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Try as I might to find a better answer, there simply was nothing that came close to this article, from www.howstuffworks.com/science/fearHow Fear Worksby Julia LaytonBrowse the article How Fear WorksHuman Senses Image GallerySee more human senses pictures.Introduction to How Fear WorksIt's dark out, and you're home alone. The house is quiet other than the sound of the show you're watching on TV. You see it and hear it at the same time: The front door is suddenly thrown against the door frame.Your breathing speeds up. Your heart races. Your muscles tighten.A split second later, you know it's the wind. No one is trying to get into your home.For a split second, you were so afraid that you reacted as if your life were in danger, your body initiating the fight-or-flight response that is critical to any animal's survival. But really, there was no danger at all. What happened to cause such an intense reaction? What exactly is fear? In this article, we'll examine the psychological and physical properties of fear, find out what causes a fear response and look at some ways you can defeat it.What is Fear?Fear is a chain reaction in the brain that starts with a stressful stimulus and ends with the release of chemicals that cause a racing heart, fast breathing and energizedmuscles, among other things, also known as the fight-or-flight response. The stimulus could be a spider, a knife at your throat, an auditorium full of people waiting for you to speak or the sudden thud of your front door against the door frame.The brain is a profoundly complex organ. More than 100 billion nerve cells comprise an intricate network of communications that is the starting point of everything we sense, think and do. Some of these communications lead to conscious thought and action, while others produce autonomic responses. The fear response is almost entirely autonomic: We don't consciously trigger it or even know what's going on until it has run its course.Because cells in the brain are constantly transferring information and triggering responses, there are dozens of areas of the brain at least peripherally involved in fear. But research has discovered that certain parts of the brain play central roles in the process:Thalamus - decides where to send incoming sensory data (from eyes, ears, mouth, skin)Sensory cortex - interprets sensory dataHippocampus - stores and retrieves conscious memories; processes sets of stimuli to establish contextAmygdala - decodes emotions; determines possible threat; stores fear memoriesHypothalamus - activates "fight or flight" responseT­he process of creating fear begins with a scary stimulus and ends with the fight-or-flight response. But there are at least two paths between the start and the end of the process. In the next section, we'll take a closer look at how fear is created.Creating fear is a process that takes place in the brain and is completely unconscious. Learn about the process of creating fear and the paths of fear.Creating FearThe process of creating fear takes place in the brain and is entirely unconscious. There are two paths involved in the fear response: The low road is quick and messy, while the high road takes more time and delivers a more precise interpretation of events. Both processes are happening simultaneously.The idea behind the low road is "take no chances." If the front door to your home is suddenly knocking against the frame, it could be the wind. It could also be a burglar trying to get in. It's far less dangerous to assume it's a burglar and have it turn out to be the wind than to assume it's the wind and have it turn out to be a burglar. The low road shoots first and asks questions later. The process looks like this:The door knocking against the door frame is the stimulus. As soon as you hear the sound and see the motion, your brain sends this sensory data to the thalamus. At this point, the thalamus doesn't know if the signals it's receiving are signs of danger or not, but since they might be, it forwards the information to the amygdala. The amygdala receives the neural impulses and takes action to protect you: It tells the hypothalamus to initiate the fight-or-flight response that could save your life if what you're seeing and hearing turns out to be an intruder.The high road is much more thoughtful. While the low road is initiating the fear response just in case, the high road is considering all of the options. Is it a burglar, or is it the wind? The long process looks like this:When your eyes and ears sense the sound and motion of the door, they relay this information to the thalamus. The thalamus sends this information to the sensory cortex, where it is interpreted for meaning. The sensory cortex determines that there is more than one possible interpretation of the data and passes it along to the hippocampus to establish context. The hippocampus asks questions like, "Have I seen this particular stimulus before? If so, what did it mean that time? What other things are going on that might give me clues as to whether this is a burglar or a wind storm?" The hippocampus might pick up on other data being relayed through the high road, like the tapping of branches against a window, a muffled howling sound outside and the clatter of patio furniture flying about. Taking into account this other information, the hippocampus determines that the door action is most likely the result of wind. It sends a message to the amygdala that there is no danger, and the amygdala in turn tells the hypothalamus to shut off the fight-or-flight response.The sensory data regarding the door -- the stimulus -- is following both paths at the same time. But the high road takes longer than the low road. That's why you have a moment or two of terror before you calm down.Regardless of which path we're talking about, all roads lead to the hypothalamus. This portion of the brain controls the ancient survival reaction called the fight-or-flight response. In the next section, we'll take a closer look at the fight-or-flight response.Fight or FlightTo produce the fight-or-flight response, the hypothalamus activates two systems: the sympathetic nervous system and the adrenal-cortical system. The sympathetic nervous system uses nerve pathways to initiate reactions in the body, and the adrenal-cortical system uses the bloodstream. The combined effects of these two systems are the fight-or-flight response.When the hypothalamus tells the sympathetic nervous system to kick into gear, the overall effect is that the body speeds up, tenses up and becomes generally very alert. If there's a burglar at the door, you're going to have to take action -- and fast. The sympathetic nervous system sends out impulses to glands and smooth muscles and tells the adrenal medulla to release epinephrine (adrenaline) and norepinephrine (noradrenaline) into the bloodstream. These "stress hormones" cause several changes in the body, including an increase in heartrate and blood pressure.At the same time, the hypothalamus releases corticotropin-releasing factor (CRF) into the pituitary gland, activating the adrenal-cortical system. The pituitary gland (a major endocrine gland) secretes the hormone ACTH (adrenocorticotropic hormone). ACTH moves through the bloodstream and ultimately arrives at the adrenal cortex, where it activates the release of approximately 30 different hormones that get the body prepared to deal with a threat.The sudden flood of epinephrine, norepinephrine and dozens of other hormones causes changes in the body that include:heart rate and blood pressure increasepupils dilate to take in as much light as possibleveins in skin constrict to send more blood to major muscle groups (responsible for the "chill" sometimes associated with fear -- less blood in the skin to keep it warm)blood-glucose level increasesmuscles tense up, energized by adrenaline and glucose (responsible for goose bumps -- when tiny muscles attached to each hair on surface of skin tense up, the hairs are forced upright, pulling skin with them)smooth muscle relaxes in order to allow more oxygen into the lungsnonessential systems (like digestion and immune system) shut down to allow more energy for emergency functionstrouble focusing on small tasks (brain is directed to focus only on big picture in order to determine where threat is coming from)All of these physical responses are intended to help you survive a dangerous situation by preparing you to either run for your life or fight for your life (thus the term "fight or flight"). Fear -- and the fight-or-flight response in particular -- is an instinct that every animal possesses.FEAR AND EXCITEMENTIf you enjoy horror movies, you know that fear can be exciting. Many people enjoy being afraid -- the arousal that comes with the fight-or-flight response can be pleasurable and can even mimic sexual arousal. It's no wonder so many people go to see scary movies and ride roller coasters on dates.There is actual scientific evidence that supports the fear-attraction connection. Psychologist Arthur Aron conducted a study using the very common fear of heights. Aron had one group of men walk across a 450-foot-long, unstable-feeling bridge suspended over a 230-foot drop; he had another group of men walk across a perfectly stable-feeling bridge over the same height. At the end of each bridge, the men met Aron's very beautiful female assistant. She asked each subject a set of questions related to an imaginary study and then gave him her phone number in case he wanted more information. Of the 33 men who'd walked across the stable bridge, two called the assistant. Of the 33 who'd walked across the swaying bridge, nine called. Aron concluded that the state of fear encourages sexual attraction.Why Do We Fear?If we couldn't be afraid, we wouldn't survive for long. We'd be walking into oncoming traffic, stepping off of rooftops and carelessly handling poisonous snakes. We'd be hanging out with people who have tuberculosis. In humans and in all animals, the purpose of fear is to promote survival. In the course of human evolution, the people who feared the right things survived to pass on their genes. In passing on their genes, the trait of fear and the response to it were selected as beneficial to the race.During the 19th-century debate surrounding evolution, the "face of fear" -- that wide-eyed, gaping grimace that often accompanies sheer terror -- became a talking point. Why do people make that face when they're terrified? Some said God had given people a way to let others know they were afraid even if they didn't speak the same language. Charles Darwin said it was a result of the instinctive tightening of muscles triggered by an evolved response to fear. To prove his point, he went to the reptile house at the London Zoological Gardens. Trying to remain perfectly calm, he stood as close to the glass as possible while a puff adder lunged toward him on the other side. Every time it happened, he grimaced and jumped back. In his diary, he writes, "My will and reason were powerless against the imagination of a danger which had never been experienced." He concluded that the entire fear response is an ancient instinct that has been untouched by the nuances of modern civilization [ref].Most of us are no longer fighting (or running) for our lives in the wild, but fear is far from an outdated instinct. It serves the same purpose today as it did when we might run into a lion while carrying water back from the river. Only now, we're carrying a wallet and walking down city streets. The decision not to take that shortcut through the deserted alley at midnight is based on a rational fear that promotes survival. Only the stimuli have changed -- we're in as much danger today as we were hundreds of years ago, and our fear serves to protect us now as it did then.Darwin had never experienced the bite of a poisonous snake, and yet he reacted to it as if his life were in danger. Most of us have never been anywhere near The Plague, but our heart will skip a beat at the sight of a rat. For humans, there are other factors involved in fear beyond instinct. Human beings have the sometimes unfortunate gift of anticipation, and we anticipate terrible things that might happen -- things we have heard about, read about or seen on TV. Most of us have never experienced a plane crash, but that doesn't stop us from sitting on a plane with white-knuckle grips on the armrests. Anticipating a fearful stimulus can provoke the same response as actually experiencing it. This also is an evolutionary benefit: Those humans who felt rain, anticipated lightning and remained in the cave until the storm passed had a better chance of not getting struck with thousands of volts of electricity. We'll look at ways in which we are conditioned to fear in the next section.Fear conditioning is why some people are afraid of rats and dogs.China Photos/Getty ImagesFear ConditioningThe circuitry of the fear response may have been honed by evolution, but there is also another side to fear: conditioning. Conditioning is why some people fear dogs as if they were fire-breathing monsters, while others consider them part of the family.In the 1920s, in what is probably not one of psychology's finest moments, American psychologist John Watson taught an infant to fear white rats. "Little Albert" had no fear of the laboratory's test animals. He showed joy at the sight of the white rats especially and always reached out for them. Watson and his assistant taught Albert to be terrified of white rats. They used Pavlovian (classical) conditioning, pairing a neutral stimulus (the rat) with a negative effect. Whenever Albert reached for one of the rats, they created a terrifyingly loud noise right behind the 11-month-old child. Not only did Albert very quickly learn to fear the white rats, crying and moving away whenever he saw one, but he also started to cry in the presence of other furry animals and a Santa Claus mask with a white beard.Like Little Albert's fear of white rats, a person's fear of dogs is most likely a conditioned response. Perhaps he was bitten by a dog when he was three years old. Twenty years later, the person's brain (the amygdala in particular) still associates the sight of a dog with the pain of a bite. We'll take a closer look at some common fears in the next section.PHOBIASA phobia is an intense and persistent fear that is not based on any rational sense of imminent danger and prevents participation in activities that might arouse it. There are three main types of phobia:Agoraphobia: fear of places where escape might not be easy or where help might not be readily available if something bad happensSocial phobia: fear of encounters with other peopleSpecific phobias: fear of a particular thing or situation, such as snakes, public speaking, heights or the sight of bloodCommon FearsA Gallup Poll conducted in 2005 reveals the most common fears of teenagers in the United States. The top 10 list goes like this:Terrorist attacksSpidersDeathFailureWarHeightsCrime/ViolenceBeing aloneThe futureNuclear warMost of these basic fears are carried into adulthood. Other common fears include public speaking, going to the dentist, pain, cancer and snakes. Many of us fear the same things -- so are there such things as universal fears?Some studies show that humans might be genetically predisposed to fear certain harmful things like spiders, snakes and rats -- animals that once posed a real danger to human beings because they were poisonous or carried disease. Fear of snakes, for example, has been found in people who have never even been in the presence of a snake. This makes sense if you think about fear as an evolutionary instinct embedded in the human consciousness. This idea of the universal fear is supported by such reputable sources as popular television: NBC's "Fear Factor" offers a weekly $50,000 prize to the contestant who can perform tasks like sticking his head into a box filled with hundreds of spiders and eating a blended rat smoothie.The idea is also supported by scientific research. Psychologist Martin Seligman performed a classical conditioning experiment in which he showed subjects pictures of certain objects and then administered an electric shock. The idea was to create a phobia (an intense, irrational fear) of the object in the picture. When the picture was of something like a spider or a snake, it took only two to four shocks to establish a phobia. When the picture was of something like a flower or a tree, it took a lot more shocks to get a real fear going.But while there may be "universal fears," there are also fears that are particular to individuals, communities, regions or even cultures. Someone who grew up in the city probably has a more intense fear of being mugged than someone who has spent most of his life on a farm. People living in South Florida may have a stronger fear ofhurricanes than people living in Kansas, and people in Kansas probably have a deeper fear of tornadoes than do people in Vermont. What we fear says a lot about our life experience. There is a phobia called taijin kyofusho that is considered in the psychiatric community (according to the DSM IV) to be a "culturally distinctive phobia in Japan." Taijin kyofusho is "the fear of offending other persons by an excess of modesty or showing respect." The intricate social rituals that are part of life in Japan have led to a Japanese-specific fear.Experiencing fear every now and then is a normal part of life. But living with chronic fear can be both physically and emotionally debilitating. Living with an impaired immune response and high blood pressure causes illness, and refusing to participate in daily activities because you might be confronted with heights or social interaction doesn't make for a very fulfilling life. So what can we do about our fears?Overcoming FearStudies have shown that rats with damaged amygdalas will walk right up to cats [ref]. Most of us aren't too keen on the prospect of going at our amygdala with an ice pick, though. So scientists are exploring other ways to overcome fear.Fear extinctionWhereas Little Albert learned to fear white rats in the 1920s, rats learned to fear a simple noise more than 80 years later. Scientist Mark Barad of UCLA performed an experiment in which he and his team combined a noise with an electric shock. They would play the tone and then immediately apply a shock to the metal floor of the rats' cage. It was classical conditioning, and it didn't take long for the rats to brace themselves for the shock as soon as they heard the sound. At that point, their amygdalas paired the sound with the shock, and the sound created a fear response. The researchers then began the process of fear-extinction training, in which they made the sound but did not apply the shock. After hearing the sound very often without the shock, the rats stopped fearing the noise.Fear extinction involves creating a conditioned response that counters the conditioned fear response. While studies situate the amygdala as the location of fear memories formed by conditioning, scientists theorize that fear-extinction memories form in the amygdala but then are transferred to the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) for storage. The new memory created by fear extinction resides in the mPFC and attempts to override the fear memory triggered in the amygdala.Most behavioral therapies for fear extinction focus on exposure. For instance, therapy for a person with a fear of snakes might involve visiting a snake farm repeatedly and taking small steps toward touching one. First, the person might get within 10 feet of the snake and see that nothing terrible happens. Then he might get within 5 feet of the snake. When nothing terrible happens within 5 feet of the snake, he might get close enough to touch it. This process continues until new, fear-extinction memories are formed -- memories that say "snakes are not going to harm you" and serve to contradict the fear of snakes that lives in the amygdala. The fear still exists, but the idea is to override it with the new memory.FEAR DISORDERSAccording to the National Institute of Mental Health, 19 million people in the United States alone suffer from mental illnesses that involve irrational fear responses. These disorders include generalized anxiety disorder, panic disorder and post-traumatic stress disorder.Fear-extinction MedicationScientists have learned that inhibiting a protein called NMDA (N-methyl D-asparate) in the amygdala inhibits fear extinction. They reasoned, then, that stimulating that protein might stimulate fear extinction. Studies show that the antibiotic D-cycloserine (well-known for treating tuberculosis) might be helpful in fear extinction by assisting the action of NMDA [ref]. This type of approach would be beneficial when paired with behavioral therapies that attempt to create fear-extinction memories.The idea is not to replace exposure therapy, but to speed it up. This hypothesis was played out in a study on rats who'd been conditioned to associate a bright light with a foot shock. When the light was presented repeatedly without the shock, the rats who'd been injected with D-cycloserine unlearned their fear much faster than those who were going the natural route. The antibiotic also achieved results in a study of people with a fear of heights. Following virtual-reality sessions designed to expose individuals to heights in a safe environment, the people who'd been given the antibiotic exposed themselves to heights in the real world twice as often as the subjects who did not receive the drug.This type of research is very promising for people who are under the control of debilitating phobias and anxiety disorders. But what about those of us who just get butterflies before delivering a presentation or have trouble getting close enough to the thirtieth-floor balcony to check out the view?Eight Practical TipsThe Prevention magazine article "What are you afraid of?: 8 secrets that make fear disappear" offers these tips for dealing with everyday fears:It doesn't matter why you're scared. Knowing why you've developed a particular fear doesn't do much to help you overcome it, and it delays your progress in areas that will actually help you become less afraid. Stop trying to figure it out.Learn about the thing you fear. Uncertainty is a huge component of fear: Developing an understanding of what you're afraid of goes a long way toward erasing that fear.Train. If there's something you're afraid to try because it seems scary or difficult, start small and work in steps. Slowly building familiarity with a scary subject makes it more manageable.Find someone who is not afraid. If there's something you're afraid of, find someone who is not afraid of that thing and spend time with that person. Take her along when you try to conquer your fear -- it'll be much easier.Talk about it. Sharing your fear out loud can make it seem much less daunting.Play mind games with yourself. If you're afraid of speaking in front of groups, it's probably because you think the audience is going to judge you. Try imagining the audience members naked -- being the only clothed person in the room puts you in the position of judgment.Stop looking at the grand scheme. Think only about each successive step. If you're afraid of heights, don't think about being on the fortieth floor of a building. Just think about getting your foot in the lobby.Seek help. Fear is not a simple emotion. If you're having trouble overcoming your fear on your own, find a professional to help you. There are lots of treatments for fear out there, and no good reason not to try them under the guidance of someone with training and experience.For more information on fear and related topics, check out the links on the next page.Lots More InformationRelated HowStuffWorks ArticlesHow the Brain Works­Emotions QuizHuman Senses PicturesHow Panic Attacks WorkHow Hypnosis Works28 Phobias and Their DefinitionsCan you really scare someone to death?More Great LinksAllPsych Online - Phobias: Causes and TreatmentsPsychology Today: Anxiety After 9/11The Phobia ListScience News Online - Fear Not: Scientists are learning how people can unlearn fearStresscure: How To Conquer Public Speaking FearSources"Anxiety After 9/11." Psychology Today.http://health.yahoo.com/centers/anxiety/2031The Brain From Top to Bottom.http://www.thebrain.mcgill.ca/flash/i/i_04/i_04_cr/i_04_cr_peu/i_04_cr_peu.htmChillot, Rick. "What are you afraid of?: 8 secrets that make fear disappear." Prevention, May 1998 v50 n5 p98(7).Cowley, Geoffrey, et. al. "Our Bodies, Our Fears." Newsweek International, March 3, 2003 p40.Dadis, Glyn. Review of "Fear: A Cultural History." TheAge.com.http://www.theage.com.au/news/Reviews/Fear-a-cultural-history/2005/05/06/1115092634475.html?oneclick=trueDuPont, Caroline M., Dupont, Robert L., DuPont Spencer, Elizabeth. "The Anxious Brain." The Anxiety Cure: An Eight-Step Program for Getting Well. Wiley, 1998. ISBN 0471247014."Fear and the Amygdala." Society for Neuroscience: Brain Briefings.http://www.sfn.org/content/Publications/Brainbriefings/fear.html"Fear Factor." NBC.com.http://www.nbc.com/Fear_Factor/index.shtml"Fight-or-Flight Response." McGraw-Hill Higher Education.http://highered.mcgraw-hill.com/sites/0072562463/student_view0/abnormal_psychology_image_gallery.htmlGersley, Erin. "Phobias: Causes and Treatments." AllPsych Online.http://allpsych.com/journal/phobias.htmlLivermore, Beth. "The lessons of love." Psychology Today.http://cms.psychologytoday.com/articles/pto-19930301-000028.html"The Nervous System: Organization." The Biology Web.20102/Bio%20102%20lectures/Nervous%20System/nervous1.htmRobinson, Victoria. "What gives you goosebumps?" Science World, October 18, 1996 v53 n4 p18(2)Travis, John. "Fear Not: Scientists are learning how people can unlearn fear." Science News Online.http://www.sciencenews.org/articles/20040117/bob9.asp"What Frightens America's Youth?" The Gallup Organization. March 29, 2005.http://www.gallup.com/poll/content/default.aspx?ci=15439

Speaking as a Republican former teacher in Oklahoma, I think I got this one.First of all, I have no idea why Republicans are being singled out in this conversation specifically, as Republican policy has little to nothing to do with the problem. Every problem in a red state can’t be nailed to Republicans as bipartisanship on the state level is much more common. Education is one such example, as the education sector is heavily blue, even for a red state. And many issues aren’t even partisan at all. That doesn’t even address that the real problems for Oklahoma have little to nothing to do with politics, but the economy. Speaking as a former Oklahoma school teacher, here’s the real problem.Shale oil.Confused? That’s because there are no such things as simple solutions in a complex and dynamic world. The reason that shale oil is to blame for most of Oklahoma’s current misfortunes is that evolution in the oil industry has gutted Oklahoma’s finances. How? It’s actually because of the great success in technological innovation surrounding shale. A very brief summary is that two innovations, hydraulic fracturing and horizontal drilling allowed oil to be pumped out of reserves once thought too expensive for profit until only about the last decade.Now, you might be aware of images like this one to demonstrate the process, but they are misleading. How? Because there is never just one pipe. In reality, there would be maybe dozens of pipes jutting out in all directions. This was beautiful for the Oklahoma economy because someone had to build all that, truck all that, and it was really labor intensive. That meant we had a lot of taxes coming from the oil industry beyond just the proceeds of the sale of oil. But then shale did what competitive industries do… they got smarter. They started drilling down to one central location, which served as a hub for all the pipes that would be built. Add in that you can now drill far longer from a central access point and few things happen.By becoming so much more efficient in processes, as in massively, massively efficient, it resulting in two things: the United States is currently experiencing an energy boom, but… the market for all industries supporting the actual drilling up the oil collapsed. It’s weird, because we are technically in the middle of this boom in oil’s production, but the actual thing that was taxed, income on all the industries that supported the oil, is withering as we’re seeing those jobs disappear due to simple better business practices.That is what was important to Oklahoma. Our people are the ones who did the work and we did the manufacturing. That was great for us. When there were fewer jobs being created by the shale industry that sent a ripple throughout the Oklahoma economy. Not just a ripple, but a tidal wave.I say this a former Oklahoma teacher. Yes former, I left specifically because I had better opportunity as a writer than as a teacher in Oklahoma. My wife is still a teacher, so the crisis hits us hard. But speaking rationally, I can’t blame my principal or the school board for problems that are happening a mile under our feet and all over the state. I want to be angry, but there is just no one to blame on this one. Well, maybe someone.Damn you scientists and engineers!Seriously, though, the situation is such that Oklahoma isn’t facing a teacher crisis, but a tax crisis. Simply, you can’t complain about Oklahoma teachers not having enough money when Oklahoma doesn’t have enough money. Could some reshuffling be done, basically cannibalize some programs to support the monster that is public education? Sure, but which parks do you want to close? What infrastructure do you want to cancel? What welfare do you want to cut? Who do you want to lay-off? Sure, we could do that. I’m sure that in some places we should, but this is not just a teacher crisis. Oklahoma just doesn’t have money. The article listed for this question also mentioned our Highway Patrol and Prisons in dangerously underfunded situations. Just sayin’.I want to be fair, teaching in Oklahoma is horrible and it does have challenges other industries don’t have. I’ll go into details of that at the bottom, but just know that the hours are murder and the conditions are impossible, especially for new teachers. I’m saying that as someone who was deployed twice to Iraq with the US Marines. The resources aren’t there, and the struggle is mostly invisible to parents and the community. But the reason that it is called a teacher crisis and not a statewide budget crisis is because teachers are the largest and most organized publicly paid collective in the state, as teachers are in most states. You’d be surprised how powerful left leaning teachers unions can be even in red states like Oklahoma. Plus teachers always get to pull on the heart strings by saying that every funding issue involved with schools is “for the kids”. At some point you have to say, “No it isn’t. If it was, you’d make smarter decisions with where the money goes. Instead, the only things anyone talks about are raises for teachers that can’t be fired and who constantly turn over kids who fail in the subjects they teach while new teachers flee to neighboring states due to poor working conditions.” Sorry, but teachers can be manipulative and dishonest, just like any other industry.Actually, no. That isn’t fair. There is a lot of manipulation going on, but readers need to understand what teachers in Oklahoma go through.You’ve heard about how we don’t have books. It’s sort of a cliche at this point, but you need to know what it is like to literally not have classroom books. It forces teacher to create the entire curriculum from scratch. You’re probably thinking that that is great, it’s what they’re paid to do — teach kids. But you’d be incorrect. At least you’d be incorrect in that it robs them of how they teach. Imagine taking a crane away from a construction crew and telling them that now that they have to install the steel beams by hand, now they are really building that building. What teachers really do is that they work as part of their team, be it all the teachers in their grade, with principals, or with a department coordinator (usually a senior teacher in charge of all of one subject like Math for the whole district) and line out what the curriculum will be for the year. Then they purchase a set which aligns with the needs and strategy of the school. These sets include student and teacher books with work and assessments. I want you to understand that doesn’t just make their jobs easier; it makes them possible. Otherwise, you end up doing what my wife does…For four years, she spent hours, upon hours, upon hours searching the internet either on Pinterest or TeachersPayTeachers (like Etsy but teachers sharing assignments they created) for assignments and modules to allow her to teach some subject she has to teach that week. Note that this means she has to spend her own money for the curriculum, which is not holistic or integrated in any way, but this is what happens when the school doesn’t buy it for you. Then she has to print them off. The only other thing she could do is to literally write a book herself. I’m a professional writer now, and that’s really hard. To do that on top of being a full time teacher… with a family? You must be joking. Either way, she is still going to have no books to work from other than what she prints out herself. Oh, but wait. There was paper rationing this year, and when all teachers are doing what my wife is doing… that means they have nothing to teach their kids with! Frankly, that paper rationing started a minor revolt this year and the superintendent buckled. #Okteacherproblems.(Not an endorsement for Drew Edmondson)But what about one-to-one technology? (That’s teacher parlance for tablets for every kid.) As you can expect, that’s a massive initial investment, but then you have them. Well, still not problem solved. As of yet, there are no good replacements for the complete set of textbooks that follow a clear progression through the academic year in an app format. What we have are really bad multimedia programs that the kids can click through in about an hour with clever visuals and a few quizzes, but nothing with the scope and depth of actual classroom books. We also have a sea of inane games that very vaguely improve their basic math skills and a few very good communication tools to keep parents and teachers talking. Those seriously are great (Class Dojo FTW!), but in all honesty, a teacher can also use Class Dojo with just her phone. So really the tablets are massive expenditures that allow teachers to say, “Go to this YouTube video then take the quiz I made in Kahoots.” Simply, there is nothing yet which replaces the text books or enables teachers like the books, unless the teachers themselves basically just build a curriculum from scratch again. At least this time they won’t need paper.So teachers have the burden of not only teaching, but also creating all curriculum, which they may or may not have the resources to act upon, which is already impossible, but whatever. Now factor in another problem… the testing.Teachers teach to the test. It’s a fact. They don’t teach so that your kids understand the material. They teach so that they don’t get fired for having low test scores. Now how in the name of goodness could teachers be fired for test scores during a teaching crisis? Because schools lose even more funding if they get low test scores. Is this fair? No. It isn’t fair to judge a student’s entire year based on their performance on a single day. By the same token, it’s socioeconomically impossible to find two identical schools with the same balance of needs, same population, same distribution of wealth, same ethnic balancing, or the same anything. So assuming that you can stack the test scores of one school against the other and think it determines the value of their teachers?Fine, okay. We have to somehow ensure that some standards are met.But…The big problem with the test are that the standards they based upon are always changing. In Oklahoma, the tests are aligned to the OAS standards. Or rather, the revised OAS standards. Two years ago it was unironically called the PASS skills, and before that, we were doing Common Core. You see, the standards on which teachers are expected to teach are revised nearly every single year. Why? Because Oklahoma voters are pissed that kids are failing, but they don’t understand the problem. They think nothing is being done, so the most politically expedient thing to do is issue out new standards, because apparently, people assume the old standards aren’t working, but mostly just to look like they are earning their paycheck. The problem is that a change as big as this would require at least five years, maybe a minimum of three, for all the teachers to adapt to it.The standards are killer, because it effectively limits what you can teach, as almost nothing aligns to them, and forces teachers to throw out everything they used the year before and start from scratch, because if it doesn’t align with Oklahoma Education Standards, it’s out. And something so sad it’s funny… if you actually work in a school that can afford books… you have to throw them out too… because they absolutely won’t align to whatever new standards were cooked up in Oklahoma City by non-educators working for political interests (including you lefties).I want you to imagine yourself as a teacher. You go to work every day, but then you work hours every night to prepare for next week too. (Frick, I haven’t even mentioned the hours of her life lost with grading papers by hand!) Now, it would be nice if you could use that time you invested into next year, right? No. That’s not how it works. You start over every time there is a major set of reforms. In my wife’s five years as an elementary school teacher, they have reformed the standards three times. Remember, we’re asking a 22 year old new teacher currently building a textbook from scratch from activities she found on freaking Pinterest to throw it all away next year! All the nights she’s put into making her own curriculum… gone. You don’t have that at your job. You get to refine your processes year to year and develop best practices that make sailing the ship a breeze. Not for Oklahoma teachers. Here, everyone is a first year teacher, even if they have been teaching for decades.This creates a chaotic work environment. Hell, it creates a terrible life. Look, I know a lot of teachers who would be happy to work for the pay we get. Expenses in Oklahoma are low. It’s possible to have a higher quality of life here with less pay. But it isn’t worth it to have low pay and a chaotic life. Most new teachers wash out, which is criminal as most are fine teachers, but can’t handle the overwhelming nature of bureaucratic mess they have to deal with. So they either become refugees in Texas or Arkansas, or do like a friend of mine and sell coffee.And now you know why many teachers never marry, because who has time to date? Actually, that’s not funny either, as one teacher explains: I cannot be both a good mother and a good teacherWhat do my Republican bones say to do about that one?Obviously, cut the damned regulations! Cut the tests. Stop screwing the standards. In fact, cut them altogether for a while. Honestly, give teachers a break for five freaking years so that they all want to flee the state and leave only the worst behind. Make it the job of the principals to decide who is a good educator for a while. It can’t honestly be as bad as what we have now. I say that honestly, it will do good. Will it improve the pay that teachers receive? Not a bit, but in Oklahoma, it will make their lives not suck so much. And teaching is a rewarding profession. I know, I miss it, but you can’t make no money, work long hours, and have a terrible life. It’s just too much. Deregulation.That said, focusing just on the teachers misses the diagnosis. It’s a statewide problem. I honestly live in terror of what our security situation is like if it is as bad for the prison system and other state offices if it is as bad as it is for the teachers. Teachers are the most obviously symptom of a much bigger series problem, but the hollowing out of our most important industry is the cause. We simply don’t have enough jobs in the Oklahoma economy to support our government, which includes the schools.Now, speaking as a Republican, there are a few things we can try. There is deregulation. Sure, that will help teachers not hate their lives so much, but won’t actually solve the budget problems. I mentioned cannibalizing other state programs, but that isn’t going to solve the deficit. I also mentioned raising taxes, but how and on whom? Most of those avenues would have unintended consequences we don’t want either and won’t solve the budget crisis. We could try to bring in new business. Duh. But to solve the problems of the state we are going to have to bring in manufacturing on a massive scale. For that to work, we’d have to revamp our infrastructure to support it, and then we would still be cut rate compared to the natural competitive advantages for other parts of the country, or even planet, due to our geography. So even if we could solve that problem, it would be a few decades down the road before we saw the realized gain from it.We could also increase taxes. Everybody loves that. Except what good would it do? What we relied upon was income tax from all the people working the wells. Now the wells are in the ground and we don’t need the labor, so what good is an income tax increase? Tax the oil subsidies themselves? Maybe, but at some point, you drive out the business and you can dig shale in a lot of places other than Oklahoma. Just a note on history, Oklahoma used to be a world leader in the growing and manufacturing of cotton around the 1940’s and 1950’s. Not anymore. Wonder if there is something to be learned there. We could also amend the Oklahoma Constitution to allow for a higher real estate tax. That works great for Texas. I don’t know why we don’t here.Of course… we could also talk about illegal immigration.Above is a racial dot map of my town. Here, the Mexican population went from around 5% in 1970 to about 50% according to the 2010 census. That’s a massive shift and I am not even talking about the cultural consequences. Polling the Mexican students, which I’ve done because this topic comes up a lot, they acknowledge that probably about 25% of their Mexican counterparts are illegal immigrants. A few have admitted to it very openly. Look, I don’t care about what you think about culture or if you want to call all arguments you don’t like racist. When the raw numbers say that around 12.5% of your student population are illegal immigrants, some conversations need to start happening.First, how are they being paid for? Is the new business their parents are creating offsetting the cost to educate them? Usually not, as the costs per student were designed to also include income taxes, and when much of your income is illegally sourced and off the books, it’s rarely taxed. Also, what other services do they need? How about the fact that I have never seen a new Mexican student who spoke fluent English? Remember the fact that standardized tests determine a teacher’s value as an educator? Imagine if three of her twenty-five students don’t even speak the language she has to teach. So English as a Second Language (ESL) creates yet another budget problem, as there are almost no teachers qualified with the necessary certification to do it. For perspective, my wife just told me a recent meeting noted that more than 30% of our school currently rate some sort of ESL or ELL (English Language Learner) programs. These programs channels huge amounts of money to these children relative to what their native born students, both American and Mexican-American get to achieve the same education.People will call me racist for bringing this up. I’m not. I love these kids, as I’ve actually taught them where most activists consider them simple bargaining chips. I literally saw them every day. But when asked, by them, what I thought about illegal immigration, I made these same arguments, and then answered the question like this.“If your parents cared more about my kid then they cared about you, then they would be terrible parents. I’m just being honest. Who here could honestly say that they would care more about someone else’s kid than their own? None of you, right? That’s because you’re all decent people. Well, I’m not just a teacher. I’m a parent, and my daughter has to compete with people she shouldn’t have to. That’s not compete academically. She has to compete for funds and resources. She shouldn’t have to do that. Those of you who are legally here shouldn’t have to do that. But she will, and all of you will, and her chances later in life will suffer because of that.So I ask myself, ‘what would her chances be if 12.5% of the kids whose parents don’t honestly contribute as much as everyone else to the tax base, and who require extensive educational outlays just to break even, didn’t go to this school anymore?’ Honestly, I think it would be better for her. I think if we are honest with ourselves, I think that most of us know it would be better. But it requires an act of heartlessness. Now, remember what I said, if your parents cared more about my kid than they did about you… they would be terrible parents. Right?”So speaking as a Republican… and also as a parent of a future Oklahoma student… and as a former teacher whose seen the effects myself… there is one option I can’t help but mention, but it’s pretty heartless.Of course, there is a third option, and one I actually like… vouchers.School vouchers are a program where schools are forced to compete for students. Before I talk about that, I want to enlighten you on frustrations I personally have with Oklahoma education — the ridiculous amounts of money which go to programs that neither benefit all students nor have a statistically meaningful impact on most of their lives and future success (sports) and you have to ask questions about why the Science program is underfunded. You’d think after all the arguments I’ve made, they would have been gone ages ago. But it is ingrained in the culture. People have their greatest memories on the field, so they expect the schools to participate, and if they participate, they better win. So coaches have far more power to demand what they “need” then the merits of the program deserve. Seriously think about the cost of a football stadium being built and maintained each year, along with gymnasium, a softball and a baseball field, when only about three hundred kids use these facilities out of a school of only around 1,000 kids. That’s K-12, not just our High School. Now consider that there are only about 60 kids on the team.Also consider that that this brings about the necessary evil of Creatures. That’s my euphemism for Coach/Teachers. Some are the best teachers in the world are coaches, but far more are attempting to fulfill their failed aspirations of sports stardom by becoming a History teacher… which is why so many kids suck at History. Did I mention you get a not insignificant pay raise to be a Creature? I really want to stress that some of the Coach-Teachers are the best teachers I have ever known, but most simply suck as educators.Look, just to make the point even clearer, I’m going to source The Atlantic, which is something I never thought I would do. But they have a piece that hits extremely close to home on this one.Last year in Texas, whose small towns are the spiritual home of high-school football and the inspiration for Friday Night Lights, the superintendent brought in to rescue one tiny rural school district did something insanely rational. In the spring of 2012, after the state threatened to shut down Premont Independent School District for financial mismanagement and academic failure, Ernest Singleton suspended all sports—including football.To cut costs, the district had already laid off eight employees and closed the middle-school campus, moving its classes to the high-school building; the elementary school hadn’t employed an art or a music teacher in years; and the high school had sealed off the science labs, which were infested with mold. Yet the high school still turned out football, basketball, volleyball, track, tennis, cheerleading, and baseball teams each year.Football at Premont cost about $1,300 a player. Math, by contrast, cost just $618 a student. For the price of one football season, the district could have hired a full-time elementary-school music teacher for an entire year. But, despite the fact that Premont’s football team had won just one game the previous season and hadn’t been to the playoffs in roughly a decade, this option never occurred to anyone.“I’ve been in hundreds of classrooms,” says Singleton, who has spent 15 years as a principal and helped turn around other struggling schools. “This was the worst I’ve seen in my career. The kids were in control. The language was filthy. The teachers were not prepared.” By suspending sports, Singleton realized, he could save $150,000 in one year. A third of this amount was being paid to teachers as coaching stipends, on top of the smaller costs: $27,000 for athletic supplies, $15,000 for insurance, $13,000 for referees, $12,000 for bus drivers. “There are so many things people don’t think about when they think of sports,” Singleton told me. Still, he steeled himself for the town’s reaction. “I knew the minute I announced it, it was going to be like the world had caved in on us.”The Case Against High-School SportsLook, I like school sports as a concept. I played all the way, and it may have even helped me personally. Of course, a lot more of that I credit with the Marines Corps, where many of my boot camp buddies never took a step on the grass. That aside, Oklahoma, and many other parts of the nation, have simply taken it too far. Spending for it has gone beyond any possible investment value, and now exists in a cannibalistic relationship with the Math, English, History, and woe unto thine humble arts program.That’s why I advocate for vouchers. I want this to sink in, I am a former public school teacher married to a current public school teacher, arguing for vouchers. Listen to what I have to say.Vouchers allow for the creation of charter schools in areas that are too poor to afford the high tuition of private schools. Vouchers break down the total budget of a district to the student, saying very coldly that if there are 1000 students in a district, each child is worth 0.1% of the budget. If the school’s budget is $3,000,000, then the child rates $3,000 of those dollars as funds that the locality and state are willing to put toward their education. With a voucher, a parent can transfer their student and take those dollars as the tuition for the charter school. This removes the funds from the public school, which is where competition comes into play. If numerous charters are allowed to open, it will mean that the public school will have a funding crisis, as they will have the exact same costs for their facilities, but lose too many students as a share of the total population to keep them funded.Frankly, I’m okay with that.I feel that this real crisis will force public schools, as well as charters, to evolve away from many of the practices that fail to make kids successful later in life. It will allow the charter schools to exist in an environment where new methods can be created free from the burdens of an impossible to manage state bureaucracy, and allow them to invest their funds more in line with the parents wishes where if they don’t want to fund a sports program eating up 40% of their kids’ tax dollars… they don’t have to. One positive outcome? Maybe the sports can stay. Forcing competition doesn’t mean that you close everything down to a husk. It means that you cut the fat and leave what works. If there are programs that encourage individual and team competition that actually translates to success of the community, awesome. My town has won State Championships in Cross Country three years in a row. All you need for that are running shoes. Sounds fair. But the cuts need to be made to bad programs for the schools to get back to actually educating children. Frankly, a lot of these small towns get in their own way by saving programs that don’t help their kids do better later in life. I feel that vouchers will help make that decision for them.So summing it all up, there’s a lot that can be done. A lot that needs to be done.We could raise taxes, but that will have a lot of costs associated with it, like driving out one of the last industries we have left.We could cannibalize other programs, which sucks but it is probably what we will have to settle with.We could deregulate education. I really wish we would, but that will do nothing for the state’s broader budget problems.We could actually enforce immigration policy, which we should.Or we can open up market incentives that will force the responses from schools to make better choices themselves.Most of my suggestions are conservative in nature, and all of them are going to hurt a lot. Most of the problems, though, aren’t Republican or Democrat in nature. Both parties worked together to make this situation. Even that’s not fair. Oklahoma just got the geographical short end of the stick in a lot of ways. We’re just poor. I get that. Life isn’t fair. But there is still a lot we can do to solve the problem and blaming one side or the other simply doesn’t cut it.Thank you for reading. If you liked this answer, please upvote and follow The War Elephant. If you want to help me make more content like this, please support me by donating to my Patreon Support Page. All donations greatly appreciated!