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Oklahoma: Anti-Tax Lobby Pushes for Special Session to Repeal New Taxes to Pay Teachers’ Salary Increases

By dianeravitch
June 11, 2018 //
25

After the massive teacher walkout in Oklahoma, the governor and legislature pledged to raise taxes to pay for higher teacher salaries.

Now former Senator Tom Coburn is leading an anti-tax group demanding a referendum to roll back the taxes. Coburn contends that the state can pay raises without raising taxes. If his group Oklahoma Taxpayers Unite! can collect 42,000 signatures by July 18, there will be a referendum. Meanwhile there are legal challenges to the referendum.

Oklahoma Republicans live in a dream world where public services can be funded while the richest individuals and industries in the state get tax cuts.

That’s why some schools in the state operate on a four-day week. The oligarchs of Oklahoma don’t want the children of the state to have a good education. They want teachers who will work for the lowest wages in the nation to teach their children four days a week.

The future will take care of itself as long as the oil and gas industries pay low taxes. Right?

Categories Oklahoma, Students, Teacher Pay, Teachers

Oklahoma: What It is Like to Teach in an Underfunded School

By dianeravitch
May 30, 2018 //
11

Melissa Smith is a teacher at US Grant High School in Oklahoma City and a member of the AFT. She writes here about the effect of dramatic budget cuts on her school.

Unless you are in a school every day, you might not see the results of underfunding education. That is because we open our doors no matter what, and my colleagues and I will do everything we can to make sure our students get the education they deserve. But just because the consequences are invisible doesn’t mean there isn’t a problem. Isn’t that the definition of privilege? Thinking something isn’t a problem simply because it might not be a problem for you?

You have probably heard about the recent teacher walkout in Oklahoma. While some of that was about teacher salaries, it was more about the conditions in our schools – conditions that resulted from years of underfunding education.

The Oklahoma City public schools district is the largest in the state, serving about 46,000 students. Because of relentless decreases in funding from the Oklahoma legislature, our district has had to cut almost $40m in the past two years. This has resulted in our fine arts budgets being slashed by 50%, our library media budgets being completely eliminated and district officials being forced to end the school year days early.

Our school system also has 58 classrooms that are “split-level”. This means a teacher is required to teach two different curricula to two different grade levels at the same time in the same classroom. And our teachers do this without the help of a teaching assistant…

Our classes are extremely overcrowded, with 30 and 40 students per class. Some of us don’t even have enough desks for our students to sit in. Coach Aaron McVay, one of our PE teachers, has had classes of more than 80 students. How much learning happens in a class of 80?

Some teachers don’t even have classrooms. They keep their belongings, textbooks and supplies on carts and push them from classroom to classroom, hour to hour. I have been a traveling teacher. Like some of our fellow union members who are adjunct college professors and hold “office hours” in their cars and nurses who travel from school to school, fingers crossed, hoping no one at a school across town will suffer a health crisis, it is almost impossible to be an effective educator while carting your work around…

The cut that hurt most was losing our two maintenance workers, Gerald and Joe, whose positions were eliminated when our district was forced to cut the first $30m in 2017. Gerald and Joe kept our building running. Without them, nothing seems to work. Last August, we had days without air conditioning. It was common for my classroom to reach 90 degrees by 9am. In fact, Cristina Moershel taught her class outside because it was cooler there than in her classroom. Outside. In August. In Oklahoma. She used a dry erase marker on the window to teach calculus while her students sat on the ground.

Our current history textbook is so old that the Oklahoma City bombing only gets a couple of pages in the epilogue
Now, think about how much these problems would be exacerbated if some of this year’s proposed cuts to federal funding were to go through.

Cuts would make it impossible to retain qualified teachers instead of losing them at the rate of almost 400 per month. If there are cuts to federal programs for low-income students or students with disabilities, what else will my school have to sacrifice to provide the services they need? How will these cuts help students graduate and take on the world?

Categories Budget Cuts, Funding, Oklahoma

Jan Resseger: The Single Best Article About the Oklahoma Teachers’ Strike

By dianeravitch
May 30, 2018 //
9

I had planned to write a post about the excellent article in the New Yorker about the Oklahoma teachers’ strike, but discovered this morning that Jan Resseger, one of my favorite bloggers, beat me to the punch. The article by Rivera Galchen clearly connects the red state anti-tax policies and the underfunding of schools.

She writes:


Watching teachers walk out this spring has startled America in these discouraging times, but nowhere was it as moving as in Oklahoma. The teachers walked out, and, grateful that teachers had figured out a way to expose desperate conditions in the schools, school superintendents and school boards—the management—shut down school for two weeks and walked with their teachers in gratitude. At the statehouse itself the protestors walked into a brick wall. More than just demonstrating what is missing from their classrooms, they showed what decent concern for our children would require of us as citizens and what—across too many of our states—one-party, anti-tax state legislators and governors are quite satisfied to deny.

Rivka Galchen profiles the Oklahoma walkout in this week’s New Yorker magazine. Galchen, who accompanied and learned to know many teachers, reflects on her own experience of the strike and on the lives of teachers she came to know.

Even before the strike when they worried about a possible walkout, members of the legislature proposed a modest raise. But teachers, desperate about the conditions for children in their schools, refused to cancel the walkout. Galchen writes: “Teachers in Oklahoma are paid less than those in West Virginia, which spends forty percent more per pupil than Oklahoma does… In response to the threat of a walkout, the Republican-dominated Oklahoma legislature offered teachers a pay raise of around six thousand dollars a year. It funded the raise with an assortment of tax bills, most of which disproportionately affect the poor—a cigarette tax, a diesel tax, an Amazon sales tax, an expansion of ball and dice gambling, and a five-dollar-per-room hotel-motel tax. The Republicans touted the move as historic, and it was: the legislature hadn’t passed a tax increase since 1990.”

Galchen carefully defines the constraints placed on the state by years of anti-tax governments: “Oklahoma has essentially been under single-party rule for about a decade. The state legislature is eighty percent Republican, and in the most recent midterm elections the Democrats didn’t field a candidate in nearly half the races. Governor Fallin is in her eighth year, and during her tenure nearly all state agencies have seen cuts of between ten and thirty percent, even as the population that those agencies serve has increased. A capital-gains tax break was configured in such a way that two-thirds of the benefit went to the eight hundred wealthiest families in the state. An income-tax reduction similarly benefited primarily the wealthy. The tax on fracked oil was slashed, and when it was nudged back up—it remains the lowest in the nation—the energy billionaire and political kingmaker Harold Hamm, whose estimated net worth is quadruple the budget that the legislature allocates to the state, stood in the gallery of the capitol, letting the lawmakers know that he was watching. Reversing tax cuts is never easy, but it’s almost impossible in Oklahoma. In 1992, a law was passed requiring that any bill to raise taxes receive the assent of the governor and three-quarters of the legislature.”

Categories Budget Cuts, Funding, Oklahoma

A Guide to the Corporations Defunding Public Schools and Opposing Striking Teachers

By dianeravitch
May 15, 2018 //
20

THIS IS THE MOST IMPORTANT ARTICLE YOU WILL READ TODAY. SHARE IT WITH YOUR FRIENDS, YOUR SCHOOL BOARD, YOUR LOCAL MEDIA, YOUR ELECTEDS. TWEET IT. POST IT ON FACEBOOK.

In the states where teachers have engaged in walkouts and strikes, public education has been systematically starved of funding. Typically, corporate taxes have been cut so that funding for education has also been cut. The corporations benefit while the children and their teachers are put on a starvation diet.

Who are the corporations and individuals behind the efforts to shrink funding for public schools and promote privatization?

This article makes it clear.

It begins like this, then details a state-by-state list of corporations and billionaires backing the cycle of austerity and school privatization.

“The ongoing wave of teacher strikes across the US is changing the conversation about public education in this country. From West Virginia to Arizona, Kentucky to Oklahoma, Colorado to North Carolina, tens of thousands of teachers have taken to the streets and filled state capitals, garnering public support and racking up victories in some of the nation’s most hostile political terrain.

“Even though the teachers who have gone on strike are paid well below the national average, their demands have gone beyond better salary and benefits for themselves. They have also struck for their students’ needs – to improve classroom quality and to increase classroom resources. Teachers are calling for greater investment in children and the country’s public education system as a whole. They are also demanding that corporations, banks, and billionaires pay their fair share to invest in schools.

“The teachers’ strikes also represent a major pushback by public sector workers against the right-wing agenda of austerity and privatization. The austerity and privatization agenda for education goes something like this: impose big tax cuts for corporations and the .01% and then use declining tax revenue as a rationale to cut funding for state-funded services like public schools. Because they are underfunded, public schools cannot provide the quality education kids deserve. Then, the right wing criticizes public schools and teachers, saying there is a crisis in education. Finally, the right wing uses this as an opportunity to make changes to the education system that benefit them – including offering privatization as a solution that solves the crisis of underfunding.

“While this cycle has put students, parents, and teachers in crisis, many corporations, banks, and billionaires are driving and profiting from it. The key forces driving the austerity and privatization agenda are similar across all the states that have seen strikes:

“*Billionaire school privatizers. A small web of billionaires – dominated by the Koch brothers and their donor network, as well as the Waltons – have given millions to state politicians who will push their pro-austerity, pro-school privatization agenda. These billionaires lead a coordinated, nationwide movement to apply business principles to education, including: promoting CEO-like superintendents, who have business experience but little or no education experience; closing “failing” schools, just as companies close unprofitable stores or factories; aggressively cutting costs, such as by recruiting less experienced teachers; instituting a market-based system in which public schools compete with privately managed charter schools, religious schools, for-profit schools, and virtual schools; and making standardized test scores the ultimate measure of student success.”

Keep reading to learn about the interlocking web that includes the Koch brothers, the Mercers, the Waltons, the fossil fuel industry, their think tanks, and much more, all combined to shrink public schools and replace them with charters and vouchers.

By the way, rightwing billionaire Philip Anschutz of Colorado was the producer of the anti-teacher, anti-public education, pro-charter propaganda film “Waiting for Superman.”

Categories Accountability, ALEC, Arizona, Billionaires, Charter Schools, Colorado, Corporate Reformers, Dark Money, Democracy, Education Industry, Education Reform, Funding, Kentucky, Oklahoma, Privatization, Teacher Pay, Walton Foundation, West Virginia

Politico: Why Some States Can’t Raise Taxes to Pay for Schools

By dianeravitch
May 1, 2018 //
22

 

Politico explains why some states can’t raise taxes to pay for education and other public services. Conservative Republicans, obeying their puppet masters at ALEC (funded by the Koch brother, the DeVos family, and major corporations) persuaded voters to change the laws to require a supermajority for any tax increases.

“TEACHER STRIKES HIT STATES WITH STRICT TAX HIKE REQUIREMENTS: In Arizona and Oklahoma – where tens of thousands of teachers have flooded state capitals in recent weeks to demand better pay and hundreds of millions of dollars in education funding – the state constitution makes it hard to raise taxes. Voters in both states approved constitutional amendments in 1992 that require a supermajority – much more than half – of the state legislature to impose new taxes or increase existing ones, as opposed to a simple majority.

“- A major lift in some states: It takes two-thirds of the state legislature in Arizona to impose new taxes or increase taxes. In Oklahoma, it takes 75 percent of the state legislature – one of the strictest requirements in the country. And while supermajorities aren’t the sole driver of education funding woes, critics argue that they lock in tax cuts year after year, making it difficult for states to address education funding shortfalls.

“- “This is a classic example of something that sounds good, but it’s a complete poison pill,” said Nick Johnson, senior vice president for state fiscal policy at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. “Supermajorities just reduce the power of a state to do what it needs to do.” Johnson said the requirements also allow conservatives to “lock-in” their “advantage into the future.” Florida is considering such a proposal on the ballot this November.

“- CBPP notes that Arizona “cut personal income tax rates by 10 percent in 2006, cut corporate tax rates by 30 percent in 2011, reduced taxes on capital gains, and reduced taxes in other ways over the last couple of decades.” State education funding in Arizona is also down 14 percent since the recession hit, after adjusting for inflation. A coalition of Arizona public school advocates led by a progressive policy group is now pushing for a ballot measure to raise income taxes on wealthy Arizonans to help pay for public education.

“- Conservative organizations like the American Legislative Exchange Council have long-pushed for supermajority measures nationwide in an effort to curb “excessive government spending.” Jonathan Williams, ALEC’s vice president for the center for state fiscal reform, argued that supermajorities haven’t prohibited states from taking action when it comes to education funding. He pointed to Oklahoma, where the threat of massive teacher walkouts prompted state lawmakers to pass a rare tax hike in March that would fund a $6,100 pay raise. “When something becomes a necessity, these state lawmakers were able to hit even the most stringent of the supermajority thresholds,” Williams said.”

Categories ALEC, Arizona, Betsy DeVos, Funding, Koch Brothers, Oklahoma

The Teachers’ Strikes Are Just the Beginning

By dianeravitch
April 26, 2018 //
31

 

The spring of 2018 may well be remembered as the beginning of a mass movement by working people against the domination of corporations and the 1%.

The leadership in red states and the federal government have tilted the tax system to favor the very wealthy, while demanding sacrifices from the powerless majority.

The teachers in West Virginia were first to say “Enough!”

But they are far from last.

The ALEC-inspired Republican legislatures killed collective bargaining, and the Supreme Court in expected to hobble labor unions with the Janus decision.

But that’s not going to stop working people from organizing and demanding a fair share of the bounty that they produced.

For all of Facebook’s sins and transgressions, it has nonetheless created a way for voiceless people to organize and act. Teachers and others created collectives on Facebook and used them to mobilize for mass actions.

The teachers’ strikes were organized by grassroots efforts that began on Facebook. Powerless teachers discovered that by acting in concert, they became powerful. They have used their numbers to demand fair pay and benefits and have stood up courageously to legislatures known to be in the pockets of the oil and gas industries and other malefactors of vast wealth.

Piece by piece, day by day, as they lead us, we will recover our democracy. We will rebuild the institutions now under assault by Trumpism and its variants. The names of the leaders are not well-known. They won’t be on the covers of magazines or interviewed by late night TV hosts. They are ordinary citizens who have stepped forward to demand justice, equity, and fairness and to revive our democracy.

 

Categories Courage, Democracy, Equity, Kentucky, Oklahoma, Resistance, Teachers, West Virginia

John Thompson: The Oklahoma Teachers’ Walkout: What We Learned

By dianeravitch
April 18, 2018 //
6

John Thompson, teacher and historian in Oklahoma, reflects on the recent statewide walkout and the lessons learned.

 

The nine-day Oklahoma teacher walkout was the result of two risky, ideological experiments. As the National Education Association’s Jason Walta explains, the work stoppage also previews the dilemmas that are likely to become more frustrating if the U.S. Supreme Court does what is expected and issues an antiunion decision in Janus v. AFSCME .

https://acslaw.org/acsblog/teachers-walkout-without-bargaining-rights-%E2%80%93-why-it-matters-for-janus

The first theory which drove teachers out of their classrooms was “Supply Side economics.” Oklahoma replicated the extreme budget cutting that Thomas Frank documented in What’s the Matter with Kansas. Income tax cuts that were tilted in favor of the rich cost the state $1 billion per year. The 43rd richest person on the planet and Trump supporter, Harold Hamm, has further enriched himself by ramming though a reduction of oil Gross Production Taxes (GPT) from 7 percent to 2 percent. Consequently, by 2016, the state agencies that provide the most important social and medical services had been cut by one-quarter to one-third of their 2009 levels.

https://okpolicy.org/the-cost-of-tax-cuts-in-oklahoma/

https://theblackwallsttimes.com/2018/04/02/harold-hamm-the-enemy-of-oklahomas-public-educational-funding-fight/

Secondly, the resulting education cutbacks began as corporate school reform was imposed. In 2009, I was surprised to see how many legislators were bringing a New Yorker Magazine to an interim committee on education policy. It featured Steve Brill’s article on the New York City “Rubber Room,” which claimed that value-added teacher evaluations were a valid and reliable tool for firing “bad” teachers. The legislators believed Brill’s flawed reporting and they bought into the corporate school reformers’ self-proclaimed plan which included the replacement of Baby Boomer teachers with twenty-somethings.

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2009/08/31/the-rubber-room

http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/books/2011/08/grading_the_education_reformers.html

I emailed Brill and learned he didn’t really understand what value-added models could or could not do, and it became clear that he had not properly cross-examined the reformers’ claim that effective teaching, alone, could close the achievement gap. When completing his book, Brill had to make a dramatic change in the pro-reform narrative. Its hero, a 26-year-old with supposedly superhuman stamina and commitment named Jessica Reid, grew too exhausted to continue at her charter school. Today’s worn-down teaching profession is still enduring the effects of schools being “deputized”” as the agents for overcoming poverty.

https://larrycuban.wordpress.com/2012/01/02/from-whence-come-ideas-for-reforming-teaching-practices/

Oklahoma joined almost all of the rest of the nation in passing legislation that allowed it to compete for federal Race to the Top funds. Oklahoma’s grant wasn’t funded, but as in more than forty other states, teachers’ due process rights were compromised. The state spent millions of dollars on standardized testing, computer systems for keeping track of test score increases, and for using an unreliable and invalid statistical model for firing teachers. Veteran teachers (and their higher salaries) were often pushed out so newbies could be socialized into bubble-in accountability.

http://newsok.com/article/3432650

Reformers didn’t bother to inventory the capacity that would be required to implement such a half-baked agenda. They simply imposed huge workloads on teachers and administrators trying to comply with dubious mandates. Unions were hard-pressed to merely minimize the damage done.

The experiment failed, and the law was repealed, but the money and energy squandered in the reckless experiment are gone forever.

And that brings us to the ways that the Oklahoma walkout and other teacher revolts in “Right to Work” states preview a new resistance for a post-Janus world. Harold Meyerson recently recalled his old wisecrack, “‘China has strikes but no unions; America has unions but no strikes.’” These teachers’ rebellions show that the United States is “becoming more like China every day.”

http://prospect.org/article/what-teacher-strikes-mean

The Oklahoma walkout epitomizes what could be great and what is worrisome about the new era of political activism which is likely to counter Janus. It was a grassroots uprising, organized on social media. As the National Education Association president Lily Eskelsen Garcia says, this is the “education spring.”

Teachers are challenging a system that had been created by the decades-long campaign to shrink government to the size where it can be strangled in the bathtub. Oklahoma unions and other traditional advocates for progressive causes are stymied by the 3/4ths legislative majority which is required to raise taxes. And term limits mean that the legislature lacks institutional memory. Most lawmakers weren’t in office in 2010 when the fateful decisions were made to gut the progressive tax system and to impose corporate school reform on educators.

In the long run, interactions between a youthful teaching profession and the newbies in the legislature are likely to produce better outcomes. Both groups are now frustrated, but they should recall the advice American Federation of Teachers president Randi Weingarten offered on the first day of the walkout. Weingarten said that in every job action, there is “always a moment of truth.” She also said that it is “as important to find a way back in as it is to find a way out.”

At the end of the first week, it looked like a way back to work had been found. The legislature passed $40 million in additional taxes. When combined with the already agreed upon $6100 average pay raise, 95% of the teachers’ demands would have been met. But the fervor of the teachers at the Capitol meant that union leaders couldn’t call off the work stoppage. Besides, plans had already been made for the next week.

On Sunday, a prayer vigil at the Capitol drew hundreds of supporters. Monday’s crowd was far bigger than the 30,000 to 35,000 people who came to each of the first week’s events. Thousands of education supporters marched from Edmond, Del City, and Norman. The next day, marchers arrived from Tulsa. On Thursday, the Moore schools reopened but hundreds of teachers stayed out of class and marched to the Capitol. Had the walkout ended after one week, teachers could have proclaimed an unambiguous victory, but those and other consciousness-raising accomplishments would not have happened.

Many rank-in-file teachers are frustrated with the decisions to return to school, but several key points must be emphasized. First, it took both the threat of a walkout and an initiative petition to raise the Gross Production Tax to persuade the legislature to increase the GPT to 5%. Now, energies must be devoted to initiatives that would raise it all the way back to 7%, as well as defeating an initiative that would defund the pay increase. Both efforts have great potential for building unity among education allies and dividing their opponents. (The same applies to the need for citizen actions to end the constitutional requirement for a 75% majority to raise taxes, and to curtail extreme gerrymandering.)

http://oklahomawatch.org/2018/04/13/ballot-questions-could-boost-teacher-pay-or-put-raises-at-risk/

Moreover, none of these victories would have been possible without the support of local school boards and district administrations, not to mention students and parents. As it became clear that no new money would be appropriated, teachers needed to support their allies in keeping the rest of the school year from degenerating into chaos.

http://www.oklahoman.com/article/5590781?access=17a8dbf82012571d5b94781d849851c5

Just as important, teachers should remember the needs of state employees who pulled out of the walkout just before the OEA announced its end. The Oklahoma Public Employees said, “Recent discussions focus solely on education funding and exclude public safety, veterans’ services, mental health, protective services or any other state agency services.” Given the legal and political complexities of the job actions, that mistake probably was inevitable. But, educators must refocus on the overall needs of their students and families.

http://newsok.com/article/5590683?utm_source=NewsOK.com&utm_medium=Social&utm_campaign=ShareBar-Twitter

http://newsok.com/state-agencies-say-they-have-funding-needs-too/article/5589886

https://www.commondreams.org/views/2018/02/07/harmful-tax-cuts-helped-fuel-oklahomas-budget-woes

Finally, while understanding that this new, evolving activism won’t always be pretty, we should listen to former teacher, Sen. J.J. Dossett (D-Owasso) who says that teachers had been apathetic but tens of thousands of them became activists. Led by teacher-candidates, hundreds of additional candidates filed for office last week, leaving almost no Republicans unchallenged. So, teachers should avoid recriminations, celebrate a victory, and focus on November.

Categories Accountability, Education Reform, Failure, Oklahoma, Race to the Top, Teacher Evaluations, Teacher Pay, Unions

Oklahoma City: AFT Asks District to Remain Closed Monday for Another Survey of Members

By dianeravitch
April 13, 2018 //
5

This announcement is self-explanatory. The online vote was compromised. Non-members voted, apparently. Most members want to continue the walkout and to press the legislature to improve funding for the schools.

 

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE                                        CONTACT:

April 13, 2018                                                                   Ed Allen

                                                                                                405-528-0801

                                                                                                eallen@okcaft.org

 

                                                                                                Janet Bass

                                                                                                301-502-5222

                                                                                                jbass@aft.org

                                                                                                www.aft.org

 

Oklahoma City Teachers on Returning to Classrooms

 

OKLAHOMA CITY—The Oklahoma City American Federation of Teachers announced  that the online survey conducted today on ending the walkout was compromised, and it has asked the district to close schools on Monday to allow teachers to continue to lobby the Legislature.

 

Among other problems, the union received reports that the online link was shared with nonmembers. In fact, there were more votes than official union members—actually, 110 percent of the membership responded to the survey, with two-thirds wanting to continue the walkout.

 

“Despite the survey problems, there’s a clear indication that people want additional time   to try to exhaust every avenue for additional funding for schools,” said Oklahoma City AFT President Ed Allen.

 

Allen acknowledged the gains made over the past two weeks but understood teachers’ frustrations with the state Legislature, which refused to find additional revenue for school funding other than through two new tax bills.

 

 

# # #

Categories Oklahoma, Teachers, Unions

Oklahoma: Anti-Tax Group Starts Petitions to Block Teacher Pay Raises

By dianeravitch
April 13, 2018 //
14

 

In Oklahoma, there are conservatives who believe that the highest value is cutting taxes, preferably to zero. With tax cuts comes the collapse of public services, like public schools, law enforcement, and public infrastructure. Who needs teachers, Police, firefighters, highway repairs, etc.? So what if some public schools are open only four days a week? Why not three days? Two days? Or let the kids be home-schooled and save money?

So it is not surprising that anti-tax zealots are circulating a petition to block the pay raises won by a nine-day teacher walkout. 

What matters most in Oklahoma? Low taxes for the oil and gas industry. Fracking. Dark Money.

“Lawmakers already passed a historic tax increase to fund those teacher raises, and it was signed by Governor Mary Fallin. But, it would only take a little over 41,000 signatures on an initiative petition to at least temporarily stop those raises from happening.”

Will the new Oklahoma motto be: We don’t need no education.

Categories Budget Cuts, Funding, Oklahoma

John Thompson: On the Front Lines in Oklahoma

By dianeravitch
April 11, 2018 //
9

 

John Thompson, teacher and historian in Oklahoma, reports here  on the continuing walkout:

 

Like most Oklahomans, I misjudged the crowds of 35,000 teachers at the state Capitol. Reading between the lines of press coverage, and listening to people inside the Capitol, I assumed that a deal would probably be struck after a week (at the latest.) On Friday, however, I kept running into former colleagues, who had always been extremely a-political, and saw their fervor. Regardless of what their leaders sought in terms of reaching an agreement, it finally dawned on me that teachers have just begun to fight.

Nobody was surprised, however, when Republican legislative leaders struck back. A week into the walkout, Rep. Chuck Strohm (R-Tulsa) attacked the Oklahoma Education Association and teachers seeking an increase in education funding. He attributed the walkout to “the OEA [which] had to come up with a new reason for existing.” Strohm asserted, “Today, teachers are crying for more money from the legislature to reduce class sizes when the real problem is the education establishment whose sole purpose is to grow their kingdom.”

Strohm wants wages to be driven by free market competition. He says that the current salary schedule “is the essence of Socialism.” He believes “the problem stems from the fact that we live in a culture of handouts without any accountability.”

http://chuckstrohm.com/inside- the-captiol/

Neither was it a surprise that the conservative Oklahoman started the next week with a misleading headline, “Dark Money Group Funding Pro-Teacher Ads.” It followed the money for pro-teacher television ads to Oklahoma’s Children Our Future, the 501(c)(4) whose chief funders were former Senator David Boren and the Tulsa-based Charles and Lynn Schusterman Foundation, and which advocated for a penny sales tax increase to save our schools. The Oklahoman hasn’t bothered to investigate the really secretive investments by conservatives like ALEC, the Koch brothers and Betsy DeVos.

http://newsok.com/article/5590115?slideout=1

Players and Money Behind Penny Sales Tax Campaigns

As the walkout’s second week began, DeVos also weighed in with the “hope that adults would keep adult disagreements and disputes in a separate place, and serve the students that are there to be served.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/education/wp/2018/04/09/betsy-devos-to-oklahoma-teachers-serve-the-students/?utm_term=.169205f6f00f

But the Sunday Oklahoman’s lead story sent the more pointed message. It listed the needs of other state agencies: Oklahoma Department of Human Services had to cut $108 million from its budgets, with much of it due to the unnecessary loss of federal funds; the Department of Mental Health has lost $133 million, and reduced services to 73,000 persons suffering from mental illness; Higher Education has been cut $122 million; the Transportation Department has lost $500 million in the last two years; and the Department of Corrections is asking for $1 billion.

http://newsok.com/state-agencies-say-they-have-funding-needs-too/article/5589886

Of course, the question is whether teachers are selfish adults who put their needs over children and the rest of the state, or whether these multiple crises are due to the legislature, the governor, and their secretive out-of-state funders, cutting taxes for the rich.

Clearly, education supporters are winning the battle of the narratives. Even though Gov. Mary Fallin compared teachers to teenagers and tried to link the crowds to Antifa, the Oklahoma Highway Patrol describes them as the “best protesters ever.” On Sunday, a prayer vigil at the Capitol drew hundreds of supporters. Monday morning, 150 female attorneys marched in support of teachers. Thousands of education supporters marched from Edmond, Del City, and Norman. They will be followed by veterans, students marching on Tuesday, and the arrival of the marchers from Tulsa.

Fact check: Antifa, paid protesters and death threats at the Oklahoma teacher walkout

OHP on teachers at state capitol: “Best protesters ever”

Monday’s turnout was much greater than last week’s. The Tulsa World reported that schools serving about 500,000 of the state 690,000 students remain closed. Sometimes it looked like all of those kids joined the rally!

Seriously, the number of students at the Monday rally was far, far greater than the first week. And it is great hearing the kids explain why they chose to attend, and how they love the civics lesson they are participating in. My favorite sign was carried by a student, “My textbook is twenty years older than me.”

Similarly, a couple of teachers volunteered that their 6th grade student spoke inside the Capitol. He decided completely on his own to research the issue of Oklahoma and national teacher salaries.

Prayer vigil draws hundreds to Capitol Sunday night

Girl Attorney group recruits 150 female attorneys to advocate for teachers

http://www.tulsaworld.com/homepagelatest/over-students-statewide-out-of-school-monday-as-walkout-continues/article_eb4dcbe5-24f8-5b99-b7f1-e77a77faf40d.html

By the way, the determination of teachers, as well as parents and school boards, to keep up the fight is due to both the state’s budget cuts and the effects of corporate school reform. From FY2010 to 2017, the average inflation adjusted Oklahoma teacher salary plummeted by $8,150. As the state’s teacher salaries declined to 49th in the nation, the average salary dropped to a level ($45,245) that is virtually identical to the average pay preceding the 1990 strike.

Because of Oklahoma’s “Education Spring,” 3/4ths of the salary decrease has been corrected, but reversing the damage done to students will take a long campaign. Extreme tax cuts for the 1% drove Oklahoma over the edge, but we must tackle the corporate school reforms that also undermined the teaching profession.

https://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d17/tables/dt17_211.60.asp

http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/books/2011/08/grading_the_education_reformers.html

https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/4/9/17214924/oklahoma-teacher-strike-tax-cut-rich-charts

This battle must lead to a conversation about what happens when teachers and students are treated like lab rats. Whether we are talking about the weird idea that extreme budget cuts will produce transformative economic growth, or the idea that market-driven experiments will create transformative student performance increases, we need to start treating the education sector with respect. And a teacher’s sign asks the key question about the task, “If Not Now, When?”

Categories Education Reform, Funding, Oklahoma, Resistance, Teacher Pay, Teachers
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