Spending on education

A few days ago, the Census Bureau released data on public school revenues and expenditures in the United States in FY 2006.

Get ready for some numbers. West Virginia teachers say they want to be at the national average. So let's play with some numbers to see how much we can afford for education now, and how much we spend.

If you go to the detailed tables in the news release, you find information like this:

School spending per pupil
USA, $9,318.
West Virginia, $9,352 (17th in USA)

Instructional spending per pupil
USA, $5,543
WV, $5,610, 19th

Revenues and spending on public education per $1,000 of personal income
Revenues
USA, $50.67
WV, $58.53 (8th)

Expenditures
USA, $43.34
WV, $54.56 (4th)

Instructional expenditures
USA, $26.43
WV, $32.73 (5th)

In other words, we spend a greater percentage of our incomes on public education that do people of most other states. We need to demand more back from that investment.