When it comes to education, Oklahoma legislators are gaining awareness regarding the murky situations in the state's education.

A 2013 study, the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities found that the Oklahoma government made more cuts to education since 2008 than any other state in the nation. Education spending in the state dropped almost 23 percent between 2008 and 2013.

"Every state in the country almost has cut funding for schools because of the recession," Gene Perry of the Oklahoma Policy Institute stated. "But Oklahoma, even though our economy did pretty well during the recession, we've cut more than anyone else. So you have to ask what the priorities are there."

That was three years ago.

Fast forward to the tail end of fiscal year 2016 in the Sooner State, and many state organizations have faced similar cuts with the rocky misfortunes of the gas and oil industry. Public education avoided taking a heavy cut. Higher education, however, received a heavy cut in its stead, as did transportation.

"The absence of various revenue measures required deeper reductions to higher education and transportation in order to avoid truly unacceptable funding levels for K-12 schools and hospitals," Oklahoma Secretary of Finance, Administration and Information Technology Preston L. Doerflinger said. "Higher education has already implemented several cost-cutting measures in anticipation of reduced funding. These were difficult decisions, but they had to be made when faced with a challenge of this magnitude."

It's a shame, too, considering that higher education in the state has needed some assistance as of late. Graduation rates were flirting with percentages in the mid-50s in 2011. But, according to a recent Smart Asset survey, Oklahoma's 43 percent graduation rate is one of the big factors in its "F" grade from the website.

However, public school rankings are not stacking up favorably in terms of support or achievement, either. From 2012 to 2013, Oklahoma public school students scored at least 4 percent below national averages in reading and mathematics scores based on the National Assessment of Educational Progress. Add onto that a ranking of 48th in education quality rankings in 2015 and D grades in K-12 achievement and school finance in 2014, you get a present situation of need that rivals that of the higher education scenario.

But one question still remains: Why did they even have to make a decision in the first place?

I'm not talking about the financial back end of everything. State-level budgets have more checkered red tape than a hipster craft store, and there are so many nuances to how they work that most people would rather just smile and nod than try to work it all out. (That may explain some of the budgetary crisis, now that you think about it.)

No, that question involves the prioritization of education in not only the budgets but also, and more importantly, in the culture of the state.

In reaction to the aforementioned 2014 and 2015 rankings, former Superintendent Janet Barresi said that the state needed to change its approach to education from the bottom up, starting with the way higher education teaches its incoming teachers. But the higher education system isn't in the best of situations, either. Thus begets the endless cycle of blame, reform, skepticism and eventual stagnation. Meanwhile, students receive underfunded education from teachers whose average salaries rank 48th in the nation ahead of Idaho and Mississippi—provided the teachers keep their jobs or stay in-state when they could easily cross state lines and have a better-than-decent chance of supporting their families.

Unfortunately, there is no real easy answer to this question. According to some, education as a whole falls to the wayside, collateral damage in the boom-and-bust nature of the Sooner State's reliance on oil and gas revenues while other services of importance help maintain the infrastructure. To others, like Rick Cobb of the blog "okeducationtruths," the mindset of the state values tax cuts and companies over the students, communities and the people who work for said companies.

Are either the right answer? Not really, seeing as both viewpoints are rife with opinion. Plus, they are not the only answers. Each person prioritizes things differently. But the common topic throughout the discussion is cognitive dissonance.

In psychology, cognitive dissonance occurs when one's inner thoughts and feelings do not match their outside actions. The result is a state of mental crisis until the discrepancy reduces itself in one direction or the other—preferably in the more preferable manner.

What Oklahoma is witnessing right now is that mental crisis and the entirety of the state—particularly the education system from cradle to commencement—is feeling it hard. There are measures of keeping high standards behind the mindset of educating our youth in preparation for college and the workplace, but the funding (despite a safeguard for K-12 education cuts) and support do not seem to back up this mentality.

However, one way the legislature could back up their assertions could come in a special meeting to allocate a $100 million surplus recently discovered in the FY16 books. There are a number of scenarios that could come from this session, and there is no one surefire solution for the different budgetary constraints across the board, not just in education. Needless to say, the legislature will be under great scrutiny upon its decision with the surplus, especially from those invested in education reform and support.

But if the government continues the dissonant cycle, it will take more than self-awareness to repair it.