Last week Wyoming approved a plan to cut $35 million from the state’s K-12 budget. Wyoming is just the latest of several oil and coal states across the country, including Texas and Oklahoma, that have slashed funding for education,reports The Atlantic.
Last year, Oklahoma cut well over $100 million in public school funding, forcing some districts to move to four-day school weeks.
So, why is this happening? In most oil and coal states, funding for education is intimately tied to profits from fossil fuel industries. As the oil industry struggles, so does the local schoolhouse. And these states tend to be governed by fiscal conservatives who blanch at the idea of raising taxes to supplement waning oil and coal profits.
As a result, to quote Wyoming’s state school superintendent, “We’re going to need to think about funding education as a Chevy rather than a Cadillac in the future.”