The EconomistFebruary 3rd 2018 United States 33F
ORTY miles from Tulsa, sometimes
along unpaved roads, sits Wagoner
High School, with its 650 pupils, champi-
onship-calibre football team and show
barn—a seemingly ordinary small-town
school. But unlike most high schools, Wag-
oner is closed on Mondays. The reason, a
severe reduction in state funds, has pushed
90 other school districts in Oklahoma to
do the same. Teacher pay is the third-low-
est in the country and has triggered a state-
wide shortage, as teachersflee to neigh-
bouring states like Arkansasand Texas or
to private schools. “Most ofour teachers
work second jobs,” says Darlene Adair,
Wagoner’s principal. “A lot of them work at
Walmart on nights and weekends, or in lo-
cal restaurants.” Ms Adair hopes that Wal-
mart does not offer her teachers a full-time
job, which would be a pay rise for many.
The roots of the fiasco are not hard to
determine. As in Oklahoma’s northern
neighbour, Kansas, deep taxcuts have
wrecked the state’s finances. During the
shale boom, lawmakers gave a sweetheart
deal to its oilmen, costing $470m in a single
year, byslashing the grossproduction tax
on horizontal drilling from 7% to 1%. North
Dakota, by contrast, taxes production at
11.5%. The crash in global oil prices in 2014
did not help state coffers either. Oklahoma
has also cut income taxes, first under
Democrats desperate to maintain control
over a state that was trending Republican,
and then under Republicans, who swept to
power anyway. Mary Fallin, the Republi-
can governor, came to office pledging to
eliminate the income tax altogether. Since
2008 general state funds forK-12 education
in Oklahoma have been slashed by 28.2%—
the biggest cut in the country. Property tax-
es, which might have made up the differ-
ence, are constitutionally limited.
Other state agencies are broke, too.
Highway patrolmen are told not to fill their
petrol tanks to save money. Those caught
drunk-driving are able to keep their li-
cences because there are no bureaucrats to
revoke them. Prisons are dangerously
overcrowded, to the point that the state’s
director of corrections publicly says that
“something is going to pop”. But unlike
Kansas, whose Republican legislature
eventually rebelled and reversed the tax
cuts over the governor’s veto, Oklahoma
will find its troubling experiment much
more difficult to undo. Because of a refer-
endum passed in 1992, any bill that seeks to
raise taxes must be approved by three-quarters ofthe legislature.
No fact embarrasses Oklahomans
more, or repels prospective businesses
more, than the number of cash-strapped
districts that have gone to four-day weeks.
Yet even such a radical change may not
help finances much. Paul Hill, a professor
of education at the University of Washing-
ton, Bothell, estimates thatthe savings are
“in the 1 or 2% range at most”. That sliver is
still important to Kent Holbrook, superin-
tendent of public schools in Inola (the self-
styled “Hay Capital of the World”). “In my
mind, that’s five or six teachers,” says Mr
Holbrook. Already, from 2008 to 2016, he
has lost 11 teachers from a corps that once
numbered 100. He has also had to reduce
Spanish classes and, for the tenth year run-
ning, delay buying new textbooks.
It is also unclear whether four-day
weeks actually harm learning. Administra-
tors note that the children are better be-
haved. Parents seem to appreciate having
an extra day for doctors’ appointments.
Nor do the pupils mind much. In an infor-
mal poll, a class of eight-year olds was
overwhelmingly in favour. Academics are
less certain. One study, conducted in Mon-
tana, noted a short-term increase in test
scores soon after the schedule shift, but a
significant drop-off in subsequent years.
Some schools have experimented with
four-day weeks not because they risked fi-
nancial insolvency, but to encourage pu-
pils to job-shadow in their time off.The real reason why so many school
districts are resorting to a tighter calendar
is that it is the only true perk they can offer
to poorly paid teachers, whose salaries
start at $31,600 and who have not received
a rise for ten years. The exodus to Texas and
Arkansas, which included Oklahoma’s
Teacher of the Year in 2016, continues un-
abated. A 20-minute drive acrossthe bor-
der often results in a $10,000 increase. Dal-
las’s school districthas unashamedly set
up booths in Oklahoma City to poach
what talent remains. So dire is the shortage
that school districts have found 1,850
adults without the necessary qualifica-
tions, given them emergency certifications,
and placed them in classrooms. “This year,
I emergency-certified my secretary,” says
Penny Risley, the principal of an elemen-
tary school in Wagoner. Teach for America,
which places fresh graduates from leading
colleges in classrooms, isusually unpopu-
lar with teachers’ unions. In Oklahoma,
they are welcomed with open arms.
To make matters worse, the expensive
health insurance offered to teachers eats
into already meagre pay. Under the cheap-
est plan on offer, monthly premiums are
$400 for a single person. The cost of adding
a spouse is another $470 per month; a child
is $208. In Catoosa, a school district not far
from Tulsa, an elementary-school secre-
tary tells of an aide with four children
whose premiums were so large that she
paid the district $200 a month to work
there. A recently hired special-education
teacher worries that she will not be able to
afford a flat for herself and her two chil-
dren without a housing voucher and food
stamps, says Julie Phillips, a speech pathol-
ogist with Tulsa Public Schools. After a
school drive to raise food for poor families
unexpectedly had some left over, needy
teachers divided the remaining bags of ap-
ples and potatoes among themselves.
Prospects of a sensible resolution ap-
pear dim. “We’re close now to the point of
no return, when the system is doomed to
sag from here on out,” says John Waldron,
a public-school teacher in Tulsa, as he
knocks on doors on a sunny afternoon,
campaigning for a seat in the state House.
Each voter Mr Waldron greets with a smile
seems grim and worn out, muttering about
the “completely screwed-up” education
system. Out of nearly 20 Oklahoma teach-
ers and administrators interviewed, none
held out hope of meaningful reforms. Ms
Fallin, the state governor, has called for a
$5,000 pay rise for teachers and has en-
dorsed some modest tax increases ahead
of the nextlegislative session. Whether she
can muster enough support to cross the
three-quarters threshold the state constitu-
tion requires for a tax increase is unclear;
recent attempts have fallen just short.
Meanwhile some Republicans, intent on
cutting more spending, have an eye on the
state’s Medicaid programme. 7Oklahoma’s schoolsFive into four
INOLA AND WAGONER
What happens when a state cannot afford to educate its pupilsRoad to nowhere