If they would have limited what she said just to Florida which has an embarrassingly low per pupil spending, Politifact probably would have found her mostly false. -cpg
From the St. Peterdburg Times Grade Book
By Aaron Sharockman,
TALLAHASSEE — Florida legislators recently fawned over former Washington, D.C., public school chancellor Michelle Rhee as she addressed House and Senate members. Today, PolitiFact Florida offers its most sincere form of admiration:
We put Rhee in front of the Truth-O-Meter.
Rhee appeared in Tallahassee Feb. 8-9 to support Gov. Rick Scott's proposals to overhaul the K-12 system by ending teacher tenure and linking teacher pay to student test scores.
She also at least tacitly defended Scott's proposals to cut public education funding by $703 per student as part of his budget for 2011-12 and 2012-13.
"Money does not necessarily correlate with student achievement," Rhee said. "In this country in the last 30 years, we have more than doubled the amount of money we are spending per child … and the results have gotten worse, not better."
Are education funding and student results moving in opposite directions?
Per-pupil spending
Education spending certainly has increased in the last 30 years.
The U.S. Department of Education's National Center for Education Statistics has collected and analyzed per-pupil spending since 1919.
When adjusted for inflation, per-pupil spending has nearly doubled from $6,037 per student in 1976-77 to $11,674 in 2006-07, the last year figures are available.
(For the record, Florida says it spends about $6,900 per student. Scott proposes to shrink per-student funding to about $6,200).
The payback?
What the country has gotten for that investment — especially over a 30-year period — is more difficult to determine.
We first tried to compare the U.S. education system with those of other countries.
Common assessments, however, don't span 30 years. And different tests measure different-aged students.
http://www.tampabay.com/news/politics/stateroundup/michelle-rhee-tells-florida-legislators-spending-on-education-is-way-up/1152830
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