According to a CNN report, Alabama schools suffer from a “combination of having the lowest per capita property tax collections in the nation … a constitution that prohibits local governments from independently increasing taxes, and a state-funded education system with funds that stem almost exclusively from income and sales tax revenues.”

Namely, Alabama schools are ailing due to inadequate funding. The reporter buttressed the thesis by pointing to the 20 percent cut in the state’s education budget over the last three years.

“We’re suffering. We are on a decline,” Joe Morton, Alabama’s state superintendent of education, told CNN.

But what Morton failed to note is that state education spending tripled in the decade-and-a-half preceding the economic downturn.

According to U.S. Census records, state education spending increased from $3.57 billion in 1992 to $10.65 billion in 2008.

Inflation was about 52 percent over the same period.

Alabama’s population rose from 4.1 million to 4.7 million, 14.6 percent, during the period, but public school enrollment increased less, according to one expert. 

Education spending has consumed a larger-and-larger percentage of Alabama’s budget over the last decade-and-a-half.

In 1992 education claimed 37 cents of every dollar the state spent, according to Census data. By 2008 that figure had risen to 43 cents on the dollar, outpacing expenditures on public welfare, health, hospitals, infrastructure, police protection and corrections.

Dr. John Hill, Research Fellow at the Alabama Policy Institute, said when costs are adjusted for cost-of-living, Alabama education systems compare quite favorably to other states.

more… http://watchdog.org/6409/why-are-alabama-schools-going-broke/