Yeah, and Wyoming spends more per capita on healthcare than New York. That doesn't necessarily mean it's better.
Higher-population states can better take advantage of economies of scale. Overhead costs can be spread across a larger number of taxpayers, and for this reason alone, higher-population states will often have lower per-capita costs.
Sorry, I wasn't denying that Texas spends more money per capita on textbooks. As you point out, it certainly does, according to the article.
I was worried that someone might read that Texas's per-capita spending is higher than California's and draw the conclusion that this is a big reason for why California's schools suck. I've heard a lot of people make arguments like that. "Small Country X spends so much more per capita on Y! (Implied: That must be why Y sucks for us, and our lives would be better if our country would spend more on it.)"
So I gave one reason why the returns California and Texas get from their respective textbook purchases are probably not proportional to their per-capita budgets.
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Yeah, and Wyoming spends more per capita on healthcare than New York. That doesn't necessarily mean it's better.
Higher-population states can better take advantage of economies of scale. Overhead costs can be spread across a larger number of taxpayers, and for this reason alone, higher-population states will often have lower per-capita costs.
Texas has fewer students than California, but spends the same absolute amount, so your argument doesn't apply.
Sorry, I wasn't denying that Texas spends more money per capita on textbooks. As you point out, it certainly does, according to the article.
I was worried that someone might read that Texas's per-capita spending is higher than California's and draw the conclusion that this is a big reason for why California's schools suck. I've heard a lot of people make arguments like that. "Small Country X spends so much more per capita on Y! (Implied: That must be why Y sucks for us, and our lives would be better if our country would spend more on it.)"
So I gave one reason why the returns California and Texas get from their respective textbook purchases are probably not proportional to their per-capita budgets.