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[Tovarisc]

A deepening budget crisis here has forced schools across the Sooner State to make painful decisions. Class sizes have ballooned, art and foreign-language programs have shrunk or disappeared, and with no money for new textbooks, children go without. Perhaps the most significant consequence: Students in scores of districts are now going to school just four days a week.

The shift not only upends what has long been a fundamental rhythm of life for families and communities. It also runs contrary to the push in many parts of the country to provide more time for learning — and daily reinforcement — as a key way to improve achievement, especially among poor children.

But funding for classrooms has been shrinking for years in this deep-red state as lawmakers have cut taxes, slicing away hundreds of millions of dollars in annual revenue in what some Oklahomans consider a cautionary tale about the real-life consequences of the small-government approach favored by Republican majorities in Washington and statehouses nationwide.

School districts staring down deep budget holes have turned to shorter weeks in desperation as a way to save a little bit of money and persuade increasingly hard-to-find teachers to take some of the nation’s lowest-paying jobs.

Of 513 school districts in Oklahoma, 96 have lopped Fridays or Mondays off their schedules — nearly triple the number in 2015 and four times as many as in 2013. An additional 44 are considering cutting instructional days by moving to a four-day week in the fall or by shortening the school year, the Oklahoma State School Boards Association found in a survey last month.

“The problems facing Oklahoma are our own doing. There’s not some outside force that is causing our schools not to be able to stay open,” said state Sen. John Sparks, the chamber’s top Democrat. “These are all the result of a bad public policy and a lack of public-sector investment.”

But Gov. Mary Fallin (R) said a downturn in the energy sector and a decreasing sales tax revenue have led to several “very difficult budget years.”

The governor said in an email to The Post that she thinks “students are better served by five-day weeks” because moving to four days requires a longer school day. That makes it “hard for students, especially in the early grades, to focus on academic content during the late hours of the day,” she said.

Facing a $900 million budget gap, lawmakers approved a budget Friday that will effectively hold school funding flat in the next year. In Washington, President Trump has proposed significant education cuts that would further strain local budgets.

Oklahoma’s education spending has decreased 14 percent per child since 2008, according to the left-leaning Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, and the state in 2014 spent just $8,000 per student, according to federal data. Only Arizona, Idaho and Utah spent less.

“We’ve cut so much for so long that the options just are no longer there,” said Deborah Gist, superintendent in Tulsa, a district that still holds classes five days a week but plans to merge schools and eliminate more than three dozen teaching positions.

Chris Treu, a Newcastle High business teacher in her 20th year, said that with a master’s degree and an extra stipend for working in career and technology education, she earns about $48,000 — barely more than some of her former students earn fresh out of college. “It’s disheartening,” she said. “If I have to go back to a five-day week, I think I’m done, because I know I’m not going to get more money.”

Shannon Chlouber, a third-grade teacher at Newcastle Elementary, said she spends half her Fridays off working on lesson plans and grading papers, leaving her weekends free and making a relentless job more sustainable. She is an 18-year classroom veteran, and she earns $39,350. “If I were single, I’d be on welfare,” she said.

Newcastle has arranged for low-cost child care on Fridays — $30 per child per week — and the town has a low poverty rate by Oklahoma standards. Only about one-third of students qualify for free- and reduced-price lunch. A food bank sends extra food home with hungry students to tide them over during long weekends, but teachers say few ask for that help.

In most other Oklahoma districts with four-day weeks, the overwhelming majority of students qualify for subsidized meals.

Macomb, a tiny rural district where 88 percent of students qualify for subsidized meals, was on four-day weeks until Superintendent Matthew Riggs persuaded the school board in 2015 to return to a traditional schedule.

Riggs said he could not “in good conscience” continue the four-day weeks — not when his students were already struggling in math and reading, and not when some were going hungry.

Meals are also a concern for David Pennington, superintendent in Ponca City on the western edge of the Osage Reservation, where nearly 70 percent of students qualify for subsidized meals. Ponca City cut 25 positions last year, consolidated bus routes, stopped offering German and wood shop, and packed 38 kids into one high school astronomy class.

Source: https://www.washingtonpost.com/loca...f73288-3cb8-11e7-8854-21f359183e8c_story.html

 

[shnurgleton]

self sabotage with predictable results

 

[Escape Goat]

Oklahoma and Kansas on a race to the bottom.

 

[zero_suit]

Kansas or Oklahoma, who will win the race to the bottom?

 

[Averon]

Predictable GOP governance.

Why do people continue to fall for GOP voodoo economics I have no idea.

 

[silvon]

Making people dumber is GOP plan as uneducated people usually vote for the GOP

 

[SenorArdilla]

How much do you want to bet that people are going to blame the schools?

 

[GoldenEye 007]

Oklahoma and Kansas on a race to the bottom.

And soon coming to a US Government near you!

 

[Spring-Loaded]

I want to somehow apologize to the students on behalf of American adults. We've completely failed them, and it was in our power to do right by them.

Predictable GOP governance.

Why do people continue to fall for GOP voodoo economics I have no idea.

"There's a sucker born every minute" is a saying that has stood the test of time

 

[BlueTsunami]

The great economic experiment continues, at the cost of the education of your youngest. This is gonna turn into a lost generation of students for that state with no relief in sight.

The levies once again are the teachers that seem to have a heroic amount of patience and will. Once that breaks...

 

[samoscratch]

My cousin lives there and guess who she voted for and continues to support?

I'm over these people.

 

[soundscream]

Disgusting. Just another reason I would never want to live in a red state.

 

[Kusagari]

Fine examples to flaunt when the GOP says state governments know better when it comes to education.

 

[cameron]

But funding for classrooms has been shrinking for years in this deep-red state as lawmakers have cut taxes, slicing away hundreds of millions of dollars in annual revenue in what some Oklahomans consider a cautionary tale about the real-life consequences of the small-government approach favored by Republican majorities in Washington and statehouses nationwide.

An old cautionary tale parents will continue to ignore while gleefully voting R.

 

[cartographer]

It's amazing those teachers lasted 20 years and 18 years. The past few years have been worse but we've long not valued teachers and our schools here.

Most people I know don't last more than a few years. They either find another career or move to teach somewhere else, usually Texas. I only know one person who has kept with it, and she has other income to subsidize her passion.

My nephew has had a first year teacher every single year. His elementary school merged with two others. The classes are a nightmare. Every summer is just waiting for the latest news story that they've relaxed their requirements for new teachers trying to get anybody to take the job.

Fallin can fuck right off, too. You don't get to complain about the energy sector when you turn down federal money in other areas. Even among Oklahoma politicians, she's particularly bad. Once upon a time her racist adult daughter lived in a trailer on the governor's mansion lawn hooked up to the utilities there.

 

[Velcro Fly]

This is the voting age generation failing and crippling the younger generation. This is an absolute failure of government and a violation of every child's right to an education.

 

[Sunster]

less tax = good

bad news = fake

 

[reggieandTFE]

My wife is making 56k as a teacher after 6 years in public schools and 4 in private and she's underpaid. I can't imagine making a quarter less with 18 years in.

 

[Chumly]

Nebraska is desperately trying to mimic this. Pete ricketts our billionaire governor is trying to cut his own taxes so businesses will come to our 3% unemployment state while destroying education funding and just about everything else

He paid for a third of our legislative members to get elected as well

 

[npm0925]

Creating a future generation of low information fascist voters who will blame whatever scapegoat the GOP pigfuckers put in front of them for their predestined failures.

 

[Aurongel]

Keep em uneducated. Keep em voting Republican.

 

[kess]

Nebraska is desperately trying to mimic this. Pete ricketts our billionaire governor is trying to cut his own taxes so businesses will come to our 3% unemployment state while destroying education funding and just about everything else

He paid for a third of our legislative members to get elected as well

Republican policies are nothing but having the rest of the population pay the costs and services of the oligarchy.

It's like soft eugenicism except they actually voted for it.

 

[Ogodei]

My wife is making 56k as a teacher after 6 years in public schools and 4 in private and she's underpaid. I can't imagine making a quarter less with 18 years in.

Fair to the story there's cost-of-living differential to consider. If that Newcastle district is a small town, then $48k could be enough to be quite comfortable (especially if the teacher is married and dual-income), though 48k would be pathetic for a 20-year-worker in any industry in any kind of metro area.

 

[cartographer]

Fair to the story there's cost-of-living differential to consider. If that Newcastle district is a small town, then $48k could be enough to be quite comfortable (especially if the teacher is married and dual-income), though 48k would be pathetic for a 20-year-worker in any industry in any kind of metro area.

Newcastle is in the OKC metro, about 20 minutes from downtown.

 

[Earthbound64]

Fair to the story there's cost-of-living differential to consider. If that Newcastle district is a small town, then $48k could be enough to be quite comfortable (especially if the teacher is married and dual-income), though 48k would be pathetic for a 20-year-worker in any industry in any kind of metro area.

How about an industry which requires 6 years of post-secondary education?

 

[ArkhamFantasy]

Also worth noting that 1 in 4 children in oklahoma face hunger.

 

[mike6467]

Can't wait to see who's going to be the first to propose privatization in the name of balancing the budget.

 

[Couleurs]

Also worth noting that 1 in 4 children in oklahoma face hunger.

Hey man, Americans aren't entitled to eat.

 

[entremet]

Modern day Republican, cut taxes at all cost governing, thanks to the vile man named Grover Nordquist, is vile stuff.

 

[Earthbound64]

Can't wait to see who's going to be the first to propose privatization in the name of balancing the budget.

"Can't wait to see who's going to be the first"?
It's been suggested for years.

 

[GoldenEye 007]

Modern day Republican, cut taxes at all cost governing, thanks to the vile man named Grover Nordquist, is vile stuff.

Then blame everyone but themselves. Can't forget that key which allows the GOP leaders to stay in power!

 

[xnipx]

I wonder if teachers in these red states also lean hard R.

 

[Paz]

What do you even do when people keep voting for those that cause this due to tribalism? It's not like schools failing is going to create a more educated populace, if anything this will help those who caused it be re-elected by the next generation.

 

[soldat7]

Things will improve dramatically now that Betsy Devon is the Secretary of Education.

 

[UberTag]

Wonder what the first state to give up funding education altogether will be. Who needs public education, right? Republicans should tell the ignorant electorate to go fuck themselves. They'll just keep getting voted in anyhow.

 

[entremet]

Wonder what the first state to give up funding education altogether will be. Who needs public education, right? Republicans should tell the ignorant electorate to go fuck themselves. They'll just keep getting voted in anyhow.

This is what charters are in a sense, but they also get tax payer money!

 

[FrenchMovieTheme]

Predictable GOP governance.

Why do people continue to fall for GOP voodoo economics I have no idea.

https://youtu.be/uhiCFdWeQfA

 

[Abinash117]

Predictable GOP governance.

Why do people continue to fall for GOP voodoo economics I have no idea.

People like to believe in bullshit. Cutting taxes is something every person wants and it might improve the economy. A win-win and it is an easy sell, but of course it doesn't turn out that way.

What we think of something as so obvious is not for the average joe. The type of knowledge we have is something learned and most of these people are too busy or just don't think much of it. Plus, they have voted Republican for years. It is unlikely for them to vote for Dems unless something really,really bad causes them to.

 

[MGrant]

I wonder if teachers in these red states also lean hard R.

Some of them. Many of these states (I know Oklahoma and Texas) are Right to Work states, so unions are weak and the teachers don't know any better.

 

[Averon]

What is worse is that the Democrat(s) who will be voted in due to the eventual backlash will spend all their political capital having to raise taxes and make other harsh, unpopular budgetary decisions to clean up the mess the GOP created. All the while the GOP, who created the problems in the first place, get to sit back and berate the Democrat(s) for having to raise taxes and not fixing the mess they created fast enough.

And because voters have memories of gold fish and are uneducated, they buy into the GOP BS and vote them back into power to do it all over again.

 

[The Technomancer]

Oklahoma’s education spending has decreased 14 percent per child since 2008

holy fucking shit

 

[slit]

But Gov. Mary Fallin (R) said a downturn in the energy sector and a decreasing sales tax revenue have led to several ”very difficult budget years."

Uh..........yeah that's pretty well known. It's a cyclical industry. That's why most states don't hitch their education budgets to it. God, what a dummy.

 

[hey_monkey]

This makes me so angry. It's flat out evil.

 

[The Technomancer]

Nebraska is desperately trying to mimic this. Pete ricketts our billionaire governor is trying to cut his own taxes so businesses will come to our 3% unemployment state while destroying education funding and just about everything else

He paid for a third of our legislative members to get elected as well

Since starting my own business (a business that sells consumer products no less) nothing has confused and confounded me more than the idea that businesses are desperately trying to relieve their tax burden unless they're Target/Apple/IBM level megacorps that are trying to find marginal value wherever they can for shareholders. The amount of taxes we pay is honestly not that much, there are so many better things government could invest in to save us way more money. Like yeah it would be nice but we paid less than $100k in taxes last year because nearly all of our revenue is invested back into operating and production costs.

 

[tuxfool]

Uh..........yeah that's pretty well known. That's why most states don't hitch their education budgets to it. God, what a dummy.

Yeah, it is kind of incumbent on the government to look at mitigating risk by not hitching all their fortunes on one sector. Party of business, everybody.

 

[zer0das]

Shannon Chlouber, a third-grade teacher at Newcastle Elementary, said she spends half her Fridays off working on lesson plans and grading papers, leaving her weekends free and making a relentless job more sustainable. She is an 18-year classroom veteran, and she earns $39,350. ”If I were single, I'd be on welfare," she said.

I don't think she has a firm grasp on what it takes to be on welfare. That's nowhere near poverty level. What the heck? It's not like Oklahoma is a high cost living area either.

 

[Earthbound64]

But Gov. Mary Fallin (R) said a downturn in the energy sector and a decreasing sales tax revenue have led to several “very difficult budget years.”

Uh..........yeah that's pretty well known. That's why most states don't hitch their education budgets to it. God, what a dummy.

On the other hand, a common strategy of having education funding come from lottery ticket sales is literally banking on people being stupid.

 

[rjc571]

I don't think she has a firm grasp on what it takes to be on welfare. That's nowhere near poverty level. What the heck? It's not like Oklahoma is a high cost living area either.

Well she probably has a $30,000/yr opioid habit she needs to support

 

[LegendofJoe]

Yeah, it is kind of incumbent on the government to look at mitigating risk by not hitching all their fortunes on one sector. Party of business, everybody.

The energy sector in that area is blind to reality. The heyday of oil has passed and it's not coming back. Natural gas will do well for a long time yet, but oil will continue to decline. The future of energy is all about the electrical grid and what powers it.

 

[slit]

Shannon Chlouber, a third-grade teacher at Newcastle Elementary, said she spends half her Fridays off working on lesson plans and grading papers, leaving her weekends free and making a relentless job more sustainable. She is an 18-year classroom veteran, and she earns $39,350. “If I were single, I’d be on welfare,” she said.

A bit off topic but that's just sad. To be at a job for 18 years that requires a level of education and dedication and only makes that amount. That must be tough.