UCSD Economics professor Julian Betts states: "What all this means for spending is that starting around 1978-1979 we saw a sharp reduction in spending on schools. We fell compared to other states dramatically, and we still haven't really caught up to other states." From 1977, in California there has been a steady growth of class sizes compared to the national average, "which have been decreasing since 1970." The shortage in funds translated to decreased spending per student in the years following passage of Proposition 13. During the 1970s, school spending per student was almost equal to the national average. Using discount rate, "measured in 1997-1998 dollars, California spent about $100 more per capita on its public schools in 1969-1970 than did the rest of the country." Since 1981-1982, California consistently has spent less per student than the rest of the U.S. as demonstrated by data collected by the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis and by the Public Policy Institute of California This has resulted in increased pupil-to-teacher ratios in K-12 public schools in California. Professor Betts observes that "pupil-teacher ratios start to skyrocket in the years immediately after 1978, and a huge gap opens up between pupil-teacher ratios here and in the rest of the country, and we still haven't recovered from that."