However, the reasons given for leaving the state in Cullen’s survey — hopelessness and a lack of respect — match what individual teachers have told Tulsa World about their decision to leave.

“Yes, I’m getting a raise of almost $20,000 — and that’s a big help to my family, especially with two kids about to be in college. But it’s not just salary,” LeAnna Snyder, a former Tulsa Public Schools teacher who moved to Texas, told the World last year. “It’s retirement, it’s class size, it’s supplies. It’s about kindness and respect.”

Government data provides another snapshot of the state’s teacher flight.

Lynn Gray, an economist with the Oklahoma Employment Security Commission, shared employment statistics with the World that showed in the first quarter of 2016 — the latest data available — 440 people employed in the sector of the economy that houses K-12 and higher education left the state for a job in a neighboring state. The data does not specify which job those people held in Oklahoma.

“The report does not specify what industry they worked for in the new state — only that they left a job in (Education Services) in Oklahoma and went to the listed state,” Gray said in an email.