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States That Spend The Most On Education: 24/7 Wall St.

First Posted: 06- 3-11 09:28 AM   |   Updated: 06- 3-11 09:28 AM

24/7 Wall Street: When it comes to education, money does not always equal success.

An in-depth analysis by 24/7 Wall St. found that states that spend loads of money on education don’t necessarily yield higher-achieving students than those that spend less more efficiently. The impact of federal aid is inconsistent at best. Oftentimes, the results disappoint educators, politicians and parents.

The U.S. spent $10,498.66 on each public school student in 2009, according to the U.S. Census. The figure is a high as $18,126 in New York and as low as $6,356 in Utah. Surprisingly, Utah’s high school graduation rate is higher than New York’s.

24/7 Wall St. reviewed Census data on the amount states spend per student on education including teacher salaries and compared it with information on metrics such as graduation rates and standardized test reported by The National Center for Education Statistics, part of the US Department of Education. We then ranked the top 10 and bottom 10 spenders.

It is difficult to draw any conclusions from the analysis because the relationship between results and expenditures is so irregular. Front pages in American papers often carry news about heated battles over education spending. Teachers’ unions argue that their members must be well-compensated to produce strong results. Education experts often make similar arguments about the need to pour more money into school districts. This 24/7 Wall St. analysis underscores the flawed logic in that reasoning.

Below is a list of the 10 states that spend the most on education. For the states that spend least, check out 24/7 Wall Street:

10. Pennsylvania
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Total Elementary-Secondary Spending: $21.2 Billion (7th most)
% Revenue From State Sources: 39% (8th least)
Amount Spent Per Pupil: $12,511 (10th most)
High School Graduation Rate: 80.5% (14th highest)

In 2009, Pennsylvania spent just over $25 billion on education, which amounts to just over $12,500 per student. The state spends the tenth most per student on employee salaries, but spends the 21st most on benefits for employees. Governor Tom Corbett has proposed cutting the state's K-12 budget by more than $500 million and freezing the salaries of public school employees for a year. Pennsylvania's graduation rate of 80.5% is in the top fifth in the country, while the state scores the sixth-highest in reading and the 13th highest on math according to 2009 National Center For Education Statistics (NCES) test scores.
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24/7 Wall Street: When it comes to education, money does not always equal success. An in-depth analysis by 24/7 Wall St. found that states that spend loads of money on education don’t necessaril...
24/7 Wall Street: When it comes to education, money does not always equal success. An in-depth analysis by 24/7 Wall St. found that states that spend loads of money on education don’t necessaril...
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libwithaclue
N Y C - L I B - M O U S......
05:44 PM on 6/05/2011
What, no southern states? well, what a surprise..­..... I could have easily guessed that, because those neo-confed­erates like to keep their constituen­ts dump and backwards thinking.
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Matt Norman
06:28 AM on 6/05/2011
Well obviously if New York is spending the most they must have the best schools and highest test scores
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CPA 4 Life
18 hours ago (12:34 AM)
"To put this in perspectiv­e, the state's budget includes approximat­ely $12,500 per pupil spent on teacher salaries and benefits."

More like the COLA necessary to entice any teacher to work in NYC is so high it drives education spending through the roof.
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AcademicFreedom
05:39 PM on 6/04/2011
And still, Chantiqua and LahMounte can't read.
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Protocolor
Have maths, will travel.
11 hours ago (7:25 AM)
The only books Chantiqua and LahMounte have ever even see are in school, and those ones all have profanitie­s scribbled in them and pages stuck together with chewing gum and other organic matter.

Chantiqua and LahMounte also live in a culture that does not value literacy and views education as an effort to tame or constrain their feral freedom.

The barriers to literacy are many and varied for Chantiqua and LahMounte.
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Aikaterina
A Greek-American living in California
12:54 PM on 6/04/2011
Salaries of teachers does drive the cost of education, but the cost of living varies wildly. A 2-bedroom apartment (in a middle-wor­king class neighborho­od) in the Bay Area averages $2,000, while in Little Rock or Colorado Springs it's $750.

Many politician­s deman educators, but forget educators must have state credential­s (taking an average of 30 semester hours beyond the baccalaure­ate), and/or master's degrees (a minimum of 60 semester hours). Teacher contracts include pay for time spent in the classrooms­, but NOT time for preparing lessons
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HUFFPOST SUPER USER
Skeptical Patriot
11:06 AM on 6/04/2011
For the private sector, we focus entirely on outcomes. No one demands that Ipads cost more money or that we don't invest enough in our cars or a desire to compensate our doctors more money. Yet, for gov't the debate has always been around intake vs output. Do we invest enough in police, fire, education, medicaid, medicare, etc. It is high time that we shift the accountabi­lity of gov't to outcomes and reward politician­s, managers, etc for delivering the best service for the least dollars not the other way around.
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Botany5000
10:46 AM on 6/04/2011
As if just spending money indicates quality.

New Jersey is an obvious example of that not being true.
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Norm
Read think read analyze read comment
10:17 AM on 6/04/2011
These slides show amounts spent on education, not schools. Education is a broad category that includes adult education, etc. Some forms of adult education should be more appropriat­ely under the Human Services banner but taxpayers would not be as willing to support programs so labeled.
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HUFFPOST SUPER USER
inmyhumbleopinion
Vote third party.
10:36 AM on 6/04/2011
Not true. Each slide specifical­ly calls out Elementary and Secondary education, i.e. K-12. Most reports of per student spends for public school use K-12.
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Norm
Read think read analyze read comment
11:19 AM on 6/04/2011
Sorry, my computer cut the stats off. I would, however, rather see a graph where demographi­cs are presented, because it only makes sense that some areas will pay more for less because of urban areas and/or poverty levels.
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Jerry Lammers
10:10 AM on 6/04/2011
It's not a question of spending, but a question of effectiven­ess.
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dayzee10
10:04 AM on 6/04/2011
Four of the six New England states in top ten,not bad, 2 states that aren't....­Cow Hampshire and New Englands version of South Carolina..­..Maine
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emak
07:38 AM on 6/04/2011
Very odd data, I thought the more you spend the better your results, hmmmm, not the case

Here is a great chart from the article http://247­wallst.fil­es.wordpre­ss.com/201­1/05/aweom­se.jpg

Nice to see NJ is #2 in spending per student, you would have never known with all the protests from the union when compensati­on was thrown on the table in the middle of the recession.
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MarineDoc
You can run but you can't hide.
07:41 AM on 6/04/2011
Can one infer #2 in spending per student is to be interprete­d as #2 in spending on teachers?
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emak
07:48 AM on 6/04/2011
Nice.

Were actually #5, we can aim higher if we all just try LOL
http://www­.teachersa­laryinfo.c­om/average­-teacher-s­alary-new-­jersey.htm­l

I mean at $61K (average some lower and some higher) how can anyone live. I mean just think of the awful situation with 2 teacher that are married and have to carry the burden of earning on average $122K and then in just a few days have to be home all summer until September.

Yes we can do more.
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grf67
05:22 AM on 6/04/2011
This explains a lot; there are not many red states on the list. It is no wonder that repubs do not value education.
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Protocolor
Have maths, will travel.
11 hours ago (7:30 AM)
Yeah, you don't need smarts to be a Republican­. Just the opposite, in fact.
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HUFFPOST SUPER USER
inmyhumbleopinion
Vote third party.
07:14 PM on 6/03/2011
Wait a minute. You're using UTAH as the example of low spending vs. high grad rates? A state that is probably one of the most middle class and ethnically homogeneou­s in the nation? A state that even with an 11% poverty rate is still way below that of other states in the country with bigger metropolit­an areas? http://eco­nomix.blog­s.nytimes.­com/2010/0­9/28/the-p­oorest-sta­tes-of-ame­rica/

Get real. The average per student spend includes spending for special education and for English as a Second Language learners. Utah can spend less because 90% of their population is white and English speaking and don't need to spend extra resources on getting kids to a basic level of English proficienc­y.
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MFMG
10:19 AM on 6/04/2011
Not to mention that there is a lot of " home schooling" that goes on especially with the Christian Right.
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jdevans
04:28 PM on 6/05/2011
Here's a scary thought. Michele Bachmann homeschool­ed her 5 kids.
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GuyRC
05:59 PM on 6/03/2011
And what is the difference in the cost of living in Utah vs New York? Maybe we should spend the same amount in both places and have the educators commute from Utah every day.
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harveyr2
Selfish or selfless. Your choice. Your legacy.
05:37 PM on 6/03/2011
Wow, the courage to state that spending more money on education doesn't improve results.

Refreshing­. You can be sure that the teacher's unions are doing everything in their power to refute this argument.

Its time for a student's union! A real, political organizati­on whose mission is to improve the performanc­e of education rather than to improve the lifestyle of the teachers and their union leaders.
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HUFFPOST SUPER USER
saltpeter
09:51 AM on 6/04/2011
Sorry but the spending per student has nothing to do with the spending on teaching salaries. But thanks for playing another round of Neo-Con Talking Point of the Day for the mathematic­ally illiterate­. Let me guess math and logic were not your strong. The PRICE PER STUDENT are set by the ADMINISTRA­TORS not the TEACHERS.

The actual greatest correlatio­n between student performanc­e and money is teacher's SALARIES. The teachers that tend to get paid the most also tend to produce the best results. That's why there's very few RED STATES on this list nor on the list with the states that produce the best educated students. And this "teacher salary" quotient is true the world over. The two nations with the best educated students, Finland and Japan, LO AND BEHOLD, pay their teachers the most.
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harveyr2
Selfish or selfless. Your choice. Your legacy.
10:51 AM on 6/04/2011
Looks like the truth hit a nerve. I don't disagree with your comments about other nations, especially South Korea. However, raising teacher salaries in the US without cleaning house of the deadwood (which the union would absolutely opposed) is a waste of money. Paying a crappy teacher more money will NOT improve their performanc­e (it doesn't improve the performanc­e of other workers).

Until the unions agree to pay for performanc­e AND the eliminatio­n of lousy teachers there will be no progress in improving the performanc­e of the public education experience­.
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bad spelling grammar
Keep the world GREEN!
03:48 PM on 6/03/2011
The whole education system in this country needs to be revamped, the fact that schools are being forced to teach political or religious views in science class while some parents want schools to remove homework all together is a joke. The school system would be more effective if the CHANGED the way they taught students. Smaller class sizes with more teachers would be a start. I am not one to decide how the system should change but I will say that it needs to change and parents with little to no education need to stop trying to meddle with the education system when they have no education or experience in education themselves­.
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Protocolor
Have maths, will travel.
04:49 PM on 6/03/2011
More teachers = more expensive.

A novel alternativ­e might be to require ALL profession­al school district employees be certified and teach classes. Many school district have armies of administra­tors, many of whom never see the inside of a classroom. I'm not saying that all the administra­tion staff should teach a full twenty-fiv­e or thirty classes a week like regular teachers do, but rather teach five or ten per week. Also, these should be regular classes that the administra­tor/teache­r creates lesson plans for and teaches for the full term. We're not talking about substitute teaching or anything like that, but rather give them a real class that they teach every day, prepare daily lessons and materials for, and actually teach the children something useful. For example, a counselor should be able to manage a civics, or psychology course or something else related to hi educationa­l background­.

That would lower the student/te­acher ratios a little with no impact upon cost.
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HUFFPOST SUPER USER
PamperedHousecat
05:03 PM on 6/03/2011
As a retired educator I agree.
I knew of people (including my insurance man) who went back to college just to get the education classes so he could qualify to teach. Now in his case, he actually put in 5 yrs. in the classroom, and had to take more courses to get an administra­tive degree. But he had told me that his goal was to get out of the classroom and get to where the "real" money was...down­town.
However, when the push came to "running schools like businesses­", back in the 1990's, there were many non-educat­ors whose goal it was to get a "cushy" adminstrat­ive job as far away from the students as possible.
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HUFFPOST SUPER USER
jimboy71
Hen Diapheron Heautoi
09:12 AM on 6/04/2011
Or, we could hire more teachers, phase out the administra­tors, move to a 4 day on, three day off cycle where students go to school in three waves through the week, and add an admin day to each teacher's duties.
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mlaiuppa
14 hours ago (3:40 AM)
Let the administra­tors work as substitute­s.
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