The flip side of strangling every agency is that in lieu of being able to cut other budgets, it could create the need to boost taxes by 40% according to one article I was reading yesterday from last spring. Legislators don't seem to be very adept at cuts.
As long as school systems set having weight rooms for middle schoolers, indoor baseball practice arenas (for a 2A size school, no less), activity buses which look like Prevost motor coaches, football stadiums which look like a Div. 2 college field, multiple layers of administration, and more sprawl while clamoring for fewer students per teacher, the OEA can go piss up a short rope. When I have time I'm going to go back about two or three years and take a look at other construction projects which seem ridiculous in our school systems.
RM, your passion on the issue has caused me to better educate myself on the issue and frankly, while I suspected there's a fair amount of waste in school systems, I'm truly shocked at the nature of some of these programs and building projects. We need to be consolidating school districts and quit taking union-recommended student to teacher ratios at face value without some sort of scientific basis to prove the educational experience is vastly improved with fewer students per teacher. In the absence of such evidence, all I see is the creation of more union dues paying jobs.
Yesterday corrections workers plead their case at the Capitol. They are complaining of being understaffed and are having to take furlough days. How well do you think budget cuts will play at the DOC?
Interesting read, this letter says we already spend over $5bln a year on secondary education. This measure would require $1.7 bln over three years, so do you shut down DHS, cut even further on prisons, cut health care, cut colleges?
"According to the website Datamasher.org, Oklahoma has an average SAT score of 1149 with an average spending of $6,610 per student. Of the five states surrounding Oklahoma only Missouri and Kansas have higher average scores and they spend $1,200 to $1,300 per student more and only get a 24 or 39 point increase for their money. The State of Oklahoma beats Texas by 150 points and Texas spends $636 per student more. Just spending more per student does not insure the students will do better. The State of Utah (lowest per student spending in country) spends $1,394 per student less than Oklahoma and their average score is only 35 points less than ours. The District of Columbia has the highest spending per student ($13,348) and their average score is 209 points lower than Oklahoma.
Since the people behind State Question 744 do not try to show a source of the increased money, one has to assume one of two things: a tax increase or shift money from another program to education. Using data from the Oklahoma Policy Institute, the average student population for Oklahoma this physical is expected to be 658,242 with an average of $7,638 per student being spent. With the $1,600 per student increase, we would need an additional $1,053,187,200.
Oklahoma's budget for FY 2011 for a few of the departments are:
Secondary Education: $5,057,273,286
Higher Education: $1,003,000,000
Health Care Authority: $963,000,000
Dept. of Corrections: $462,000,000
DHS: $43,000,000"
http://www.urbantulsa.com/gyrobase/Content?oid=oid%3A32527 / Edit to add: I'm not sure where this reader came up with his budget numbers, in fact, I keep finding numbers all over the board from any number of sources, it's pretty maddening. I've found a site where I can compare, peer-to-peer budget items from surrounding states. When I've got time I'll post some conclusions. Suffice to say that $$ spent per student is an awkward yardstick to use when a neighboring state like Texas might have a total state budget which is double that of Oklahoma's. At least from what I've pieced together so far, 40% of our state budget is directed at "common education".
