Statplay

The US Census Bureau just released their nationwide look at education spending, which is pretty interesting reading for anyone who deal with money issues in education. Some Washington State information from the report:

• We are 38th in per-pupil K-12 spending.
  
• We trail the national average in per-pupil spending by about $1300 a kid ($9,138 to $7,830).
  
• In terms of overall K-12 spending Washington is 37th in the nation. The report takes a neat look behind the numbers (p. 23) and shows just how reliant we are on the state for our funding; in terms of federal and local dollars received Washington State ranks 39th and 40th, respectively, but we're number 16 in the amount that the state puts into the K-12 system.
  
• That above number almost suggests that the state is doing a fairly good job on their end of funding the system, which is counterintuitive to what we've been hearing. This is why the per-pupil number matters more than the overall figure does.

I'll be curious to see how state newspapers process this information; if it's anything like the one article I read out of Oklahoma, it could be fun.