[totalZero]

Another Oklahoman here. I graduated from a public school ten years ago and my graduating class had students who attended MIT, Princeton, and so forth. From what I understand, my community has continued to send students from public schools to first-rate colleges. So I don't know if I would say that "the state educational apparatus has completely failed." Perhaps that could be true from some of the non-population-center schools. It sounds a bit heavy handed for OKC, Tulsa, Norman, and Edmond, at least.

[sapienthomo]

I agree that the well-funded suburban districts like Edmond will be the last to show signs of distress, but even Edmond has "emergency certified" teachers on staff. This term "emergency certified" means "uncertified". My sister lives in Edmond and her kids are going to private schools.

If you graduated ten years ago you probably got, according to aggregate measures, an education on par with the one being offered 25 years ago. The real crisis has accelerated in the last five years. Per-pupil spending is declining not only in real dollars, but even in nominal dollars, and stood fourth-lowest among the states in 2014. It is even lower today.