Not OK

Cuts hit all aspects of public education

Miami Public Schools in Ottawa County serves about 2,500 K–12 students in seven schools. This year, four school librarian positions were eliminated, leaving the district without a single librarian.

In Newkirk, there is no librarian and no speech or drama class. In Edmond, elementary school students no longer learn Spanish. In Agra, the band program has been eliminated and there are 45 students in a choir class. There are no security officers employed in any of Oklahoma City’s elementary schools.

These are just a few of dozens of stories I heard recently, when I asked members of a Facebook education group to share examples of how their schools or their children’s schools have been affected by budget cuts in recent years.

David Blatt is Executive Director of Oklahoma Policy Institute. Find the rest of this article and more at okpolicy.org.