If you had an inkling that the recession pummeled public education, now you can point to an analysis by the S.C. Appleseed Legal Justice Center on school spending. It outlines devastating news that’s magnified by an infographic reproduced below. It illustrates how public school districts got less financial support in 2013-14 than five years earlier — and that the declines were most dramatic in districts with more poverty.
In the five-year period, per pupil inflation-adjusted funding from the state declined collectively by 14.7
percent for the 15 districts ranking highest on the S.C. Education Oversight Committee’s poverty index. The committee’s index is a composite of the percent of students in each district who are eligible for Medicaid services and/or those who qualify for free or reduced-price meals,” the study said.
The analysis also showed that school funding went up in the current fiscal year in general, but declined about 1 percent in the poorer districts. Read the analysis here.
We Can Do Better, South Carolina!