The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP) is a left-wing think tank that publishes research and funds like-minded state-based operations including the N.C. Justice Center.
This week, CBPP published a report that examined education spending. And N.C. Policy Watch, part of the organization that receives funding from CBPP, said the usual stuff about evil conservative legislators who cut education spending.
If you take the CBPP report at face value, which may be hazardous given that some state education officials have questioned the accuracy of their data, the report is not all that damning for North Carolina Republicans.
1. First, there is obvious issue of the period examined, 2008 to 2015. Democrats controlled the state legislature and governor’s office until voters elected a Republican legislative majority in 2010 and a Republican governor in 2012. In other words, Democrats were responsible for the initial years of the period analyzed in the CBPP report.
2. Democratic- and Republican-controlled states had drops in education funding. New York, Illinois, and Oregon were among the states with sizable decreases in education funding.
3. According to CBPP, no state in the Southeast increased real education funding between FY 2008 and FY 2015. Of states that did boost funding, most are located in New England (CT, RI, NH, and MA) or the upper Midwest (WY and ND).
4. CBPP acknowledges that North Carolina increased inflation-adjusted education funding by 2.3 percent or $117 per student between FY 2013 and FY 2014, the ninth largest increase in the nation. Republicans are clearly to blame for this.
