Bang for the Buck: Wisconsin Schools Do Great Work Graduating Students.

In September of last year, Ed Money Watch, a blog run by the New America Foundation, posted an interesting scatter chart showing the correlation between "per pupil" K-12 annual spending of each state with their graduation rates.  Here is the chart:

The spending data was 2008 U.S. Census data,  the most current education spending data available at the U.S. Census.

Vermont, way to the left of the chart, spends the least amount per student (about $6,000) and gets a graduation rate of about 74%.  New Jersey spends the most per pupil, $16,491, and gets a graduation rate of of about 83%.

The Ed Money Watch "money quote:"

        "In fact, there are many outliers (states that do not follow the overall pattern) on the scatter plot. These states typically have low graduation rates and high per pupil expenditures or high graduation rates and low per pupil expenditures. For example, Wisconsin appears to get some of the best returns on its education spending compared to other states – it has a relatively low per pupil expenditure ($10,791 – just over the national average) but the highest graduation rate in the country (89.6 percent). Iowa and Minnesota, with slightly lower graduation rates (84.6 percent for both), also buck the trend with lower than average per pupil expenditures ($9,520 in Iowa and $10,048 in Minnesota)."

2008 only 17 states spent more per pupil than Wisconsin.  But some states are richer and more expensive to live in, say, New York, New Jersey or Massachusetts.  How should we measure Wisconsin per pupil spending to other states that may be considerably richer or poorer? The 2008 U.S. Census data helps out here as well by measuring state per pupil spending per $1000 of income (Table 12, page 26 of 144) of individuals in the 50 states and D.C.  Under this measurement, Wisconsin jumps from 18 to 16 in ranking.

By the measurement of graduation rates per dollar spent, Wisconsin schools are doing a great job.  I'll comment on other measurements later.

New American Foundation's sources of funding can be seen here.