9 ms·

With state budget in crisis, many Oklahoma schools hold classes four days a week

56 points by baxtr 9y ago

germinalphrase 9y ago
The emphasis on food security is no joke. A shocking large number of families in this country rely on schools meals to assure their children get an adequate number of calories.
- tuna-piano 9y ago
  I don't necessarily disagree, but I have a hard time squaring your point with the fact that the poorest children in the US are the most obese. How can they be calorie deficient and obese at the same time? https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/images/databriefs/51-100/db51_fig4.png https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/images/databriefs/51-100/db51_fig4.... [the lower the PIR (poverty income ratio) the poorer]
  - tacomonstrous 9y ago
    Because the cheapest food is also the unhealthiest.
    - microcolonel 9y ago
      That's not strictly true. Beans, rice, stewing meat, and cabbages are among the cheapest foods to buy and prepare, and they are definitely cheaper than excessively-saline prepared foods. I believe about half of Oklahoma's agricultural product is cattle, I'm sure prices are somewhat competitive. These children are mostly not malnourished, and in most cases their obesity could be solved (in the direct sense, ignoring why they overeat) by eating the same things in lesser quantities, at no cost to their health.
    - tehwebguy 9y ago
      Probably, if time to shop for & prepare food and cost of having access to a kitchen are included. Or if comparing something like McDonalds value menu with other dining out options. But cooking food at home is cheap as hell compared to paying for prepared food if only looking at the cost of the food or ingredients.
  - germinalphrase 9y ago
    Food security is a spectrum of need. Only having access to low-quality, high calorie foods would traditionally fall under this spectrum (they used to call it "food insecurity without hunger").
  - teslabox 9y ago
    > [...] I have a hard time squaring your point with the fact that the poorest children in the US are the most obese. How can they be calorie deficient and obese at the same time? There's much more to weight than calories. "Vegetable oils" are extracted from seeds, usually with the assistance of the petroleum distillate hexane. The polyunsaturated fatty acid (PUFA) portion of these oils is very unstable, so the producers use steam to remove the rancid odor from their "food-grade" product. The PUFA's in vegetable oil are cluster bomblets that destroy people's health. IMHO, vegetable oil should only be used as biodiesel. http://swindledandpimped.org/obesity-epidemic/ http://swindledandpimped.org/obesity-epidemic/
- mirimir 9y ago
  That jumped out at me. When I came to the US, I never imagined that it would come to this. I had heard stuff, but thought that it was just propaganda. Dystopian SF seems more and more prophetic.
  - matt_wulfeck 9y ago
    This is exactly why we have our country divided into states. Each one may experiment and/or fail without affecting the others, and the rest can learn lessons.
    - mirimir 9y ago
      Yes, but the initial states existed before the federal government. So "divided" seems off. Anyway, I don't know the history well enough to have an opinion about the importance of experimentation. I thought that it was mostly about freedom.
      - narrowrail 9y ago
        This may seem pedantic, but the nuance here is important: It's about liberty, not freedom. Medical weed is is allowed in half the states and recreational in 8; New York has effectively banned fracking. I've lived in 6 different states, but many people seem scared to move (not on HN I realize).
        mirimir 9y ago
        Correction appreciated. > One should distinguish between the terms "freedom" and "liberty." Speaking generally, Freedom usually means to be free from something, whereas Liberty usually means to be free to do something, although both refer to the quality or state of being free. Jefferson's use of the terms almost always reflected those meanings. http://eyler.freeservers.com/JeffPers/jefpco26.htm http://eyler.freeservers.com/JeffPers/jefpco26.htm
- saboot 9y ago
  And even then there are children who don't take food out of embarrassment. Someone I know did this as their school has separate lines for people paying with their own money and those getting discount or free lunch. One easy solution is to just have everyone swipe their school id card regardless of pay, but then we don't get to start shaming govt assistance early.
  - rayiner 9y ago
    The easy solution is to just stop charging for school meals. We spend $620 billion on K-12 annually. Giving a free lunch to every kid would cost about $10 billion a year.
    - matt_wulfeck 9y ago
      Why haven't any states taken this up and provides free lunch to students in their state?
HarryHirsch 9y ago
On the other hand, we hear that the economy is doing well, unemployment is 4.7 % nationwide and 5.2 % in Oklahoma, we hear talk of full employment, yet the state can't pay its teachers, and parents can't pay for food. What gives?
- blatherard 9y ago
  These are not mutually exclusive. From the article, third paragraph: "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."
  - narrowrail 9y ago
    I hate this conflation of "small-government" and small federal government. It's just too difficult to manage a country this large and populous from D.C. We all would have better control over our own lives if we did more at the state level, and the smart people will move to the better run states.
- prodmerc 9y ago
  It gives that children have nothing to do with the current economy. Education effects on the economy are only seen every 20-30 years? When they become adults. Right now, it doesn't look good.
- adventured 9y ago
  It's a good question, given Oklahoma has a median income equal to Sweden. Their top tax rate on income is 5.25%. And given their energy boom, there are only two possibilities: they're not taxing enough (they could clearly boost the top income tax brackets slightly), or they're badly mismanaging the spending. Their sales tax is 4.5%, while I regard that as regressive, they could probably afford 6% without any problems given their state income level.
habosa 9y ago
We should all be ashamed. How can there not be enough money to send children to school? What did we spend it on. Maybe we took that money and bought an estate tax break or a more powerful missile. Even if these schools could stay open for 5 days, I doubt any state willing to do something so reckless with education can provide an education worth getting. A bunch of adults did this by treating politics like a game, but children will be the ones who suffer.
- rayiner 9y ago
  This article is talking about the state budget. States don't buy missles, that's federal. And there is enough money to send kids to school. Oklahoma's per student spending is at the OECD average. If it were a country, it'd be between Spain and Italy in education spending per student.
  - adventured 9y ago
    The missile is almost a good point, the OECD average is not. Oklahoma's median income is well above the OECD average. It's nearly 40% higher than Italy. Teacher salaries in Oklahoma are accordingly higher. They're going to have to spend quite a bit more than Italy and Spain. Regarding missiles. If we spent... $200 billion less on defense, which we easily could afford to do, the Federal Government could kick that money down to the states for other purposes (infrastructure, education, healthcare). And or the Federal Govt could lower taxes and the states could raise their taxes.
    - rayiner 9y ago
      The school spending numbers are PPP adjusted. So we're asking Oklahoma teachers to have the same standard of living as Italy teachers. (Actually, Oklahoma teachers do better, because the PPP adjustment is to the US average, and Oklahoma cost of living is a lot lower than the US average.)
      - yequalsx 9y ago
        You've gone from talking about per pupil spending to teacher salaries. There's a gap there. I don't know this to be true but I suspect that administrative costs, need to build newer schools with fancy athletic facilities skews numbers a bit so that direct comparisons between Italy and Oklahoma are not apt. There is also the fact that Italy has been under austerity measures for some time. Lastly, I don't think the Italy numbers take into account healt care costs of teachers. America's stupid health care system and its relegation to employers to include health care into salaries is going to really skew numbers.
microcolonel 9y ago
> 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. Isn't this a mythical outcome though? > 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. And yet they managed to keep the schools open on a budget a small fraction of the size in the past. Suddenly it has become so expensive to run the schools as they're currently structured that they can't even operate them. I don't think that reflects as poorly on the budget as it does on the school boards and administrators. > The four-day week is a “contagion,” said Paul Hill, a research professor at the University of Washington Bothell who has studied the phenomenon in Idaho and who worries that the consequences of the shift — particularly for poor kids — are unknown. Somebody who has studied the effects of moving to a four-day school week says that his worst worries are that the outcome is "unknown". If he had observed negative consequences elsewhere, you might expect him to say that the consequences could be negative. > Democrats helped pass bipartisan income tax cuts from 2004 to 2008. Republicans — who have controlled the legislature since 2009 and governorship since 2011 — have cut income taxes further and also significantly lowered taxes on oil and gas production. Wonderful, I wish somebody were doing that job where I live. And for what it's worth, I don't see how a four-day school week would lead to cost savings. The biggest recurring expense, to my knowledge, would be teacher, administrative, and custodial salaries; none of which would be reduced by a four-day week. Utility costs would probably only decrease slightly, if at all. I don't see the budgets they pass around at these schools, but I can't see it generating a considerable cost savings.
- zo1 9y ago
  >"I don't think that reflects as poorly on the budget as it does on the school boards and administrators." Of course, they can't ever solve the problem because the only viable solution involves reducing their own salaries or admitting that they are redundant and only cause unnecessary overhead to an already-strained system.
zo1 9y ago
"But funding for classrooms has been shrinking for years [...]in what some Oklahomans consider a cautionary tale about the real-life consequences of the small-government approach favored by Republican majorities[...]" Well, I'd argue that reducing budget is the only way some of these programs can ever be taken out of existence. Then it's no surprise that republicans are trying to reduce budget. Small-government means that people pay for their own things if they're not absolutely essential. They've managed before, they can do it again. Of course, this is the horrible adjustment period because people have gotten accustomed to certain things being given/paid for them. How about we slash some ridiculous foreign expenditures, and divert them instead to these poor folks who can't afford an interim solution to their education. That's what we should be talking about.
- CalChris 9y ago
  Oklahoma per capita spending is $5,637. United States average is $5,711. [1] So Oklahoma isn't spending a lot less; they're just spending a lot less on education. And ridiculous foreign expenditures is federal not state. Education is primarily state funded. A better idea is for Oklahoma to fully fund education. [1] https://ballotpedia.org/Total_state_government_expenditures https://ballotpedia.org/Total_state_government_expenditures
PretzelFisch 9y ago
This just political trolling, either you believe vouchers and private education are the solution or you support public education. In this state they are seeing the intentional death of public education system.
jaredtking 9y ago
The Oklahoma state government is grossly incompetent (I grew up here). A few years ago they cut the oil and gas production tax down to as low as 1% for the first 3 years. After a new well has been in production for 3 years the tax rate goes back up to 7%. The problem with that is that most of the production happens in the first 3 years. When the normal tax rate kicks in the wells are mostly dry! And yet to this day, with the school system falling to pieces, the state government is still debating [0] whether to re-impose this tax on oil and gas producers. Keep in mind that this tax cut directly benefits companies like Devon that have an $18B market cap, as well as other larger out-of-state producers. As a comparison, neighboring Texas seems to tax oil and gas production at 4.6% [1]. It's a very shameful situation. In my opinion this is the crux of the problem. Law makers have messed up priorities. In an ironic twist some oil and gas producers are even asking for the tax to be raised [2]. Even they know it is too generous. [0] http://newsok.com/article/5548887 http://newsok.com/article/5548887 [1] https://comptroller.texas.gov/taxes/crude-oil/ https://comptroller.texas.gov/taxes/crude-oil/ [2] https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/oklahoma/articles/2017-04-03/oil-gas-producers-ask-oklahoma-legislature-to-increase-tax https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/oklahoma/articles/20...
keithpeter 9y ago
"...and with no money for new textbooks, children go without" Would printing out a CC licensed textbook help at all? "And the number of positions filled by emergency-certified teachers — who have no education training (or, in O’Brien’s words, “are upright and breathing”) — is now 35 times as high as it was in 2011." What is the actual percentage of qualified to non-qualified in most affected schools? Is anyone monitoring that? You can absorb some non-qualified teachers in most teams but there is a point at which the team support gets thinned out. UK: Free school dinner percentage is a standard metric of local poverty in UK. 88% is very high, 60% is remarkable.
irishcoffee 9y ago
> If we spent... $200 billion less on defense, which we easily could afford to do, the Federal Government could kick that money down to the states for other purpose I read comments like this all the time, and while I don't disagree, I'm not sure anyone realizes just how many jobs will be cut if "we spend xxxbn less on defense." All of that money goes somewhere, the vast majority of it goes into either parts (created by labor) or labor itself. I realize on HN "defense spending" is the prime evil, but that money also supports (if I had to swag it) hundreds of thousands of US jobs.
- toomuchtodo 9y ago
  Defense spending is the ultimate welfare program, draped in a flag.
- bryanlarsen 9y ago
  I'm sure that spending $200 billion on teacher salaries will recycle that money back into the community much faster & more efficiently than it will spending it on missiles.
  - microcolonel 9y ago
    The measures talked about are not intended to reduce teacher salaries, that is basically impossible. Paying teachers more is not going to make the schools open on Friday.
    - cortesoft 9y ago
      What? Having more money WILL allow you to keep the school open on Friday?
  - rayiner 9y ago
    That sounds truthy but I doubt it. Teachers and administrators are all college educated. The military in contrast creates tons of non-college degree jobs. And a lot of the spending on defense contractors goes to skilled blue collar factory jobs. (Defense contractors, contrary to popular belief, have pretty small profit margins, and skilled labor is a huge fraction of their costs.)
jccalhoun 9y ago
Maybe I'm becoming cynical but I am starting to believe that current educational policies actually are intended to keep the population ignorant and uneducated so they are easier to take advantage of.
austenallred 9y ago
Something is weird here, and I'm trying to put my finger on it. > O’Brien said the schedule change helped Newcastle shave about $110,000 out of its $12 million annual budget That's literally less than one percent. Teachers make the same amount, so by cutting 20% of the school days they save <1% of the budget? That's insanity. Are budgets so tight that this is the best way to squeeze it? It seems like part of the story is not being told.
- gregable 9y ago
  It sounds like this is being done in order to retain teachers. The pay is too low to keep educators with experience, but by cutting their hours teachers are more willing to stay, probably because they can now work a second job.
lghh 9y ago
Oh boy, this is my topic. My wife is a kindergarten teacher at the same Oklahoma City area 99% poverty school that I went to when I was a kid. She had (school ended this week) 27 kids in her class, most of which require special attention due to poverty or poor home situations. She's at the point where if she gets any more kids, her class will be standing room only. She's already given up her desk to sit several kids. There are two other teachers in her grade, each with as many kids. They share an aid that they got when they lost their 4th teacher last year, they are losing the aid this upcoming year. I don't think this is entirely a "red state" thing. It seems most of the non-elderly Republicans I know really do want to fund schools, at least more than they are now. Though, it does seems that a large number of politicians want to force private schooling, of which there are few in OKC and none that I know that are secular, or homeschooling amidst the budget crisis. There's also the issue of brain drain, with many teachers opting to move to Texas or quit the field entirely. This year's Oklahoma Teacher of The Year is moving to Texas next year to teach, for example. I can answer any questions about this situation to the best of my ability or ask my wife, who is more knowledgeable than me about it and I will try my best to keep my personal politics out of it.
gms7777 9y ago
I'm all for more education spending, and I do think it seems like Oklahoma's education budget is in crisis, I'm not convinced that this particular approach (four day weeks) is actually problematic on an educational performance level. As mentioned briefly in the article, studies either haven't found significant negative effects [1] or have found that four-day school weeks (with a corresponding lengthening of the school day as found in this case) are associated with a weak positive effect on academic performance (at least in rural regions) [1]. There's less context switching with longer periods, attendance improves moderately and having the extra day off results in less cognitive fatigue over time. The article does mention Tim Tharp's dissertation that suggests that over time this effect drops off and performance may decline [3]. Concerning purely educational performance, money saved with this program may be spent better on retaining teachers and retaining elective and extra-curricular programs. That said, I do think there is an important concern about the increased burden on low income families -- both in terms of child-care costs and food. The article mentions the one district that arranged "low-cost" child care on fridays for $30/child/week, but for a two-child household that corresponds to an extra $240-$300 per month. For low income families that may be 10% or more of household income. Indeed the cost of their "low-cost" childcare is a bit fishy. The article mentions that the Newcastle school district has an enrollment of about 2300 students, and save $110,000 per year by switching to four-day weeks -- Around $48 per student per year. Yet they charge $30 per student per week for childcare on Fridays. How is that cost being justified? [1] http://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ987605.pdf http://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ987605.pdf [2] http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/full/10.1162/EDFP_a_00165 http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/full/10.1162/EDFP_a_0016... [3] http://scholarworks.umt.edu/etd/10780/ http://scholarworks.umt.edu/etd/10780/ -- Worth noting perhaps that this is a dissertation, and the corresponding research has never been published in a peer-reviewed venue. Not to say its flawed, but it hasn't necessarily undergone a close methodological review (Disclaimer: Not an education expert. I just went hunting for articles discussing academic effects out of curiosity. Would love to hear from those that know more about the subject.)
c517402 9y ago
Oklahoma is also one of the few states that has Pre-K. That is an extra year of state supported education for each student.

56 points by baxtr 9y ago

The emphasis on food security is no joke. A shocking large number of families in this country rely on schools meals to assure their children get an adequate number of calories.

tuna-piano 9y ago
I don't necessarily disagree, but I have a hard time squaring your point with the fact that the poorest children in the US are the most obese. How can they be calorie deficient and obese at the same time? https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/images/databriefs/51-100/db51_fig4.png https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/images/databriefs/51-100/db51_fig4.... [the lower the PIR (poverty income ratio) the poorer]
- tacomonstrous 9y ago
  Because the cheapest food is also the unhealthiest.
  - microcolonel 9y ago
    That's not strictly true. Beans, rice, stewing meat, and cabbages are among the cheapest foods to buy and prepare, and they are definitely cheaper than excessively-saline prepared foods. I believe about half of Oklahoma's agricultural product is cattle, I'm sure prices are somewhat competitive. These children are mostly not malnourished, and in most cases their obesity could be solved (in the direct sense, ignoring why they overeat) by eating the same things in lesser quantities, at no cost to their health.
  - tehwebguy 9y ago
    Probably, if time to shop for & prepare food and cost of having access to a kitchen are included. Or if comparing something like McDonalds value menu with other dining out options. But cooking food at home is cheap as hell compared to paying for prepared food if only looking at the cost of the food or ingredients.
- germinalphrase 9y ago
  Food security is a spectrum of need. Only having access to low-quality, high calorie foods would traditionally fall under this spectrum (they used to call it "food insecurity without hunger").
- teslabox 9y ago
  > [...] I have a hard time squaring your point with the fact that the poorest children in the US are the most obese. How can they be calorie deficient and obese at the same time? There's much more to weight than calories. "Vegetable oils" are extracted from seeds, usually with the assistance of the petroleum distillate hexane. The polyunsaturated fatty acid (PUFA) portion of these oils is very unstable, so the producers use steam to remove the rancid odor from their "food-grade" product. The PUFA's in vegetable oil are cluster bomblets that destroy people's health. IMHO, vegetable oil should only be used as biodiesel. http://swindledandpimped.org/obesity-epidemic/ http://swindledandpimped.org/obesity-epidemic/
mirimir 9y ago
That jumped out at me. When I came to the US, I never imagined that it would come to this. I had heard stuff, but thought that it was just propaganda. Dystopian SF seems more and more prophetic.
- matt_wulfeck 9y ago
  This is exactly why we have our country divided into states. Each one may experiment and/or fail without affecting the others, and the rest can learn lessons.
  - mirimir 9y ago
    Yes, but the initial states existed before the federal government. So "divided" seems off. Anyway, I don't know the history well enough to have an opinion about the importance of experimentation. I thought that it was mostly about freedom.
    - narrowrail 9y ago
      This may seem pedantic, but the nuance here is important: It's about liberty, not freedom. Medical weed is is allowed in half the states and recreational in 8; New York has effectively banned fracking. I've lived in 6 different states, but many people seem scared to move (not on HN I realize).
      - mirimir 9y ago
        Correction appreciated. > One should distinguish between the terms "freedom" and "liberty." Speaking generally, Freedom usually means to be free from something, whereas Liberty usually means to be free to do something, although both refer to the quality or state of being free. Jefferson's use of the terms almost always reflected those meanings. http://eyler.freeservers.com/JeffPers/jefpco26.htm http://eyler.freeservers.com/JeffPers/jefpco26.htm
saboot 9y ago
And even then there are children who don't take food out of embarrassment. Someone I know did this as their school has separate lines for people paying with their own money and those getting discount or free lunch. One easy solution is to just have everyone swipe their school id card regardless of pay, but then we don't get to start shaming govt assistance early.
- rayiner 9y ago
  The easy solution is to just stop charging for school meals. We spend $620 billion on K-12 annually. Giving a free lunch to every kid would cost about $10 billion a year.
  - matt_wulfeck 9y ago
    Why haven't any states taken this up and provides free lunch to students in their state?

HarryHirsch 9y ago

On the other hand, we hear that the economy is doing well, unemployment is 4.7 % nationwide and 5.2 % in Oklahoma, we hear talk of full employment, yet the state can't pay its teachers, and parents can't pay for food. What gives?

blatherard 9y ago
These are not mutually exclusive. From the article, third paragraph: "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."
- narrowrail 9y ago
  I hate this conflation of "small-government" and small federal government. It's just too difficult to manage a country this large and populous from D.C. We all would have better control over our own lives if we did more at the state level, and the smart people will move to the better run states.
prodmerc 9y ago
It gives that children have nothing to do with the current economy. Education effects on the economy are only seen every 20-30 years? When they become adults. Right now, it doesn't look good.
adventured 9y ago
It's a good question, given Oklahoma has a median income equal to Sweden. Their top tax rate on income is 5.25%. And given their energy boom, there are only two possibilities: they're not taxing enough (they could clearly boost the top income tax brackets slightly), or they're badly mismanaging the spending. Their sales tax is 4.5%, while I regard that as regressive, they could probably afford 6% without any problems given their state income level.

habosa 9y ago

We should all be ashamed. How can there not be enough money to send children to school? What did we spend it on. Maybe we took that money and bought an estate tax break or a more powerful missile. Even if these schools could stay open for 5 days, I doubt any state willing to do something so reckless with education can provide an education worth getting. A bunch of adults did this by treating politics like a game, but children will be the ones who suffer.

rayiner 9y ago
This article is talking about the state budget. States don't buy missles, that's federal. And there is enough money to send kids to school. Oklahoma's per student spending is at the OECD average. If it were a country, it'd be between Spain and Italy in education spending per student.
- adventured 9y ago
  The missile is almost a good point, the OECD average is not. Oklahoma's median income is well above the OECD average. It's nearly 40% higher than Italy. Teacher salaries in Oklahoma are accordingly higher. They're going to have to spend quite a bit more than Italy and Spain. Regarding missiles. If we spent... $200 billion less on defense, which we easily could afford to do, the Federal Government could kick that money down to the states for other purposes (infrastructure, education, healthcare). And or the Federal Govt could lower taxes and the states could raise their taxes.
  - rayiner 9y ago
    The school spending numbers are PPP adjusted. So we're asking Oklahoma teachers to have the same standard of living as Italy teachers. (Actually, Oklahoma teachers do better, because the PPP adjustment is to the US average, and Oklahoma cost of living is a lot lower than the US average.)
    - yequalsx 9y ago
      You've gone from talking about per pupil spending to teacher salaries. There's a gap there. I don't know this to be true but I suspect that administrative costs, need to build newer schools with fancy athletic facilities skews numbers a bit so that direct comparisons between Italy and Oklahoma are not apt. There is also the fact that Italy has been under austerity measures for some time. Lastly, I don't think the Italy numbers take into account healt care costs of teachers. America's stupid health care system and its relegation to employers to include health care into salaries is going to really skew numbers.

microcolonel 9y ago

> 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. Isn't this a mythical outcome though? > 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. And yet they managed to keep the schools open on a budget a small fraction of the size in the past. Suddenly it has become so expensive to run the schools as they're currently structured that they can't even operate them. I don't think that reflects as poorly on the budget as it does on the school boards and administrators. > The four-day week is a “contagion,” said Paul Hill, a research professor at the University of Washington Bothell who has studied the phenomenon in Idaho and who worries that the consequences of the shift — particularly for poor kids — are unknown. Somebody who has studied the effects of moving to a four-day school week says that his worst worries are that the outcome is "unknown". If he had observed negative consequences elsewhere, you might expect him to say that the consequences could be negative. > Democrats helped pass bipartisan income tax cuts from 2004 to 2008. Republicans — who have controlled the legislature since 2009 and governorship since 2011 — have cut income taxes further and also significantly lowered taxes on oil and gas production. Wonderful, I wish somebody were doing that job where I live. And for what it's worth, I don't see how a four-day school week would lead to cost savings. The biggest recurring expense, to my knowledge, would be teacher, administrative, and custodial salaries; none of which would be reduced by a four-day week. Utility costs would probably only decrease slightly, if at all. I don't see the budgets they pass around at these schools, but I can't see it generating a considerable cost savings.

zo1 9y ago
>"I don't think that reflects as poorly on the budget as it does on the school boards and administrators." Of course, they can't ever solve the problem because the only viable solution involves reducing their own salaries or admitting that they are redundant and only cause unnecessary overhead to an already-strained system.

zo1 9y ago

"But funding for classrooms has been shrinking for years [...]in what some Oklahomans consider a cautionary tale about the real-life consequences of the small-government approach favored by Republican majorities[...]" Well, I'd argue that reducing budget is the only way some of these programs can ever be taken out of existence. Then it's no surprise that republicans are trying to reduce budget. Small-government means that people pay for their own things if they're not absolutely essential. They've managed before, they can do it again. Of course, this is the horrible adjustment period because people have gotten accustomed to certain things being given/paid for them. How about we slash some ridiculous foreign expenditures, and divert them instead to these poor folks who can't afford an interim solution to their education. That's what we should be talking about.

CalChris 9y ago
Oklahoma per capita spending is $5,637. United States average is $5,711. [1] So Oklahoma isn't spending a lot less; they're just spending a lot less on education. And ridiculous foreign expenditures is federal not state. Education is primarily state funded. A better idea is for Oklahoma to fully fund education. [1] https://ballotpedia.org/Total_state_government_expenditures https://ballotpedia.org/Total_state_government_expenditures

PretzelFisch 9y ago

This just political trolling, either you believe vouchers and private education are the solution or you support public education. In this state they are seeing the intentional death of public education system.

jaredtking 9y ago

The Oklahoma state government is grossly incompetent (I grew up here). A few years ago they cut the oil and gas production tax down to as low as 1% for the first 3 years. After a new well has been in production for 3 years the tax rate goes back up to 7%. The problem with that is that most of the production happens in the first 3 years. When the normal tax rate kicks in the wells are mostly dry! And yet to this day, with the school system falling to pieces, the state government is still debating [0] whether to re-impose this tax on oil and gas producers. Keep in mind that this tax cut directly benefits companies like Devon that have an $18B market cap, as well as other larger out-of-state producers. As a comparison, neighboring Texas seems to tax oil and gas production at 4.6% [1]. It's a very shameful situation. In my opinion this is the crux of the problem. Law makers have messed up priorities. In an ironic twist some oil and gas producers are even asking for the tax to be raised [2]. Even they know it is too generous. [0] http://newsok.com/article/5548887 http://newsok.com/article/5548887 [1] https://comptroller.texas.gov/taxes/crude-oil/ https://comptroller.texas.gov/taxes/crude-oil/ [2] https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/oklahoma/articles/2017-04-03/oil-gas-producers-ask-oklahoma-legislature-to-increase-tax https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/oklahoma/articles/20...

keithpeter 9y ago

"...and with no money for new textbooks, children go without" Would printing out a CC licensed textbook help at all? "And the number of positions filled by emergency-certified teachers — who have no education training (or, in O’Brien’s words, “are upright and breathing”) — is now 35 times as high as it was in 2011." What is the actual percentage of qualified to non-qualified in most affected schools? Is anyone monitoring that? You can absorb some non-qualified teachers in most teams but there is a point at which the team support gets thinned out. UK: Free school dinner percentage is a standard metric of local poverty in UK. 88% is very high, 60% is remarkable.

irishcoffee 9y ago

> If we spent... $200 billion less on defense, which we easily could afford to do, the Federal Government could kick that money down to the states for other purpose I read comments like this all the time, and while I don't disagree, I'm not sure anyone realizes just how many jobs will be cut if "we spend xxxbn less on defense." All of that money goes somewhere, the vast majority of it goes into either parts (created by labor) or labor itself. I realize on HN "defense spending" is the prime evil, but that money also supports (if I had to swag it) hundreds of thousands of US jobs.

toomuchtodo 9y ago
Defense spending is the ultimate welfare program, draped in a flag.
bryanlarsen 9y ago
I'm sure that spending $200 billion on teacher salaries will recycle that money back into the community much faster & more efficiently than it will spending it on missiles.
- microcolonel 9y ago
  The measures talked about are not intended to reduce teacher salaries, that is basically impossible. Paying teachers more is not going to make the schools open on Friday.
  - cortesoft 9y ago
    What? Having more money WILL allow you to keep the school open on Friday?
- rayiner 9y ago
  That sounds truthy but I doubt it. Teachers and administrators are all college educated. The military in contrast creates tons of non-college degree jobs. And a lot of the spending on defense contractors goes to skilled blue collar factory jobs. (Defense contractors, contrary to popular belief, have pretty small profit margins, and skilled labor is a huge fraction of their costs.)

jccalhoun 9y ago

Maybe I'm becoming cynical but I am starting to believe that current educational policies actually are intended to keep the population ignorant and uneducated so they are easier to take advantage of.

austenallred 9y ago

Something is weird here, and I'm trying to put my finger on it. > O’Brien said the schedule change helped Newcastle shave about $110,000 out of its $12 million annual budget That's literally less than one percent. Teachers make the same amount, so by cutting 20% of the school days they save <1% of the budget? That's insanity. Are budgets so tight that this is the best way to squeeze it? It seems like part of the story is not being told.

gregable 9y ago
It sounds like this is being done in order to retain teachers. The pay is too low to keep educators with experience, but by cutting their hours teachers are more willing to stay, probably because they can now work a second job.

lghh 9y ago

Oh boy, this is my topic. My wife is a kindergarten teacher at the same Oklahoma City area 99% poverty school that I went to when I was a kid. She had (school ended this week) 27 kids in her class, most of which require special attention due to poverty or poor home situations. She's at the point where if she gets any more kids, her class will be standing room only. She's already given up her desk to sit several kids. There are two other teachers in her grade, each with as many kids. They share an aid that they got when they lost their 4th teacher last year, they are losing the aid this upcoming year. I don't think this is entirely a "red state" thing. It seems most of the non-elderly Republicans I know really do want to fund schools, at least more than they are now. Though, it does seems that a large number of politicians want to force private schooling, of which there are few in OKC and none that I know that are secular, or homeschooling amidst the budget crisis. There's also the issue of brain drain, with many teachers opting to move to Texas or quit the field entirely. This year's Oklahoma Teacher of The Year is moving to Texas next year to teach, for example. I can answer any questions about this situation to the best of my ability or ask my wife, who is more knowledgeable than me about it and I will try my best to keep my personal politics out of it.

gms7777 9y ago

I'm all for more education spending, and I do think it seems like Oklahoma's education budget is in crisis, I'm not convinced that this particular approach (four day weeks) is actually problematic on an educational performance level. As mentioned briefly in the article, studies either haven't found significant negative effects [1] or have found that four-day school weeks (with a corresponding lengthening of the school day as found in this case) are associated with a weak positive effect on academic performance (at least in rural regions) [1]. There's less context switching with longer periods, attendance improves moderately and having the extra day off results in less cognitive fatigue over time. The article does mention Tim Tharp's dissertation that suggests that over time this effect drops off and performance may decline [3]. Concerning purely educational performance, money saved with this program may be spent better on retaining teachers and retaining elective and extra-curricular programs. That said, I do think there is an important concern about the increased burden on low income families -- both in terms of child-care costs and food. The article mentions the one district that arranged "low-cost" child care on fridays for $30/child/week, but for a two-child household that corresponds to an extra $240-$300 per month. For low income families that may be 10% or more of household income. Indeed the cost of their "low-cost" childcare is a bit fishy. The article mentions that the Newcastle school district has an enrollment of about 2300 students, and save $110,000 per year by switching to four-day weeks -- Around $48 per student per year. Yet they charge $30 per student per week for childcare on Fridays. How is that cost being justified? [1] http://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ987605.pdf http://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ987605.pdf [2] http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/full/10.1162/EDFP_a_00165 http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/full/10.1162/EDFP_a_0016... [3] http://scholarworks.umt.edu/etd/10780/ http://scholarworks.umt.edu/etd/10780/ -- Worth noting perhaps that this is a dissertation, and the corresponding research has never been published in a peer-reviewed venue. Not to say its flawed, but it hasn't necessarily undergone a close methodological review (Disclaimer: Not an education expert. I just went hunting for articles discussing academic effects out of curiosity. Would love to hear from those that know more about the subject.)

c517402 9y ago

Oklahoma is also one of the few states that has Pre-K. That is an extra year of state supported education for each student.