Tulsa Public Schools Spending

[heironymouspasparagus]

520 districts for a 77 county state is beyond ridiculous.

Would seem to be, but too much a blanket statement without more information about how it all works in each district.  Several examples in that one link does elaborate some.  I could see how it might actually raise costs to consolidate, depending on distances between towns/schools.

Consolidation has been going on for a long time and needs to be continued.  But how do you get an impartial group with enough localized knowledge to not screw it up?  Basically will boil down to whose high school mascot is gonna get gored??

[heironymouspasparagus]

I'm too young to remember much about Boren's tenure as governor.  He'd already gone on to the U.S. Senate by the time I was eligible to vote and knew/cared about fiscal issues.  And yes, I did vote for him when he was in the Senate.  At that time in his career, he'd be a Republican by any measure.  

That is what moderation is all about.  Taking a measured, well thought out approach and then acting with the best interests of the people in mind.  Nobody gets everything they want, but nobody ends up getting nothing they want.

We could use lot more moderation in our lives and society.  The culture of "extreme" we have built up in recent decades is damaging and dangerous.  And stupid.  From extreme politics, to eating habits, to sports.  The only reasonable exception might be extreme moderation....!

[heironymouspasparagus]

So for my proposal in Washington County I would say two districts. One for Bartlesville, especially since part of the city is in Osage County and another district for all the other schools in the county.

Osage County would have one district but would lose some carve outs from city districts from Sand Springs, Skiatook and Bartlesville.

That is one of the "blanket statments" I mentioned to Conan...it doesn't really seem to be a fit to lump Copan/Dewey in with Ramona/Vera/Ochelata.  And Wann is just over the border, but may 'fit' better with Copan than with Oklahoma Union... or maybe Copan would fit better with Oklahoma Union.  Lots of issues for this.  It ain't gonna be easy, no matter what.

[cannon_fodder]

520 districts for a 77 county state is beyond ridiculous.

For those that were curious, as I was, here is a list of number of school districts by state (as of 2004, so soe changes likely, find me better data...):
https://nces.ed.gov/surveys/ruraled/TablesHTML/5localedistricts.asp

Here is the list with up to date population data and then per-capita data added to it (sorry formatting is ugly):

  United States   16,025   *   323,127,513      **   20163.96337
Hawaii   1   *   1,428,557      **   1428557
Nevada   17   *   2,940,058      **   172945
Maryland   24   *   6,016,447      **   250685
Delaware   32   *   952,065      **   29752
District of Columbia   38   *   681,170      **   17926
Rhode Island   47   *   1,056,426      **   22477
Alaska   55   *   741,894      **   13489
West Virginia   57   *   1,831,102      **   32125
Wyoming   59   *   585,501      **   9924
Utah   60   *   3,051,217      **   50854
Florida   74   *   20,612,439      **   278546
Louisiana   85   *   4,681,666      **   55078
New Mexico   89   *   2,081,015      **   23382
South Carolina   89   *   4,961,119      **   55743
Idaho   115   *   1,683,140      **   14636
Alabama   132   *   4,863,300      **   36843
Virginia   135   *   8,411,808      **   62310
Tennessee   136   *   6,651,194      **   48906
Mississippi   163   *   2,988,726      **   18336
New Hampshire   164   *   1,334,795      **   8139
Kentucky   176   *   4,436,974      **   25210
South Dakota   176   *   865,454      **   4917
Colorado   181   *   5,540,545      **   30611
Georgia   181   *   10,310,371      **   56963
Connecticut   190   *   3,576,452      **   18823
Oregon   204   *   4,093,465      **   20066
North Carolina   212   *   10,146,788      **   47862
North Dakota   213   *   757,952      **   3558
Maine   227   *   1,331,479      **   5866
Vermont   285   *   624,594      **   2192
Washington   301   *   7,288,000      **   24213
Kansas   308   *   2,907,289      **   9439
Indiana   314   *   6,633,053      **   21124
Arkansas   315   *   2,988,248      **   9487
Iowa   369   *   3,134,693      **   8495
Massachusetts   380   *   6,811,779      **   17926
Montana   440   *   1,042,520      **   2369
Wisconsin   442   *   5,778,708      **   13074
Minnesota   465   *   5,519,952      **   11871
Nebraska   508   *   1,907,116      **   3754
Missouri   527   *   6,093,000      **   11562
Oklahoma   544   *   3,923,561      **   7212
Arizona   565   *   6,931,071      **   12267
Pennsylvania   631   *   12,802,503      **   20289
New Jersey   639   *   8,944,469      **   13998
Ohio   778   *   11,614,373      **   14929
Michigan   801   *   9,928,301      **   12395
New York   811   *   19,745,289      **   24347
Illinois   970   *   12,801,539      **   13197
California   1,059   *   39,250,017      **   37063
Texas   1,241   *   27,862,596      **   22451.72925


Oklahoma is near the bottom for students per district at #8. With Vermont, Montanta, North Dakota, Nebraska, South Dakota, and Maine having fewer districts (in that order).  All sparsely populated states, most of which certainly have geographic considerations to contend with (unless you want a district to be thousands of square miles). Oklahoma has some of that, but Id think it is somewhat offset by the two major metro areas.

Then again, I'm not sure how much that matters.  Looking at the top 10 states for education (not arguing the merits of the list), they are, by per capita rank for student population, # 4 (being Nebraska, with fewer students per district than Oklahoma) , 10, 11, 20, 24, 26, 33, 43, 47, and 49 (being Maryland with 250k students per district).  I don't see a trend there really.

[RecycleMichael]

https://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d15/tables/dt15_214.30.asp?current=yes

[heironymouspasparagus]

I suspect the structural differences between each state's district policy is going to swamp any effects due to the number of districts.  Plus general education funding - since all of the others spend more per capita than we do.

We have been on a path of consolidation for a long time...an ongoing evolutionary process between districts might be the best approach - letting the synergies develop over time. 

Not sure how the panhandle area would ever be able to do that.

[erfalf]

D.C. has 38 districts? 

I kind of understand how some of the states like Montana and the Dakota's have a decent amount of districts since they have a ton of square miles to cover which leads to smaller average sized districts, but states like New Hampshire, that one kind of stuck out as odd.

[erfalf]

I suspect the structural differences between each state's district policy is going to swamp any effects due to the number of districts.  Plus general education funding - since all of the others spend more per capita than we do.

We have been on a path of consolidation for a long time...an ongoing evolutionary process between districts might be the best approach - letting the synergies develop over time. 

Not sure how the panhandle area would ever be able to do that.

It's probably not a coincidence that districts that struggle financially consolidate to alleviate this pressure.

[heironymouspasparagus]

It's probably not a coincidence that districts that struggle financially consolidate to alleviate this pressure.

I think that is a lot of what has driven some of it here so far.  But a lot of the changes, especially just north and east of Tulsa were done before the raping and pillaging of education began.

How to encourage that without hurting them any more than Failin' and the Clown Show has in the last 6 years will be the big question!

[erfalf]

I think that is a lot of what has driven some of it here so far.  But a lot of the changes, especially just north and east of Tulsa were done before the raping and pillaging of education began.

How to encourage that without hurting them any more than Failin' and the Clown Show has in the last 6 years will be the big question!

And I can say with a pretty high degree of certainty, that those combinations made as far back as the 70's (my school for example) did so out of financial concerns, and being able to provide the education necessary on the tiny amount of dollars available.

That being said, I think a major MAJOR difference was the funding formula. I don't think it was divided as evenly as it is now.  For example, a small town between Ponca City & Stillwater (Frontier Schools a combination of Marland and some other even smaller communities) had some of the most state of the art facilities in the state, and it was one of the smallest schools in the state. The reason was that the Sooner Generating Plant resided within it's tax district. They reaped a pretty nice windfall for many years. I don't recall the year it happened, but eventually the gravy train came to an end and the state started apportioning tax collections based on head count, not actual collections.

[heironymouspasparagus]

And I can say with a pretty high degree of certainty, that those combinations made as far back as the 70's (my school for example) did so out of financial concerns, and being able to provide the education necessary on the tiny amount of dollars available.

That being said, I think a major MAJOR difference was the funding formula. I don't think it was divided as evenly as it is now.  For example, a small town between Ponca City & Stillwater (Frontier Schools a combination of Marland and some other even smaller communities) had some of the most state of the art facilities in the state, and it was one of the smallest schools in the state. The reason was that the Sooner Generating Plant resided within it's tax district. They reaped a pretty nice windfall for many years. I don't recall the year it happened, but eventually the gravy train came to an end and the state started apportioning tax collections based on head count, not actual collections.

Huge disparities back then.  Oologah was the richest district in the state for many years and they had a "blank check" approach without having to really think about money very much at all.   Well, except where to throw it next...  I have been out of touch for a while, but they still seem to have a very good system.

[swake]

The Tulsa World is now reporting that cuts to education since the start of this school year are now up to $93 million.

[Conan71]

The Tulsa World is now reporting that cuts to education since the start of this school year are now up to $93 million.

For the entire state, I take it?

Way to go Oklahoma!

Just keep starving public ed until it finally goes away.

[cannon_fodder]

The Tulsa World is now reporting that cuts to education since the start of this school year are now up to $93 million.

In totally unrelated news, Oklahoma continues to attract an educated workforce or employers demanding the same.   

We're so much better than this.

[heironymouspasparagus]

The Tulsa World is now reporting that cuts to education since the start of this school year are now up to $93 million.

Added to the previous $400 million.   We have gutted our education system to the tune of Half a Billion dollars - per year!!

Yay, team Failin' !!



So who did YOU vote for last November??

Whose wallet is Failin' and the Clown Show in....?