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Comment by adventured | Hacker News Reader

The missile is almost a good point, the OECD average is not.

Oklahoma's median income is well above the OECD average. It's nearly 40% higher than Italy. Teacher salaries in Oklahoma are accordingly higher. They're going to have to spend quite a bit more than Italy and Spain.

Regarding missiles. If we spent... $200 billion less on defense, which we easily could afford to do, the Federal Government could kick that money down to the states for other purposes (infrastructure, education, healthcare). And or the Federal Govt could lower taxes and the states could raise their taxes.

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The school spending numbers are PPP adjusted. So we're asking Oklahoma teachers to have the same standard of living as Italy teachers. (Actually, Oklahoma teachers do better, because the PPP adjustment is to the US average, and Oklahoma cost of living is a lot lower than the US average.)

You've gone from talking about per pupil spending to teacher salaries. There's a gap there. I don't know this to be true but I suspect that administrative costs, need to build newer schools with fancy athletic facilities skews numbers a bit so that direct comparisons between Italy and Oklahoma are not apt. There is also the fact that Italy has been under austerity measures for some time.

Lastly, I don't think the Italy numbers take into account healt care costs of teachers. America's stupid health care system and its relegation to employers to include health care into salaries is going to really skew numbers.

> So we're asking Oklahoma teachers to have the same standard of living as Italy teachers.

There's the problem. Why would an Oklahoma teacher accept the same standard of living as an Italian teacher when there are plenty of other Oklahoma jobs available?

Adjusting for PPP parity the gross median household income in Italy is about 46% of US median income [1]. Oklahoma median household income is about 85% of US median income [2].

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Median_income

[2] http://newsok.com/article/3711357

The minimum Oklahoma teachers starting salary is $31,600: http://sde.ok.gov/sde/sites/ok.gov.sde/files/documents/files.... Adjusted for Oklahoma cost of living, that's about $37,000, or comparable to the median starting salary nationwide for liberal arts majors generally: http://www.bestplaces.net/cost_of_living/state/oklahoma.

OK, but that doesn't seem to refute the comment made earlier: "Teacher salaries in Oklahoma are accordingly higher. They're going to have to spend quite a bit more than Italy and Spain."

Even when you account for the cheaper cost of living in Italy, you need to pay people more money in Oklahoma. This is as true in education as in any other industry.

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