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Wistax: Wisconsin Has Likely Fallen Below National Average in Per Pupil Spending
By Wisconsin School Administrators Alliance staff | July 21, 2016
I was catching up on some reading yesterday and came across the Focus #12 newsletter from the Wisconsin Taxpayers Alliance (Wistax). As many of you know, I spent nine years of my professional career as the education and development director for Wistax and I have tremendous respect for Wistax’s president, Todd Berry, and research director, Dale Knapp.
Focus #12 is “focused” on school spending and the recent release of 2013-14 U.S. Census Bureau data. One fact in the report jumped off the page: In 2002, Wisconsin spent $8,574 per pupil, 11.3% more than the U.S. average ($7,701). In 2014, Wisconsin spent $11,186, or just 1.6% more than the U.S. average ($11,009).
Some of you may recall that in May of 2015 Michael Griffith, a senior policy analyst at the nonpartisan Education Commission of the States, projected that Wisconsin would fall below the national average in per pupil spending during the 2014-15 school year (see SAA news release). So, as a follow-up to the newsletter, I posed the question to Dale Knapp, “Has Wisconsin fallen below the national average in per pupil spending?”
Dale responded, “Wisconsin will likely fall below the national average in per pupil spending in the 2015-16 U.S. Census Bureau data, if not before.”
We will have to wait for the release of the U.S. Census Bureau data for 2014-15 and 2015-16 to be sure, but, for now, it is well worth noting that two widely respected nonpartisan government research organizations have projected that Wisconsin has likely fallen below the national average in per pupil spending.
Stay tuned.
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