Florida 42nd in per pupil spending

From the Orlando Sentinel, by Dave Weber

"You get what you pay for.”

I haven’t been able to nail down who said it first, but some argue it is applicable to Florida’s schools.

And what we are paying to run our public schools in Florida ranks 42nd in the nation according to new data out from the National Center for Education Statistics.

The report indicates that for the 2009-10 fiscal year Florida spent $8,863 per student.

That’s less than half of the amount shelled out by big spenders such as New York ($18,167), New Jersey ($17,379), or champion spender  District of Columbia ($20,910, although the agency points out that is a unique situation).

But Florida doesn’t even stand up that well in the South, where we are bested by neighbors Georgia ($9,432), and Alabama ($8,907.) Topped by Alabama? What is this, football?

Naysayers will argue that the amount spent does not have anything to do with quality of education. But there must be a cut off point where even that argument does not hold. Have we reached it?

http://blogs.orlandosentinel.com/news_education_edblog/