HOPE Isn't Change or Vote NO on State Question 744

December 13, 2009 by admin

At a meeting recently, Stuart Jolly of the Oklahoma chapter of Americans For Prosperity told those of us assembled that, while Oklahoma still ranks 47th in education among the 50 states, our State's teacher's unions (OEA and NEA) want to make sure that the legislature appropriates an additional $850M to the Oklahoma State Department of Education during the 2010 legislative session.

I was aghast at even the thought of this, so I went home and did some research.

One article I read explained that this money was needed to bring per pupil costs up from 7,615.00/kid to roughly 9k/kid in order to compete with the regional average (regional average = $9,078.00 national average = $9963.00 according to http://www.businessinsider.com/education-spending-could-force-tax-hikes-...
). This would be done with a package the NEA is advancing called HOPE (Helping Oklahoma Public Education aka State Question 744).

Interestingly, just THAT DAY I had been told that Quail Creek Elementary was going to have to cut a 5th grade teacher because of a lack of enrollment, and therefore money to pay him/her to continue teaching a classroom of only 17 students.

Based on current public data and and a review of articles from credible internet sources, I found that, according to the Sunshine Review, the Oklahoma tax payers actually paid approximately $11,250.00 per student in 2007 when costs are compared apples to apples with private school educations (http://sunshinereview.org/index.php/Calculating_the_real_cost_of_public_...), not the 7k numbers the OEA and NEA are asserting.

I then crunched some numbers found from articles and OpenBooks.OK.Gov. This produced some interesting information.

The number of pupils enrolled in all Oklahoma state public schools for the year 2007/2008 were 634,251 (as per the Oklahoma State Department website 2007-2008 facts; http://sde.state.ok.us/Services/Data/statcard.html). If you take the per pupil designation of $7,615 as provided by OEA (http://www.businessinsider.com/education-spending-could-force-tax-hikes-...) and multiply it by the number of students enrolled you get the figure of $4,829,821,365.00.

If you take the number per pupil spending as found by OCPA (Oklahoma Council of Public Affairs) and The Sunshine Review for 2003 (the last data available) of $11,250 and multiply it by the number of students enrolled for 2007/2008, you get $7,135,323,750.00.

Now, here's the fun part. If you search the OpenBook.Ok.Gov website ( http://www.ok.gov/okaa/_app/index.php?higher_ed=-1&agency_id=0265&view=e...), you find that Expenditures by the Oklahoma State Department of Education for the year 2007, were 2,963,882,655.69.

Now, I'm no mathematical genius, but how are we spending more to fund Oklahoma Public Schools than what is listed as expenditures by the State of Oklahoma? I am assuming that has to do with the number of Federal grants and other monies that pour into the system over and above tax payer contribution?

But, okay. Let's say this is the case. If you take the expenditures listed by the Oklahoma State Department of Education during 2007 (2,963,882,655.69 - http://www.ok.gov/okaa/_app/index.php?higher_ed=-1&agency_id=0265&view=e... ) and divide that number into the number calculated by the $7,615.00 per pupil expenditure, you would expect the result to be the ratio of Administrative spending to Per Pupil Spending. If that is the case, then 61.37% of the money spent on the education of our children is spent on administrative costs (salary expenses are listed at approximately 16M).

Even when using The Sunshine Review number of 11k per pupil spending is used for calculation, the administrative costs of educating our kids is just barely below HALF (41.54%). In other words, the NEA and the OEA, better actually hope that Oklahoma tax payers are paying the 11k per pupil suggested by the Sunshine Review article or they are looking at a HUGE discrepancy between what tax paying parents think they are spending on their child's classroom education and what is actually being spent on their child's classroom education.

Why in the world are we moving teachers out of classrooms and cramming kids together in classes of up to 30 when all we CLEARLY need to do is reduce administrative spending? Clearly, HOPE is not the answer here. Clearly, CHANGE is needed and that change is to DECREASE ADMINISTRATIVE costs to a FRACTION of their current total in relation to in-classroom spending.

Clearly, the ridiculous overspending on administrative costs in the Oklahoma State Public Schools must stop. We should not in any way be spending MORE money on an educational system that is clearly top heavy with very little trickle down. We need smaller class sizes and more teachers in buildings to accomplish this task. This can only occur when administration spending is reduced, not when tax payers are asked to foot an additional bill!

It seems clear, that as Brandon Dutcher (Vice President for Policy at OCPA) writes in a Daily Oklahoma article on August 18th, 2009, "HOPE is really about Hijacking Other People's Earnings."

CORRESPONDING LITERATURE:
Oklahoma Public School Enrollment Figures
http://sde.state.ok.us/Services/Data/statcard.html

OpenBooks: Oklahoma Finances: Oklahoma State Department of Education page
http://www.ok.gov/okaa/_app/index.php?higher_ed=0&agency_id=0265&view=ex...

Open Books: Oklahoma Finances: Where does the spate spend its money?
http://www.ok.gov/okaa/Where_does_state_spend_money.html

Education Week’s Quality Counts publication for Oklahoma Schools 2008
http://www.edweek.org/media/ew/qc/2008/18shr.ok.h27.pdf

The Audacity of Hope: Article in NewsOK by Brandon Dutcher
http://newsok.com/the-audacity-of-hope/article/3284929/

Calculating the Real Cost of Public Education in Oklahoma: Brandon Dutcher with the Sunshine Review Organization
http://sunshinereview.org/index.php/Calculating_the_real_cost_of_public_...

HOPE Irresponsible Public Policy: Article in NewsOK by Brandon Dutcher;
http://www.newsok.com/needed-creative-options/article/3370345?custom_cli...

How High is Teacher Pay in Oklahoma: Oklahoma Council of Public Affairs, written by Brandon Dutcher
http://www.ocpathink.org/research-ideas/education/?module=news&id=2294

Mourning Constitutional by Oklahoma Center: Oklahoma Council of Public Affairs, written by Matthew Ladner
http://www.ocpathink.org/publications/perspective-archives/september-200...

Ballotpedia: Information on State Question 744
http://ballotpedia.org/wiki/index.php/Oklahoma_State_Question_744_%28201...

Article on the 5 Character flaws destroying America’s Future: Lack of Personal Responsibility, Short Attention Spans, Excessive Self Esteem, Short Term Thinking/Instant Gratification, Immorality
http://townhall.com/columnists/JohnHawkins/2009/06/02/5_character_flaws_...

Education Spending Could Force Tax hikes in Oklahoma in 2009; written by Tim Talley - AP
http://www.businessinsider.com/education-spending-could-force-tax-hikes-...

Oklahoma Lawmakers Study Education Spending; written by AP: OEA backs 744
http://newsok.com/oklahoma-lawmakers-study-education-spending-measure/ar...