Dive Brief:
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A report from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities says that because of depressed funding, education is penalized since fewer teachers are hired and/or retained, class sizes are larger, and access to high-quality early education has lessened.
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"The decline in state education investments is deeply concerning," Michael Leachman, director of state fiscal research at CBPP, told U.S. News and World Report, saying that many state budgets are providing less money per student in K-12 than they did eight years ago.
- Out of the 46 states studied, 31 provided less funding per student in the 2013-14 academic year versus seven years earlier, in 2007-08.
Dive Insight:
The new survey shows that Arizona cut education spending the most, with a whopping -23.3% change since the 2007-08 school year. The next four states with the biggest cuts are reported as Alabama with -21.4%, Idaho with -16.9%, Georgia with -16.5%, and the poorest state in the nation, Mississippi, in fifth-worst place with a change of -15.4%.
North Dakota seemed to be the single significant outlier, since it was found to have increased spending by +90.7%. Notably, the state also passed a $6 million dollar early education package for 2016-17 school year.
The report also stated that from 2008-2012, districts cut a total of roughly 351,000 jobs, 297,000 of which are still not filled as compared to staffing positions in 2008. "And, notably," U.S. News and World Report states, "that came at a time of increasing student enrollment."