Wisconsin’s School Funding Cuts Highest in Nation
School Funding in 2011-12 Compared with 2010-11
Some of the deepest reductions to K-12 formula funding since the onset of the recession have occurred in the past year, as federal aid intended to sustain state education spending has expired, rainy day funds have been exhausted, and states have resisted raising additional taxes to offset the need for cuts. After adjusting for inflation between last year (fiscal year 2011) and the current 2012 fiscal year:
- Almost all states for which data are available — 21 of the 24 states — have cut per student education funding.
- Seventeen of the 24 states have cut per student funding by more than two percent.
- Eleven of the 24 states have cut per student funding by more than five percent.
- Of the states surveyed, the three states that reduced per student funding the most since last year are Illinois, Texas, and Wisconsin. Illinois cut per student spending by 13 percent, while Ohio and Texas imposed cuts of about 10 percent.
These cuts are occurring at a time when schools face demands from parents, employers and civic leaders to bring more and more students to higher levels of academic proficiency, in large part because workers will increasingly need higher levels of educational attainment to thrive in the workforce.
