Oklahoma Bottom 10 for business.

[Rover]

https://kfor.com/news/local/study-ok...-for-business/

Lack of priority for education and basic health highlighted. Our leaders need to do more than fighting culture wars and focus on what is important.

[chssooner]

Thankfully, education spending will be way up.

Medicaid did get either expanded or is well-maintained. So that should get a boost next year.

[HangryHippo]

Top 10 (worst) state.

[Rover]

Thankfully, education spending will be way up.

Medicaid did get either expanded or is well-maintained. So that should get a boost next year.

The additional spending approved just basically gets us close to the bottom instead of way at the bottom. But it is also about HOW we educate and the priority we place on it. The politics keeps their eyes on culture wars and don't seemed interested in preparing our kids for competing in the real world.

Medicaid expansion probably helps a little, but that is treating the symptom, not the problem.

[soonerguru]

This state does not want educated citizens. The oil and gas overloads act threatened by other industry. This boost in education spending is mostly for common education, not higher education, and as Rover points out, only kinda gets us up to par after falling behind.

The lack of college educated citizens is a real drag on getting knowledge jobs here. Stitt thought an empty field near Tulsa would get us Tesla. "Hey, check out this field. It could be yours!"

The State Chamber is at least part of the problem, or was in the past. Obstinately stubborn about setting a lower priority for education in favor of tax incentives that aren't getting any takers.

[Rover]

This state does not want educated citizens. The oil and gas overloads act threatened by other industry. This boost in education spending is mostly for common education, not higher education, and as Rover points out, only kinda gets us up to par after falling behind.

The lack of college educated citizens is a real drag on getting knowledge jobs here. Stitt thought an empty field near Tulsa would get us Tesla. "Hey, check out this field. It could be yours!"

The State Chamber is at least part of the problem, or was in the past. Obstinately stubborn about setting a lower priority for education in favor of tax incentives that aren't getting any takers.

The chamber has always championed better education and a trained workforce. Without it, you are left to bribe companies with handouts to locate here.

[Bunty]

Top 10 (worst) state.

As one of my favorite sayings goes, "Life is how you make it". For some reason, it seems too many Oklahomans in making it strive for a mediocre or less lifestyle. It results in bringing down the quality-of-life rankings at the expense of ambitious people who don't want to live like that. Maybe it helps explain the lack of support for education. Healthwise, not all of us strive to overeat unhealthily and make our bellies stick out big and huge.

Kansas is rated a whopping no. 5 for education, compared to no. 48 Oklahoma. It results in Kansas having a higher per capita income than Oklahoma. Oklahoma leaders need to consult with Kansas with what it is doing right to support education. As a result, Kansas ranks no. 23 for best state for business. It likely explains why Kansas got the new Panasonic battery plant. But not everything is going well with Kansas, since it has been growing slower in population than Oklahoma.

I could advance the theory that Oklahomans are quite happy with striving for less in life. So that is why they do it. But it wouldn't work. Because according to WalletHub, Oklahoma is ranked 44th for happiness as of 2022.

[BG918]

Oklahoma and Kansas, despite being neighboring states, are very different culturally. Kansas is more similar to Iowa and Minnesota where education is valued as part of their Methodist/Lutheran heritage.

Tennessee is more similar culturally and politically, and does a much better job in these types of rankings.

[progressiveboy]

This state does not want educated citizens. The oil and gas overloads act threatened by other industry. This boost in education spending is mostly for common education, not higher education, and as Rover points out, only kinda gets us up to par after falling behind.

The lack of college educated citizens is a real drag on getting knowledge jobs here. Stitt thought an empty field near Tulsa would get us Tesla. "Hey, check out this field. It could be yours!"

The State Chamber is at least part of the problem, or was in the past. Obstinately stubborn about setting a lower priority for education in favor of tax incentives that aren't getting any takers.

I am curious on your take as to why the State does not want educated citizens? Do you think it is the State government that is holding us back? Is it the "culture" of the State? It does seem the O & G industry reigns supreme in the State. Personally, the boom and bust mentality is exhausting. I recently moved back to OKC, so I now have a vested interest in seeing our State move forward.

[Bellaboo]

On these ratings where health insurance or quality of health is concerned, do they count the Native American health care systems per the number of NA people as covered ?

I have an Arapaho friend who never had health insurance due to using their Indian hospital in Clinton. He once told me that the cost for his kids being born was a tank of gas in the car.

I wonder if our bad ratings in Oklahoma health care is skewed by the Indian Nations having their own health systems ? Are the individuals being counted in the surveys ?

[TheTravellers]

I am curious on your take as to why the State does not want educated citizens? Do you think it is the State government that is holding us back? Is it the "culture" of the State? It does seem the O & G industry reigns supreme in the State. Personally, the boom and bust mentality is exhausting. I recently moved back to OKC, so I now have a vested interest in seeing our State move forward.

It's about money and power on the part of the Republican party. I won't get more into it because it's inherently political, but just do some searching on Republicans and education and you'll find plenty of reading material...

[Jersey Boss]

On these ratings where health insurance or quality of health is concerned, do they count the Native American health care systems per the number of NA people as covered ?

I have an Arapaho friend who never had health insurance due to using their Indian hospital in Clinton. He once told me that the cost for his kids being born was a tank of gas in the car.

I wonder if our bad ratings in Oklahoma health care is skewed by the Indian Nations having their own health systems ? Are the individuals being counted in the surveys ?

Oklahoma is not the only state that has the NA population covered by PHS coverage. Also uniformed DoD personell are covered by a public health system that does not require insurance coverage for services. Many states have more uniform wearing DoD folks than Oklahoma.
My guess is the numbers only count those with no insurance and no healthcare.

[dhpersonal]

I am curious on your take as to why the State does not want educated citizens? Do you think it is the State government that is holding us back?

While I am open to the argument being true that there is a concerted malicious effort to keep Oklahomans undereducated to allow for corruption within business and politics, I think the likelihood is that Oklahoma is unimpressive because its citizens follow a repeating pattern of electing politicians who see either little value in education or that education is a perceived as a threat to culture that causes educational output in Oklahoma to underperform.

[Bunty]

If O & G industry reigns supreme in Oklahoma, it sure didn't stop a tax raise on them several years ago or stop the bribery to try to entice electric car companies, such as Tesla to come in or the Panasonic electric car battery plant. Also, lots of wind power in some parts of the state. After all that, ironic and hypocritical how the state is boycotting major banks acting against the O & G industry.

[Bunty]

While I am open to the argument being true that there is a concerted malicious effort to keep Oklahomans undereducated to allow for corruption within business and politics, I think the likelihood is that Oklahoma is unimpressive because its citizens follow a repeating pattern of electing politicians who see either little value in education or that education is a perceived as a threat to culture that causes educational output in Oklahoma to underperform.

Oklahomans in large part are guilty. They proved they don't want to pay higher taxes to support education at the state level when they rejected a proposal in a vote to hike the sales tax by a penny. Apparently, legislators took it as a cue that they don't need to worry much about supporting education. At least at the local level support often comes up for approval for bond issues to build new schools to replace old ones in districts that can afford it.

It too bad how support for higher education in Oklahoma is $200 million less than it was 10 years ago. As a result, tuition is way up and universities have to resort to donations from their wealthy alumni to largely help replace old, outdated buildings with new ones. For instance, the new $100 million agriculture hall is well along in construction at OSU. Surely the situation is much the same at OU: https://www.oklahoman.com/story/news...e/60368255007/

Construction update: https://agdivision.okstate.edu/annou...-the-roof.html

[PhiAlpha]

This state does not want educated citizens. The oil and gas overloads act threatened by other industry. This boost in education spending is mostly for common education, not higher education, and as Rover points out, only kinda gets us up to par after falling behind.

The lack of college educated citizens is a real drag on getting knowledge jobs here. Stitt thought an empty field near Tulsa would get us Tesla. "Hey, check out this field. It could be yours!"

The State Chamber is at least part of the problem, or was in the past. Obstinately stubborn about setting a lower priority for education in favor of tax incentives that aren't getting any takers.

What “oil and gas overlords” are attempting to stop other industries from growing here or have attempted to prevent the state from enticing/incentivizing other industries to move here? Please site specific examples, especially over the last 10-15 years.

The oil and gas industry is always brought up as some evil boogie man here when it comes to conversations about diversifying the economy and no one ever elaborates on that outside of attempt to find a scapegoat and assign blame. I fail to see how it’s actively tried to prevent the growth of any industry here over the two decades that I’ve really been paying attention to it…especially when aerospace, defense, renewable energy, tech, tourism, and others have all made strides during that time, but I would be happy to consider any evidence disputing that.

[jn1780]

What “oil and gas overlords” are attempting to stop other industries from growing here or have attempted to prevent the state from enticing/incentivizing other industries to move here? Please site specific examples, especially over the last 10-15 years.

The oil and gas industry is always brought up as some evil boogie man here when it comes to conversations about diversifying the economy and no one ever elaborates on that outside of attempt to find a scapegoat and assign blame. I fail to see how it’s actively tried to prevent the growth of any industry here over the two decades that I’ve really been paying attention to it…especially when aerospace, defense, renewable energy, tech, tourism, and others have all made strides during that time, but I would be happy to consider any evidence disputing that.

Plus a good number of people in the Oil and Gas industry are highly educated. Even the field worker probably has a lot more skills than your average retail employee. If the O & G industry went completely belly up tomorrow, those workers could find a skills based blue collar job that no one wants to do because it is not 'sexy' and I say this as a college educated data analyst.

We need a lot more funding in K-12 and perhaps the first two years of college to teach young adults how to learn and use critical thinking skills. The higher education landscape is going to look significantly different 20 years from now as we figure out how to integrate all this vast wealth of information to the traditionally college system.