Unsurprising

While I found this study a bit disquieting, I didn’t find it at all surprising:

Most states provide less support per student for elementary and secondary schools — in some cases, much less — than before the Great Recession, our survey of state budget documents over the last three months finds. Worse, some states are still cutting eight years after the recession took hold.

Most states have balanced budget requirements. As a rule they depend on three things for income: personal income, retail sales, and real estate values. None of those are booming so increasing spending on anything is increasingly difficult. When states don’t spend on K-12 education, any increases must come from local governments:

In at least 18 states, local government funding per student fell over the same period. In at least 27 states, local funding rose, but those increases rarely made up for cuts in state support. Total local funding nationally ― for the states where comparable data exist ― declined between 2008 and 2014, adding to the damage from state funding cuts.

There’s one thing I wonder about: how are they calculating state spending? They should be combining education spending as such with the amount spent on teachers’ pensions. Pensions are deferred income. Just because the states kicked the can down the road doesn’t mean that it’s not education spending.

As the proportion of state revenues committed to Medicaid and public employee pensions rises, expect a lot more of this.

Hat tip: RealClearPolicy