April 22nd 2018 Newsletter
A Tale of Tattered Text Books
Oh the propaganda that Oklahoma was subjected to the last few weeks including the much used pictures of tattered textbooks used as proof that Oklahoma education funding had been slashed. Of course it was manufactured propaganda as school bond money is used for textbooks and local school districts pass bond issues all the time for such needs.
One district in particular that was using this manufactured propaganda was Tulsa district. Tulsa had passed $970,000,000 in bonds since 2010. $354,000,000 in 2010, $38,000,000 in 2013, and $415,000,000 in 2015 which had $138,435,000 earmarked for textbooks and classroom materials.
In all $23,480.38 per student was raised in school bonds alone, all earmarked for textbooks, building repair, and transportation infrastructure. So if there were videos and pictures of moldy schools and tattered books it was mismanagement of tax dollars and bond dollars, not a lack of citizens paying taxes to support education.
After the teacher strike had fizzled out an excellent article was published that laid out the fact that the media was wildly exaggerating the need for increased teacher pay. Of course the liberal media was using Oklahoma to prepare other states for teacher strikes and higher taxes but in the process they misled society and got caught doing it.
In fact, the average amount of tax dollars devoted to compensation and benefits was about $120,000 per teacher CNN claimed that teachers with doctorate degrees and three decades of experience made less than $50,000 per year but they didn't count pensions, health insurance, paid leave, or retirement health benefits which brings a thirty year experienced teacher with a doctorate up to around $67,429 per year.
And as we have mentioned before, just the compensation per year leaves out the massive difference between the hours worked at a public school and the hours that most of us work in the private sphere. The average worker in private industry or services will work 37% more hours than a "full time" public teacher even if you are to believe the hours reported by teachers to the U.S. Labor Department. Those of us that know teachers or have lived with teachers know that few teachers actually work on anything once the six hour school day is over. In fact this same article that we are linking to showed that teachers worked an average of 5.6 hours per day in detailed studies, although they claim to do this seven days a week which is laughable.
Yet lets focus on the 37% difference between hours worked if we accept the highest public school teacher work hours and the rest of society in general. If those teachers actually worked the same hours as the rest of us their annual 2016/2017 salary would be over $120,000 per year on a national average and over $95,000 per year here in Oklahoma not counting retirement benefits and pension dollars. Then the super low cost of living here in Oklahoma moves the dial even further, adjusted for the low cost of living an Oklahoma teacher makes almost $103,000 per year based upon the 37% shorter hours worked and the lower cost of living. Which is twice what the major media was reporting leading up to the strike and during the strike.
2019 state appropriated budget is $7.6 billion
Education budget is just as large
Putting this in perspective we can compare the amount spent per child on K-12 education in Oklahoma to the national average to see if we are short changing our kids. Oklahoma spends just over $12,600 per child, not the often quoted figure which is the state money that goes to education. The national average is only $13,119 per year and as Oklahoma has one of the lowest costs of living the entire U.S. we are doing fine with that $12,600 annual spending. But both of these figures don't integrate costs like the state education administration, the pensions, or post retirement benefits like health insurance.
But we aren't done yet with pointing out just how corrupt and inefficient Oklahoma school administration has become. Oklahoma's average class size is 16.3 kids per teacher using the number of enrolled students and the number of teaching teachers. But the average class size in the U.S. is 47% higher than Oklahoma's class size, 24 kids per class versus our 16.3 kids per class. In effect Oklahoma might have lower teacher pay but the work is also 47% lower as there are fewer kids per class. Imagine how much you could pay a good teacher if they were carrying 24 kids per class, you could pay 47% more. But demanding smaller class sizes drives an artificial teacher shortage and increases pay while decreasing the actual work and effort required. But it is all for the kids, right?
The education lobby and their unions have done an excellent job putting out propaganda. The average voter will probably believe that $8000 per kid is all the education system gets instead of the real amount of $12,600 per kid here in Oklahoma. They believe that the class sizes are much larger than they are and have been mislead into thinking that the state is slashing education budgets when in fact education spending by the state has stayed level despite huge budget pressures and falling state income.
The unions and the teachers claimed that 28% of the education budget had been slashed but to get that they used 2008 as the baseline, the year that billions were pumped into education spending through federal stimulus dollars, a one time windfall that came about through printing vast amounts of currency that fueled inflation despite what the government would have us believe. I can tell you that a can of Wolf Brand Chili cost $1.00 in 2008 and now it costs $1.87, hardly 3% inflation that they would have us believe.
And for all of this expense what is the result? Borrowing from the source we have been linking to we find:
* In 2016, 64% of high school students who graduated that year took the ACT college readiness exam. Among these graduates, 26% met ACT's college readiness benchmarks in all four subjects (English, reading, math, and science). For each subject, the rates of college readiness were as follows:
- English – 61%
- Reading – 44%
- Arithmetic – 41%
- Science – 37%
* Among high school students who graduated in 2016 and took the ACT college readiness exam, the following racial/ethnic groups met ACT's college readiness benchmarks in at least three of the four subjects:
- Asian – 60%
- White – 49%
- Pacific Islander – 25%
- Hispanic – 23%
- American Indian – 17%
- African American – 11%
So the end result is that despite bankrupting the state and nation we are pumping out millions of ill prepared students that are thoroughly indoctrinated, capable of eating Tide Pods and snorting condoms, believers in socialism and 75 genders but they can't sign their name or read at junior high level. And God help them when the cash register isn't working at their McJob, few can count back correct change which is about as a basic math function as is possible.
