By: Mike Brady

 Does the amount of money spent on education per capita, affect the success rate for high school graduation?

 Knepper: Researches the decline in crime rates as it pertains to social welfare. He looks at what could the possible reasons be for the decline in crime over the past two decades and what has happened to the social welfare system.  Webner: Looks at the decline in crime rates, teenage drug us and welfare rates and how it might pertain to the educational system. Webner also looks at the strength of the American family and what consequences it has, positive or negative.  Shin: Studies substance abuse and how it may pertain to welfare dependency. Shin also looks at each individual states TANF policies regarding substance abuse.  Bogenscheider: Sent out a mail survey to parent of students between the ages of 9 th and 12 th grade. She wanted to examine the effectiveness of parent newsletters. She found that parents who regularly read the newsletters had better discussions with their teens and closer monitoring.  Eicher: examines the correlation between education and corruption and its affects on economic development and institutional reform. He found that economies with intermediate levels of education remain poverty stricken while economies with low or high levels of education are more likely to escape poverty through either a change in the education system or an institutional change.

 Knepper, Paul. "An International Crime Decline: Lessons for Social Welfare Crime Policy?." Social Policy & Administration (2012): Print.  Webner, Peter, and Yuval Levin. "Crime, Drugs, Welfare - and Other Good News." Commentary. (2007): Print.  Shin, Sunny, and Sam Choi. "State Response to Substance-Abusing TANF Recipients: The Challenge for Welfare Policy." State Policy Research. 6.1 (2007): Print.  Bogenscheider, Karen, and Margaret Stone. "Delivering Parent Education to Low and High Risk Parents of Adolescents via Age-paced Newsletter." Family Relations (1997): Print.  Eicher, Theo, Cecilia Garcia-Penalosa, and Tannguy Ypersele. "education, corruption, and the distribution of income." Journal of Economic Growth (2009): Print.  Chantrill, Christopher. "Compare Spending by State." Comparison of State and Local Spending (2010): n.pag. USGovernmentSpending. Web. 20 Nov  "Measure of America." Mapping the Measure of America (2010): n.pag. Measure of America. Web. 20 Nov

 The data that I used came from two different sites. The first site was Measure of America, and from here is where I obtained the data about each states high school education.  The second source of data came from US Government Spending, which gave me information about how much each state spends on education and welfare per capita, per year.

 Collected data from Measure of America.  Collected data from U.S government spending for education and welfare.  Consolidated the data that I was interested in from Measure of America.  Took both sets of data and combined them into one spreadsheet.  Once I had both sets of data combined, I grouped the states into 3 groups based on the level of high school success.  After the grouping was done, I took the first state in each of the three groupings in order to compare their spending and their education success rate.  After I had both the pivot table and the graphs done, I regrouped the original data by the amount spent on education.  I then took three states expenditures on education and compared them with percent less than high school.  Once I completed the pivot tables and graphs.

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 In conclusion, there is some relation to the amount of money spent per capita on education and the education success rate.  For instance, New York and Vermont spend roughly $3,700 on education per capita. However 15% of people in New York have less than a high school education whereas only 9% of people in Vermont have less than a high school education.