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California Education Spending Per Pupil Surpasses Pre-Recession Figure, But Some Say It's Not Enough

SAN FRANCISCO (CBS/AP) -- Soaring tax revenues have carried per-pupil education spending in California beyond where it stood before the Great Recession.

But advocates and education officials say the record sum proposed by Gov. Jerry Brown is unlikely to reverse the state's standing as a comparative miser when it comes to investing in public schools.

Brown, a Democrat known for preaching fiscal restraint, released a budget plan last week that would boost state spending per student to $10,591 in the next fiscal year. That's at least $2,000 more than the state spent in 2007 before the recession triggered several years of cuts.

With California consistently ranking in the bottom 10 in state-by-state rankings of school expenditures and student-teacher ratios, lawmakers and education officials say there may not be enough to get the state even to the national average.

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