According to a report from the Pew Charitable Trust's "Stateline" website, North Dakota's K-12 education funding is likely to be among the hardest hit by sequestration in the United States, if not the hardest hit.  

Automatic federal budget cuts will slash more than $1 billion in K-12 education dollars this year, paring everything from Title I money for low-income students to school improvement initiatives.

The reductions in K-12 spending, part of the 5 percent across-the-board reductions in non-defense spending known as sequestration, will be particularly painful in North Dakota,  Mississippi, New Mexico, Idaho and South Dakota—the five states that rely most heavily on federal education money.

On average, federal dollars comprise about 13 percent of states’ K-12 education spending. But in those five states, one fifth or more of K-12 money came from Washington, D.C. in fiscal year 2010, the most recent year for which data is available from the National Center for Education Statistics. North Dakota gets 22 percent of its education money from the federal government, while the other four states receive around 20 percent.

PewStates.org [emphasis added]

So of the five states that receive their education money from the federal government, four get 20% but North Dakota gets 22%. That's a big portion of our total K-12 funding, when you consider the average amount states get is 13% of their funding from the federal government. 

If you know anything about where education funding comes from, you know this is relevant to many issues being addressed in North Dakota right now. Over the years most education funding has come from property taxes. Some of the property tax burden has been absorbed by the state because of aggressive policy pushes by Democrats, but the sequester is obviously a set back. When you hear the Governor and other elected officials talk about how much money they're putting into K-12 education, keep in mind they're just putting back into k-12 education some of what their friends in Washington -- Kevin Cramer and the other Teabaggers -- have taken away through obstructionism and game playing.

Most reasonable people agree America's federal taxation system needs to be adjusted so that the wealthiest people and corporations are paying their fair share, because they are not right now. They also agree, importantly, that smart spending cuts can and should be found. But the sequester takes an axe-cutting approach to something that should be done with a scalpel.

We still deserve better.

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