Archive | Research archive at CBPP.org
Am I missing something? Where is Indiana here?
The paper that this blog and these charts are derived from analyzes funding data for the 48 states that have the necessary data available to compare state K-12 formula funding in the current school year with funding in earlier years. The other two states, Indiana and Hawaii, publish education funding data in ways that make it difficult to make accurate historical comparisons. Washington, D.C., is excluded because it is a city that operates a single school district with no distinction between state and local funding. You can read the full paper here: http://www.cbpp.org/cms/index.cfm?fa=view&id=3825.