Topic: Education Funding

In its current form, Education Savings Accounts proposal would widen inequality (Guest post: John Lepine)

By: Guest
May 31, 2016 // Updated: May 2, 2019
John Lepine is an OK Policy Research Fellow. He is pursuing a Ph.D. in Educational Administration, Curriculum, and Supervision at the University of Oklahoma. He is also a reading specialist and English department chair at the McLain Magnet High School… Read more [More...]

This part of the budget deal may be the greatest threat to Oklahoma’s economy

By: Gene Perry
May 25, 2016 // Updated: May 2, 2019
Overwhelmingly, the states where residents earn the highest wages also have the best-educated workforce. Both productivity and median wages in a state are strongly correlated with the percentage of residents with a college degree. At the same time, overall state… Read more [More...]

Cuts to education spending hurt more than just our children (Guest post: Christiaan Mitchell)

By: Guest
April 21, 2016 // Updated: May 2, 2019
Christiaan Mitchell is a lawyer who holds masters degrees in philosophy and education. He lives and works in Bartlesville. A couple of weeks ago Williams announced that it was cutting approximately 100 jobs in Tulsa. This announcement was front-page news… Read more [More...]

Why charter schools get an outsize share of mid-year State Aid funding (Guest Post: Shannon Meeks)

By: Guest
April 4, 2016 // Updated: May 2, 2019
Shannon Meeks is the Chief Financial Officer for Putnam City Schools. Each year in late December, state aid payments to public schools are adjusted based on changes in student enrollment and local tax revenues during the first part of the… Read more [More...]

New report: Oklahoma’s education funding per student drops even more

By: Gene Perry
December 10, 2015 // Updated: May 2, 2019
Oklahoma continues to lead the nation for the largest cuts to general school funding since the start of the recession, according to a new report from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. After inflation, Oklahoma’s general preK-12 education funding… Read more [More...]

OCPA’s ‘alternative’ for funding teacher raises proves it can’t be done without new taxes

By: Gene Perry
November 19, 2015 // Updated: May 2, 2019
Last month, a group of Oklahomans led by University of Oklahoma President David Boren launched an effort to put an initiative petition on the ballot that would restore funding to education in Oklahoma through a 1 percent statewide sales tax… Read more [More...]

Oklahoma lottery’s contribution to education reaches new low

By: Gene Perry
October 21, 2015 // Updated: May 2, 2019
As an effort gears up to restore funding to education through a 1-cent sales tax, we’re already hearing more Oklahomans ask a common question: Why hasn’t the lottery fixed our education funding problems? In a post from last year, we… Read more [More...]

Oklahoma school funding: Even worse than you thought (Guest post: Ryan Gentzler)

By: Ryan Gentzler
December 18, 2014 // Updated: May 2, 2019
Ryan Gentzler is an OK Policy Research Fellow, a Master of Public Administration student at the University of Oklahoma, and a Research Associate with the Early Childhood Education Institute. In October, the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities published an… Read more [More...]

That’s a Whopper: Total revenue is a false measure of school funding

By: David Blatt
April 3, 2014 // Updated: May 2, 2019
In making the case against additional funding for public schools, the Oklahoma Council of Public Affairs (OCPA) has recently asserted that “Oklahoma’s per-pupil revenues — – a whopping $12,206 in fiscal year 2013 — – are at record levels.”  The… Read more [More...]

There’s still no free lunch: Impact of massive tax cuts in Kansas offers a warning to Oklahoma

By: Gene Perry
March 27, 2014 // Updated: May 2, 2019
As Oklahoma considers tax cuts similar to those that took effect in Kansas last year, a new report shows that following in Kansas’s footsteps is a bad idea.  Kansas’s massive tax cuts have failed to improve the state’s economic performance,… Read more [More...]