Education

Federal Funding for Public Education

The funding of public elementary, middle, and high schools in America always seems to be under attack, however, research and data show that federally, education is being funded pretty consistently. The federal government supplies about 8% of funds for public schools every year and state and local sources supply the rest. You can check out research and data from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, the Congressional Budget Office, the Economic Policy Institute, Research.com, and Public School Review for a little more information on this. All corroborate this 8% figure, as does pretty much any other source you'll find that examines federal funding for public school. 

Despite this, America is still below international standards - starting in 2015, UNESCO members "agreed on a level of educational funding of 4 to 6% of GDP or 15 to 20% of public expenditure," according to their website. According to U.S. Public Education Spending Statistics from the Education Data Initiative, America only puts 11.6% of public expenditure towards education.  

State and Local Funding for Public Education

As previously stated, the federal government only supplies about 8% of the funds for public schools and state and local sources supply the rest. So, let's look and see which states spend the most on education per pupil and which states spend the least, again using data again from the Education Data Initiative.

States that spend the most on K-12 education per pupil

• New York

• New Jersey

• Vermont

• Connecticut

• Massachusetts

• Alaska 

• Rhode Island 

• New Hampshire 

• Pennsylvania 

• Illinois

States that spend the least on K-12 education per pupil 

• Utah

• Idaho

• Arizona

• Nevada

• Oklahoma

• Mississippi

• North Carolina 

• Texas

• Tennessee

• Florida

There is a very interesting and unsurprising trend that emerges when looking at this data. Of the 10 states that spend the most per pupil on public K-12 education, nine were won by the Democratic candidate in the 2016 and 2020 elections. Of the 10 states that spend the least, eight were won by the Republican candidate in the 2016 and 2020 elections, with one state - Arizona - being won by the Republican in 2016 and the Democrat in 2020. This is displayed below in Figure 1. Again, this is unsurprising - the less educated of a population you have, the more useful idiots you have to manipulate against black people, brown people, gay people, trans people, and so on. A capitalist society like America that conservatives and Republicans won't shut up about their patriotism for wants a nation of uneducated workers, not educated thinkers. Uneducated workers are easier to oppress and exploit, as they're too stupid to realize they're being exploited and oppressed and largely too stupid to organize against these things. 

Why Defund Public Education?

As far as I see it, there are four main reasons why local, state, and/or federal governments would try and defund public education:

• In an effort to push families towards private schools where someone can profit off of them and their child's education. 

• In an effort to push families towards private schools where their child can be "brainwashed" and/or "indoctrinated" into certain religious beliefs.

• To keep the general population stupid, making them easier to control, easier to oppress, and easier to exploit.

• To prevent kids from growing up to be leftists or lean left because learning things about the world, questioning the world, learning about other perspectives, and gaining a better understanding of more things will typically push someone in that direction.