In a story about the new $18 billion state budget signed by Gov. Bill Ritter, a local Fox TV news station reporter stated:In education spending, the State of Colorado ranks 49th. Of course, this sentence is suspect from the start, because it doesn't tell us whether it's measuring higher education or K-12 education. If the article is referring to K-12 education, then it wasn't true two years ago, it wasn't true last year, and it isn't true this year, either. There are two reliable sources for K-12 education funding data. First, Statistics from the U.S. Census Bureau show Colorado ranks 36th in "current" per-pupil spending. The lowest possible ranking that could be devised shows Colorado at 47th in spending per $1,000 of personal … [Read more...]