Education

All Oklahomans, including political, corporate and education leaders, should get behind an initiative petition drive that could increase Oklahoma school funding to the regional statewide average.

The HOPE ballot initiative, which was recently approved by members of the Oklahoma Education Association, is seeking to place a constitutional amendment about school funding before Oklahoma voters through an initiative petition drive. The proposed amendment, if it makes it on the ballot, would simply require the state to fund education at least at the regional average on a per student basis. HOPE stands for “Helping Oklahoma Public Education.”

Petition circulators should begin collecting signatures in August.

“Missouri, Texas, Kansas, Arkansas, Colorado and New Mexico have an average investment of $8,300 per pupil, while Oklahoma provides funding of $6,900 per-pupil,” according to a recent OEA press release posted on its Web site. “The initiative petition would increase the amount of annual funding for public education by approximately $850 million which would allow for enhanced educational services for all students in Oklahoma public schools.” (Here is an excellent article by Doug Folks about the initiative. The article is on page 4 of the pdf file.)

Oklahoma is ranked 48th in the nation in per student funding. Oklahoma teacher salaries also consistently rank in the bottom nationally.

“We owe it to our children to provide them with an educational opportunity that is at least average compared to the rest of the states in our region,” said OEA President Roy Bishop. “We offer our support to the petition and call on all Oklahomans to fight for a better future for our children and for our state as a whole.”

Bishop’s comments are basic common sense, but the ballot initiative is sure to draw opposition from some politicians and the corporate media, especially The Oklahoman.

The constitutional amendment is needed in Oklahoma because of the state’s poor historical record in providing adequate funding for education. In addition, recent tax cuts—spurred on by neoconservative ideology—have brought the state’s budget to a standstill. (The state’s wealthiest taxpayers benefited the most from these tax cuts.)

Extremely low educational funding and a declining tax base are not good for the state’s quality of life and hamper economic development. These issues affect people in all income groups.

(Will Oklahoma escape the major economic downturn affecting other parts of the country right now? If not, how should the state government respond to reduced revenues and stagnant or shortfall budgets? Read DocHoc's commentary this week in the Oklahoma Gazette.)

(Again, Okie Funk dedicates Steve Earle's song "City of Immigrants" to state Rep. Randy Terrill. Click on the link and turn up the speakers.)

(Update: The Oklahoma Senate voted Thursday to cut off consideration of amendments, and this stopped the latest effort to revive the "Carry On Campus" gun bill as described in the below post. But will there be more attempts in the future to pass the legislation?)

A legislative proposal that would allow college students to carry concealed weapons in classrooms is still alive despite overwhelming opposition from higher education administrators and faculty.

The disparity in opinion between those Oklahoma legislators who want to arm students and those in higher education who want to keep guns off college campuses defines the declining political health in this state. When lawmakers stop listening to reasonable arguments from its top public educators, then it is way past time for all the state’s educators to get more directly involved in the political process.

The gun legislation was initially advanced by state Rep. Jason Murphey (R-Guthrie), pictured right, who introduced a bill, dubbed “Carry On Campus,” that would allow specifically trained students and faculty to carry concealed weapons on college campus. (Murphey is also a self-proclaimed strong supporter of controversial state Rep. Sally Kern (R-Oklahoma City), whose recent insensitive remarks about gay people made national news.) His argument has been that armed students and faculty might be able to prevent shooting incidents like the recent episode at Virginia Tech University. The bill, supported by the National Rife Association and its Oklahoma affiliate, passed the House by a wide margin and went to the Senate. A Senate committee then refused to hear the bill, and the measure was unofficially declared dead.

But under Oklahoma Legislature rules, bills can be amended to include the language of other bills. This is a common practice. Consequently, state Sen. Anthony Sykes (R-Moore) has filed an amendment including the gun proposal on House Bill 2606, which is actually legislation dealing with peeping Toms, according to media reports. Fortunately, the Oklahoma Senate voted Thursday to cut off consideration of amendments. This stops the latest effort to revive the "Carry On Campus" gun bill. Will there be more attempts to get the legislation passed?

All of the state’s college presidents, including University of Oklahoma President David Boren, Oklahoma State University President Burns Hargis and University of Central Oklahoma President Roger Webb, have come out publicly against the bill. Most faculty organizations oppose the bill as well. Their argument is that allowing guns on campus could actually increase the risk of shooting incidents, inhibit faculty and student recruitment and obviously disrupt learning environments.

Here are some questions to consider: Would the bill create armed campus vigilantes, who self-designate themselves as members of a quasi-law enforcement group? What if an armed student misread classroom events and started firing for no reason? Would you want your child sitting next to an armed student, who was emotionally distraught on any given day?

Gov. Brad Henry should veto the legislation if it makes it through, but a greater need is for college educators at all levels to become more directly involved in the political process here. For too long, the neoconservatives have advanced their agenda here in Oklahoma with little dissent or even tacit approval from some in higher education. Now the state has become a junkyard for dead, conservative ideologies. Do you think the gun bill is bad? Do you think the neoconservatives will stop here? What type of legislation will they come up with next year and the year after that? It is time for change. Get involved.

Oklahomans need to oppose two very bad education-related bills pending in the state Senate.

One bill, supported by the National Rifle Association and its Oklahoma affiliate, would allow college students to carry concealed weapons in classrooms. The other bill, sponsored by radical religious extremist state Rep. Sally Kern, could prevent teachers from presenting basic scientific principles and particular historical facts in high school courses.

Both bills are the product of the same radical neoconservative ideology, supported by the corporate media here, which has given our nation a botched, meaningless Iraq military occupation that will cost at least $3 trillion and an economic system that rewards the rich as it denies decent salaries and basic health care to hard-working Americans. The bills are part of the same stew of doublespeak and deception that has defined our country’s politics under the regime of Imperial President George Bush and the conservative juggernaut here in Oklahoma.

This, then, is what most Republicans and, sadly, some “Democrats” want for Oklahoma:

House Bill 2513 would allow trained students and faculty to carry concealed weapons in Oklahoma college classrooms. The bill is sponsored by state Rep. Jason Murphey, a Guthrie Republican, who argues an armed student body might prevent or reduce the magnitude of shooting episodes like the recent event at Virginia Tech University. The National Rifle Association and its affiliate, The Oklahoma Rifle Association, support the measure. All the state’s college presidents, including University of Oklahoma President David Boren, and most, if not all, of the organizations representing college faculty, oppose the bill. They oppose the bill, and rightly so, because they believe adding guns to the classroom could create more opportunities for violence and inhibit faculty and student recruitment. Will these armed students be trained to respond to a shooting incident? What if they misread events? What if they miss their intended target and kill you or your child? Who wants to teach a room full of armed students who may or may not be trigger happy? What student wants to sit next to someone who is emotionally distraught and carrying a pistol? The bill simply seems to be a basic NRA initiative to bring as many weapons as possible into the public sphere.

The bill passed the House by the amazing margin of 65-36. Yes, 65 Oklahoma adults in positions of power actually voted to turn our college classrooms into militia fortresses despite the nearly unanimous opposition to the measure by college educators. This is simply mind boggling. What does this mean in a larger sense about how we educate our students here and who controls basic classroom protocols and procedures? Should the NRA be in charge of OU or David Boren? I vote for Boren.

House Bill 2211, sponsored by the world famous Republican hero Kern, is supposedly a measure to prevent discrimination against expressing religious viewpoints at school. But the real point of the bill, which the House passed by a staggering 71-25 margin, seems to be to bring Christian fundamentalism into classrooms and especially science classrooms. Under the bill’s language, for example, a teacher could not penalize a student for expressing a religious view. What if a student refused to write a paper related to evolution theory or the scientific method? What if a student demanded to only deal with creationist ideas about the world? Would the teacher back down? What if a student challenged a teacher in the classroom and disrupted a class based on their religious beliefs? What if a student used a religious argument that was not applicable to a classroom or homework assignment? Who is to determine whether a religious argument is applicable to an assignment? A legislative committee headed by Kern herself perhaps?

It is not difficult to argue that Kern, the famous Oklahoma gay hater and religious extremist, is trying to turn our public classrooms into enclaves of Christian fundamentalism. (What rational person could see it otherwise given Kern’s religious statements in the past?) She and her fellow fundamentalist crusaders will do it one small step at a time unless she is defeated in the next election. Fortunately, Democrat Ron Marlett has announced he will run against Kern, and Marlett is sure to receive much support, but this bill is pending now. It needs to be defeated by the Senate or removed from consideration.

So far the legislative action on these two bills tells the world Oklahoma is a place in which a large portion of the leadership wants to arm its students for the classroom and prevent teachers from presenting basic scientific principles. This potential dark, backwards place will not be a good place to raise children or get an education no matter what the chamber of commerce flaks or The Daily Oklahoman editorial writers say.