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Monday, April 7, 2008

Education Funding: Pierre Dropping the Ball

KELO directs me to a new U.S. Census Bureau report that finds South Dakota at the bottom (that headline is sounding too familiar) in education spending. The report, "Public Education Finances 2006" (big PDF alert!), finds that South Dakota ranks 41st (among the 50 states and DC) in total per-pupil spending on K-12 education. Perhaps more tellingly, we rank 44th in the amount we spend on K-12 education as a percentage of our statewide income.

Now let me nod right away to the naysayers: indeed, in education, money isn't everything. If throwing money at schools made kids smarter, the kids in New York, New Jersey, and Vermont would be twice as smart as South Dakota kids, but they aren't. South Dakota teachers and students are able to compete academically even on a shoestring budget. Our schools are good... but we're also lucky that we can for so long buck the economic maxim that "You get what you pay for."

Of course, if you take the economic position that the money we spend reflects our values, our low ranking in education spending suggests we don't value education as much as we say we do. Particularly guilty of this is the state government. Remember Governor Rounds's grumbling that the local districts are banking too much money in their reserves and not putting enough effort toward their actual expenditures? Well, even if the local districts are maintaining reserves, they're still shouldering their burden and then some. Consider these numbers for South Dakota:

  1. Local revenue for education per student: $4,523 (rank: 24th; nat'l avg: $4,779).
  2. State revenue for education per student: $2,922 (rank: 50th; nat'l avg: $5,018).

The Governor and the Legislature are the tightwads here. Our local districts are able to find per-student resources almost equal to the national average for local effort, while Pierre does $2,000 less per student compared to other state governments.

This disparity in local and state effort bothers me. I'd like local districts to be able to solve their own problems, but these numbers suggest they're already going above and beyond to make up for Pierre's stinginess. If we want competitive teacher salaries and more educational opportunities for our kids, Pierre has got to start doing its part.

post-script: Kremlinologists, parse this one: Education Secretary Rick Melmer says that South Dakota's low education finance ranking is a result of our not having an income tax. (I'm betting my neighbor Gerry has already clipped and saved that line for his debate briefs!)

3 comments:

  1. Statistics was never my strongest suit, but I have heard that things are a lot better for education funding in Wyoming, and they don't have an income tax. Their property taxes are lower than ours, too.

    Someone told me that teacher pay alone is more than half again as much in Wyoming as in South Dakota. That person was a teacher.

    Didn't Wyoming face a lawsuit over education funding, similar to the one we face -- and win it?

    What is Wyoming doing right that we aren't? Or am I totally misinformed here?

    ReplyDelete
  2. I'm not sure, but I don't think Wyoming is the one that sued over education funding. And the state of Wyoming gets money from coal and oil revenue, which we don't. Keeps their taxes low and wages higher, at least I think this is correct.

    Anyone want to drill in South Dakota? If we had the potential for oil here, I would. But then here would come the environmentalists saying we can't do it. But that's another issue.

    I don't think that an income tax will come to pass in SD (sorry, Gerry!).

    ReplyDelete
  3. Cory -

    Open Forum weighed in on the Census Bureau issue from out blog. You may find some of the resources useful (which isn't to suggest that your analysis isn't spot on).

    Good luck in the election today!

    -- Brian

    ReplyDelete

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