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Education majors generally have the lowest average ACT/SAT score of all the majors at a given institution of higher education.

Neither of my degrees is in Education.

Let's look at the data and see what it says.

Keep in mind that many of the majors below will end up in education, as you did.

Um no.if they want to take it out of the inflated defense budget and give it to inflated school amdns,fine.They have already ruled how schools are funded in Ohio unconstitutional.Yet if you are a section 8 renter that doesn't even pay into the system but get's to vote whether home owners do that's a problem we have the highest percapita tax% in the most populous county in Ohio.The law has to change

I'd be ok if we just got rid of Ohio...

I'm not surprised.  OK ranks 45th in education, and has led the nation in "per pupil" education cuts for the last 5 years in a row.  This despite the fact that teachers had to strike in order to get a raise.

Investing in education pays for itself.  I will never understand this.

Thank you for being a teacher and a veteran.

"45th in education"--does that mean per-pupil expenditure?

If so, there's obviously a bias in favor of high-cost-of-living states, because they have to spend more to get the same result.  Oklahoma is not a high-cost-of-living state.  I suspect that we would rank in the middle 1/3 if expenditures were adjusted for cost of living.

We've got something like the 5th-lowest average score on the ACT (2019 scores).  Which seems very bad.  However, we test 100% of our students (paid by the state), one of only 15 states to do so.  I did not know this until I just checked.  Unless my memory is faulty (a distinct possibility), we didn't do that in 2018.  Last time I checked our scores against the national average, we were testing about 87%, and our average score was 0.1 below the national average.  Getting that last 13% tested has caused our average score to go down 2 points.
Teachers got a big pay raise a year ago.  For 2019, we ranked 43rd in "adjusted average salary," at $48,295.  By comparison, California ranks 36th at $50,787.  I imagine that $48k-plus goes further in Oklahoma than $51k-minus does in California.  BTW, Vermont and Maine rank 45th and 46th, respectively.

CD has made the point, but investing in education doesn't pay for itself if the product is not good.  All things being equal, more money invested is better, but all things are not equal.  I've seen two different school systems respond to increased funding by scheduling more boondoggle trips for administrators.

Before my current job, I taught in a middle school that was aspiring to be certified in the International Baccalaureate Middle Years Program (IB-MYP).  I was with a group of teachers who went to Houston for the workshops and seminars we needed to make sure we were teaching in the right way and aiming at the right target.  Two years later, because more money was available, other teachers and our principal went to Montreal for the training.  The principal took a private room instead of doubling up, and she attended no workshops, because it was Montreal and she wanted to go shopping.

In my current job, our school joined the Confucius Institute 7 or 8 years ago, and the Superintendent, the principal, the athletics director, and the activities director went to China.  It was a junket.  There wasn't one thing about Chinese culture that we incorporated into our curriculum beyond having a Chinese language class for a couple of years.  We're no longer a member of the Confucius Institute, for which I am thankful, because I think its primary purpose is propaganda.

Thanks for your final comments.  Despite the bungling and incompetence I have seen, I've enjoyed both of those careers.

I can agree to an extent.  Depends on the definition of "corporate world"

some corporations are obviously top heavy and inefficient - some that are pushing the leading edge such as Elon Musk and Apple, probably not

perhaps we should not allow mergers of large corporations to make even larger corporations

On Elon Musk, I'm not sure if he's actually on the edge or is just very good at getting attention.

I think Apple is certianly good with some kinds of efficiency (thinking international supply chains and such), but I bet they have plenty of those moments of waste, they just have more cushion. 

"45th in education"--does that mean per-pupil expenditure?

If so, there's obviously a bias in favor of high-cost-of-living states, because they have to spend more to get the same result.  Oklahoma is not a high-cost-of-living state.  I suspect that we would rank in the middle 1/3 if expenditures were adjusted for cost of living.

We've got something like the 5th-lowest average score on the ACT (2019 scores).  Which seems very bad.  However, we test 100% of our students (paid by the state), one of only 15 states to do so.  I did not know this until I just checked.  Unless my memory is faulty (a distinct possibility), we didn't do that in 2018.  Last time I checked our scores against the national average, we were testing about 87%, and our average score was 0.1 below the national average.  Getting that last 13% tested has caused our average score to go down 2 points.
Teachers got a big pay raise a year ago.  For 2019, we ranked 43rd in "adjusted average salary," at $48,295.  By comparison, California ranks 36th at $50,787.  I imagine that $48k-plus goes further in Oklahoma than $51k-minus does in California.  BTW, Vermont and Maine rank 45th and 46th, respectively.

CD has made the point, but investing in education doesn't pay for itself if the product is not good.  All things being equal, more money invested is better, but all things are not equal.  I've seen two different school systems respond to increased funding by scheduling more boondoggle trips for administrators.

Before my current job, I taught in a middle school that was aspiring to be certified in the International Baccalaureate Middle Years Program (IB-MYP).  I was with a group of teachers who went to Houston for the workshops and seminars we needed to make sure we were teaching in the right way and aiming at the right target.  Two years later, because more money was available, other teachers and our principal went to Montreal for the training.  The principal took a private room instead of doubling up, and she attended no workshops, because it was Montreal and she wanted to go shopping.

In my current job, our school joined the Confucius Institute 7 or 8 years ago, and the Superintendent, the principal, the athletics director, and the activities director went to China.  It was a junket.  There wasn't one thing about Chinese culture that we incorporated into our curriculum beyond having a Chinese language class for a couple of years.  We're no longer a member of the Confucius Institute, for which I am thankful, because I think its primary purpose is propaganda.

Thanks for your final comments.  Despite the bungling and incompetence I have seen, I've enjoyed both of those careers.

OK ranked 45th by US News & World Report.  

“adjusted average salary” is already adjusted for cost of living, I believe. I say this because OK’s starting teacher salary is $32K, while California’s is $47K. 


Professional development for teachers is great, even though some may waste their time. Most will benefit. 

Cheaping out on education is a short term gain, but a long term loss.  Better educated people make more money, are less dependent on social programs, are far less likely to become incarcerated, They pay more taxes, etc etc etc. 

Just seems silly to cut education funding 5 years in a row during a booming economy. But OK did it....

Theoretically, big corporations should be more efficient because they can enjoy economies of scale.  But theory is not always matched by reality.

This time, Substitute corporation with “government”.  Hah

OK ranked 45th by US News & World Report. 

“adjusted average salary” is already adjusted for cost of living, I believe. I say this because OK’s starting teacher salary is $32K, while California’s is $47K.


Professional development for teachers is great, even though some may waste their time. Most will benefit.

Cheaping out on education is a short term gain, but a long term loss.  Better educated people make more money, are less dependent on social programs, are far less likely to become incarcerated, They pay more taxes, etc etc etc.

Just seems silly to cut education funding 5 years in a row during a booming economy. But OK did it....

As I said, if all other things are equal, more education funding should be a good thing, resulting in better outcomes.  But all other things are not always equal.  Do I wish Oklahoma spent more on public education?  Yes, I do.  But I also wish we spend more on roads and highways, as well as other things.  We have an economy that is diversifying but still largely built on oil production and refining and natural gas production, and prices have fallen for those products in recent years.  (Our economy hasn't been "booming" since the falling oil prices of the 1980s.)  So there's only so much state revenue that can be squeezed out of the taxpayers, and education takes its turn in line for funding.

And I believe that activities that the taxpayers fund should be held accountable.  The education establishment here has not been very willing to be held accountable.  The individual districts want more money from the state, but then they complain about the strings that are attached to the money.

Can you cite the source for the cuts five years in a row?

P.S. OAM's posts about American Indian lands remind me of something else.  Oklahoma has a lot of tribally owned lands.  That land does not produce revenue for the state and local governments to the degree that it would if it were privately owned.