Coincidentally, I heard on NPR yesterday that nationwide the states pay
more for drug rehab and treatment than they do for public school education.
I would want that one verified. It sounds like a false statistic.
Some possible factors: In many states, public education is almost entirely paid for by local property taxes, so technically the states don't include the money in their budgets. So maybe in those states the amount the STATE pays for dr&t is greater than they pay for pse, but not the combined budgets.
Or, did they include prison costs and the police, court systems, etc. in dr&e? If you include those, maybe, but I still doubt it.
In Washington, our school money all goes through the state budget. I just looked it up, and for 1997-1999 (we budget by bienniums) the State spent a total of 19 billion dollars of state money, of which 8.8 billion went to public schools, and 2.2 billion to higher education. All human services combined totaled 6.0 billion. I think this includes police, corrections, social services, etc. So for Washington, at least, that statistic is pure bunk.
If you add in other funds, presumably mostly Federal funds run through the state, the total expenditures are 37.7 billion, public school education is up to 9.5 billion, higher education is up to 5.3 billion (I didn't realize how much othe rmoney went to our colleges--maybe they include fund raising in that), and human services is up to 14 billion. So it's theoretically possible, but is still totally false, since much or most of that additional spending on human services will be medicaid reimbursement.
Either you heard wrong, or NPR is playing fast and loose with statistics, which wouldn't surprise me a bit.
Source for Wn. budget info:
ofm.wa.gov |
