EDITORIAL: State's education rankings stay low

Mar. 3—Oklahoma just can't seem to catch a break when it comes to education rankings and national studies.

A study released Tuesday by a personal finance website ranks Oklahoma as one of the least educated states in the country. For the study, WalletHub analysts looked at 18 metrics across all 50 states, including education attainment, school quality and achievement gaps between genders and races. Overall, Oklahoma is the seventh least educated state thus far in 2021.

The study says Oklahoma ranks 41st for associate degree holders, 43rd for bachelor's degree holders and 44th for graduate or professional degree holders. Only 25% of people over age 25 have a bachelor's degree.

Of course, much of the outcomes data goes back to public education spending. Educationdata.org ranks Oklahoma 48th out of 50 in public education spending. While Oklahomans and the Legislature were supportive of teacher pay raises and increased education funding just a few years ago, those bumps don't seem to have made a dent in educational rankings or outcomes.

The importance of Oklahoma raising its performance in regards to education cannot be understated. The quality of education a child receives affects so many other aspects of life in our state, from quality of life, to the ability to attract business and industry offering good-paying jobs.

Of course, having to deal with a global pandemic that has closed schools and separated children from their physical school setting has not helped at all; particularly in a state like Oklahoma which has been dealing with funding and performance challenges for a long, long time.

So, how do we change?

First, it isn't just a legislative issue or a school district issue or a parental issue. It's all of those and more.

Per-pupil funding has to be addressed; however, throwing money at the problem won't solve anything without a comprehensive effort to address a number of issues, including taxation options, addressing overall child poverty, parental education improvement and achievement, improving student reading and math comprehension and increasing graduation rates. Additionally, the pandemic has put a spotlight on just how fragile many families are, and the disparity gaps among families are huge.

All of these issues are full of complexities, but all the stakeholders involved need to initiate the comprehensive effort that it will take to make education the priority it deserves to be. The longer we wait, the further behind we will fall and the more difficult it will be to get on the path to improvement.

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The News & Eagle Editorial Board meets weekly to form the newspaper's stances on mostly local and state and occasionally national issues.

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