by David Safier
This is the third of a series of posts going through the factoids on the Page O' Facts put together by Senate Republican Staff Policy Advisor Javan Mesnard to combat the nationally accepted assertion that Arizona is 49th in funding per student. (Here is the second in the series, if you want to take a look.)
Today's fact is so ridiculous, it won't take much space to deconstruct: Arizona is 19th in Total Revenues for Education from State Government.
It's true, we are 19th, or near that, on what the state kicks in for education funding. But we also have the 13th largest student population in the country.
So, if we spent as much per student as other states, we would be 13th in state revenues that go to education, not 19th.
Throw in one pesky little statistic, and Mesnard's "good fact" about how much we spend on education turns into a "bad fact" about how little we spend on education.
Thanks again to Lisa Hawkins and MaryLee Moulton of LEAN for doing the research that makes Mesnard's canards so easy to deconstruct.