Many schools in Oklahoma have switched to a four-day school week this year, reports CBS News.
In fact, as many as one on three of Oklahoma’s school districts are now closed on Mondays. Most of those school districts are in rural and poor parts of the state. The closure come in the wake of a 70 percent drop in oil and gas prices, a situation stretching back to 2014.
Unlike other states that rely heavily on oil profits, Oklahoma failed to tax oil and gas companies heavily during the fracking boom. North Dakota, for example, taxed oil companies at a rate of nearly 12 percent. Oklahoma, on the other hand, chose to give oil companies a hefty tax break, assuming the savings would trickle down to everyday Oklahomans. Instead, now that boom has turned to bust, the state’s rural schoolchildren are paying for the tax cuts with their education.