Cherry-picked numbers

Two myths that distort Oklahoma’s education funding debate

The symptoms of a crisis in public education are all around us: one in five districts going to four-day school weeks, hundreds of Oklahoma’s best teachers moving out of the state or quitting the profession so they can earn a living wage, and a skyrocketing number of teacher positions filled with emergency-certified teachers, because the schools had no applicants with the required teaching license.

Despite this evidence, some lawmakers continue to resist admitting that Oklahoma needs to increase revenues for education—especially if it means raising taxes. Lawmakers and anti-tax interest groups have felt the pressure from Oklahomans who are upset about what’s happening in public schools, so they put a lot of energy into coming up with excuses for why more revenues are not the answer. They have manipulated data and cherry-picked numbers to claim that lack of funding isn’t the problem.

Gene Perry is Policy Director of Oklahoma Policy Institute. Find the rest of this article and more at okpolicy.org.