If you go to hell in a hand basket might as well hang on to the handle for the ride!
Oklahoma will have to raise the wages sometime to make more sales come in.
No part time fixes! Raise taxes to get more funding is good but you are taxing
the people out with the same low pay they get so it is not a stable option.
Raise the pay!
Note though raising wages supports spending from those higher wages.
Not the live with no AC or heat on and buy nothing high dollar.
"If they wanted me to buy something then they would of payed me better."
Cant buy anything anyway they keep telling me "Sorry your income is too low!"
But really in Oklahoma there is a massive funding cut for schools.
And points to the need to raise pay to push up the funding.
In cutting you get what you pay for. I expect more discrimination, retaliation
etc from the lower funding as would be the norm as the lack of funding makes
some districts go more renegade in going with their own rules to survive.
~~State Board of Education members voted unanimously to approve a $46.7
million
funding cut for the fiscal year ending June 30, including a $25
million reduction in
funding that goes to schools. The board made 3 percent cuts to several accounts but
made a 6.6
percent cut in the public school activities account to cushion the blow
to
local districts.
Last month, state finance officials declared a revenue failure and
said monthly general
revenue allocations to state agencies will be cut 3
percent for the next six months to
make up for a projected $157 million
shortfall. Rather than impose across-the-board
cuts to schools, Hofmeister said
the revised budget imposes steeper cuts to specific
programs in order to
cushion the reduction in funding that goes to schools through the
per-student formula.
Deeper cuts were implemented for advanced placement teacher training
and test-fee
assistance (55 percent reduction), staff development for
schools (50 percent) and
school lunch matching funds (30 percent). Money
for Science, Technology,
Engineering and Math, or STEM, education
initiatives was completely eliminated.
Matt Holder, the department's chief operating officer, said districts
that rely on the state
for the bulk of their funding and have depleted
reserves will “definitely be hit much harder
by the reductions.” “We do have districts out there that have very low cash fund
balances,
and if they don't make some difficult decisions, yes, they
will be closing their doors,”
Holder told the board. “The exact number
of what that actually looks like we can't tell
you at this point in
time, but we can definitely tell you there are districts out there
hurting
really badly right now.”
Oklahoma City School Board member Phil Horning was among those who attended
Thursday's special meeting.
“There's going to be some significant cuts,” Horning said. “This
board tried to give some
flexibility to the local boards, and that's a
plus.”
While the latest budget cuts will be troublesome for many state
agencies, including the
Oklahoma Health Care Authority and the Oklahoma
Regents for Higher Education,
the situation is expected to become much
more difficult in the fiscal year that begins in July.
State officials already are projecting the state will have at least
$900 million less to spend
in the coming fiscal year, which is about
12.9 percent less than was allocated for the
current year.
“This is a financially challenging time for schools, and the need for
a long-term funding
plan for public education has never been more
obvious,” said Shawn Hime, executive
director of the Oklahoma State
School Boards Association. “We look forward to continuing
to work with
leaders at the Education Department and at the Capitol to make sure
schools
have the resources they need to provide all students the
high-quality education
they deserve.”
http://newsok.com/midyear-budget-cuts-could-force-some-oklahoma-school-districts-to-close/article/5471266
"The
high-quality education
they deserve." tends to not be there with cuts.
You get what you pay for and is why people want their kid to go to Harvard and not
a JR college!
~~The annual Quality Counts report released Thursday by Education Week
shows
Oklahoma public school students performed poorly compared with
most states in
K-12 achievement, per-pupil spending and student chances
for academic and
career success.
Oklahoma ranked 46th out of 50 states and the District of Columbia
with an overall
score of 68.2 out of 100 points and received a grade of
D-plus, according to the report,
which tracks key education indicators
and grades states on their performance and
outcomes.
State schools Superintendent Joy Hofmeister said the report did not come as a surprise.
“We will not see anything different until we do something different,”
Hofmeister said.
“The Quality Counts report is a stark reminder that we
cannot progress in education
without a full commitment to a better plan
and the resources to execute it.
“We need to connect and empower the best parts of our education
system to reach the
full promise and potential of Oklahoma
schoolchildren.”
The average grade among states was a C. Oklahoma received a D for
K-12 achievement
and a D for school finance the state spends about
$3,000 less per student than the
national average. Oklahoma scored a C
in the chance for success category, which shows
40.5 percent of 3- and
4-year-olds are enrolled in preschool and 33 percent of adults
have a 2-
or 4-year college degree.
http://newsok.com/report-gives-oklahoma-students-low-marks/article/5471152
There are options of working at places that hire without a college degree.
Google and etc. It's just a matter of calling those places and finding out.
Or going to a JR college more to pick up on the parts you missed from high school.
In that might be a cost but might not depending upon funding programs.
Those places know and plan about Oklahoma being stupid so there are options
out for the kids. Don't worry about that!
Oklahoma's tax cuts also are shown more I do believe the more crime that
all towns are getting is from the lack of support and wage growth.
It pushes the need to survive so the crime goes up.
I would advise the State that there should be NO cuts to the food stamps
program! As the result would be MADMAX as noted by the recent crimes
in many towns. And shows the part of going to hell in a basket!
In the end the wages does need to be raised.
Right now it's like burning down the weeds to make room for the grass
to grow. The weeds being the stupid people wanting low taxes with the taxes
helping paying many's living, so they don't live making others don't live also!
There will be a change sometime hang on!
I need to say that there will be some hand forced so there will be funding.
The
State will use it's rainy day fund to cover some loss and or corporations
will invest to keep Oklahoma's kids qualified for the jobs they will be seeking.
No corporation wants a trailer park full of job applicants from Oklahoma!
Or if no course the Government will bail us out being they do not want a state
holding back growth overall!
But in the long term the wages do need to go up!
