The State of California

Test Scores Are Plummeting Despite California Spending Wildly on Education reason.com Test Scores Are Plummeting Despite California Spending Wildly on Education Steven Greenhut I've recently been investing in some long-deferred maintenance at my home and it should be no surprise to anyone that I've sought to receive as much quality work done for as little money as possible. When people spend their own hard-earned money  on such projects, they measure success by results, such as a sparkling new kitchen. They don't brag about how much they spent, but how much they got in return. By contrast, state officials seem to delight in how much money they  "invest"  in different priorities, without worrying too much about outcomes. Sure, they sometimes pay lip service to results—but they don't care enough about th

California’s K-12 spending exceeds $20,000 per pupil californiapolicycenter.org California’s K-12 spending exceeds $20,000 per pupil Edward Ring Senior Fellow “It’s not enough. We’re still 41st in the nation in per pupil funding. Something needs to change. We need to have an honest conversation about how we fund our schools at a state and local level,”   –  California Governor Gavin Newsom,  State of the State Address , February 12, 2020 It should come as no surprise that Governor Newsom would call for more education spending, but is he right to say that California is 41st in per pupil funding? It turns out the answer to that question is complicated. The place to start would be the readily available data on California’s per pupil spending. The most recent compilation from  Ed Week  is for 2019, reporting the California average at  $12,143 per pupil . This place