Last week’s B. C. budget underscored what observers have long warned about; an ever-growing health-care bill leaving less cash for all other public services.

The province is directing 42 cents of every dollar to health care, with only 27 cents for Grades K-12. And that amount is to drop to 25.8 cents three years from now.

The B.C. Teachers’ Federation is crying foul, sponsoring a TV advertisement that advises taxpayers that B.C. is spending the lowest amount in the country in terms of its per-student funding — $1,000 less per student than the national average. And obviously that’s not likely to change in the next while.

So, how worried should the public be, when it is more important than ever for young British Columbians to be well equipped for the labour market?

The answer is, not terribly; the facts suggest the teachers union is not telling the full story.

B.C. records the second-lowest spending per pupil in Canada, after Prince Edward Island, at $11,832 according to Statistics Canada’s latest figures, for 2010-11.

But B.C. is among a cluster of provinces with per-pupil funding within spitting distance of the $12,000 mark. Its spending is only marginally lower than Saskatchewan, Nova Scotia, Quebec and New Brunswick.

As for devoting $1,000 less per pupil than the national average, the countrywide average — $12,557 in 2010-11 — reflects per-pupil funding that is, not $1,000, but rather $725 higher than what B.C. spends.

But even that disparity is not terribly relevant. That’s because the national average is totally skewed by out-sized per-pupil funding in the northern territories, of between $18,000 and $20,000. Among provinces, B.C. does not spend substantially less.

The Statistics Canada numbers for 2010-11 show, on “average remuneration per educator in public elementary and secondary schools,” B.C. teachers are second-highest paid among the provinces, and northern territories too, earning an average of $80,582, excluding fringe benefits and pension funds.

The teachers want an additional $1.5 billion and 5,800 teachers put into B.C.’s education system, funded through higher taxes.

But all the dollar figures aside, it’s worth asking: does higher education spending necessarily translate into superior student achievement?

B.C.’s Education Ministry correctly notes the provincial school system has been producing excellent results.

Among aboriginal students in B.C., only 42 per cent graduated from high school in 2000-01. Last year, nearly 60 per cent graduated.

Similar advances have been made among B.C. students with special needs and ESL students.

In the 2012 Program for International Student Assessment, among 65 countries, B.C. came sixth in reading and science, 12th in math.

B.C. students scored better than their counterparts in all other provinces in reading and science, and second to Quebec in math.

U.S. studies have similarly shown that cultural factors, or circumstances such as teen pregnancy, have far more influence than per-pupil funding levels on students’ academic success.

It is too bad that B.C., at this point, cannot allocate more funds to education, but it certainly is not a crisis