Archive for Oklahoma
Recent Stories for Oklahoma
Power play: OEA isn't in the voters' corner
Category: Blocking · State: Oklahoma · Source: The Oklahoman
WHEN it comes to creativity, the Oklahoma Education Association deserves a failing grade. Time and again, the state's largest teachers union has made clear that it cares more about teachers' paychecks, money grabs and the status quo than taxpayers and the state's overall well-being. The latest evidence is an effort to amend the Oklahoma Constitution and force taxpayers to spend millions of dollars more per year on common education. The union has started an initiative petition drive to get the proposed amendment on a 2010 statewide ballot. If the drive is successful, voters would be asked to change the constitution and require lawmakers to fund schools at the regional average in per-pupil expenditures. The change could shift $850 million in state funding to common education from other state services or require tax increases.
Petition idea doesn't add up
Category: Education · State: Oklahoma · Source: The Oklahoman
The education lobby will soon ask Oklahoma voters to sign a petition requiring that our state per-pupil school spending must always equal the regional average. There are at least four reasons why this is a bad and dangerous idea. First, anyone who knows basic arithmetic understands why this won't work. Every time you raise Oklahoma's per-pupil spending you also raise the regional average, even if the other states in our region do nothing. That ever-escalating average then becomes the carrot at the end of a stick, forever just out of reach. You can never equal a moving average when what you do drives that average forward. Second, the petition would require the immediate allocation of at least 850 million new dollars to the schools. Since the Oklahoma Constitution insists that we balance our budget, those dollars could come from only two places — other state programs or tax increases.
Petition for state education funding filed
Category: Education · State: Oklahoma · Source: Tulsa World
Leading public education support groups including the Oklahoma Education Association filed a petition Wednesday with the state to put to a vote of the people a requirement that Oklahoma's students are funded at the average of the seven-state regional level. Chuck Pack, a teacher at Tahlequah High School, said he is spending about $600 a school year so that his math students have adequate supplies.
Breaking News: Connerly's Oklahoma Petition Drive Withdrawn - Post-mortem
Category: Affirmative Action · State: Oklahoma · Source: OutsideLansing.com
Don't go into a gun fight with knives is an old piece of wisdom. Perhaps it was invented in the old West or even Oklahoma. Today, Ward Connerly's group in Oklahoma withdrew its application to the Oklahoma Supreme Court to consider roughly 141,000 signatures for a ballot proposal similar to the Michigan Civil Rights Initiative (see the Chronicle of Higher Education here, or the Tulsa World here). They need roughly 139,000 valid signatures, which is way too slim of a margin given that some signatures are people have moved, made errors in filling technical parts out, or otherwise rejected for technical reasons. So Connerly did the right thing and withdrew, rather than trying to squeeze out the signatures in a protracted legal battle that would have cost the taxpayer (and Ward) more money.
Monthly Archives for Oklahoma
- August 2008 (3)
- April 2008 (1)