State Question 744

Is OU football coach Bob Stoops in denial?

In a Wednesday column, Tulsa World sports columnist Dave Sittler wrote, “ . . . someone close to Oklahoma's coach must convince him he's in denial about his team's road problem.”

After OU’s loss to Texas A&M Saturday, the Sooner nation is sure to demand Stoops stop avoiding the issue. Does anyone doubt that?

Ultimately, though, it’s just a game, even if football is sacrosanct here on the prairie. But a greater denial among state residents, especially among many of its political leaders, is far more serious. It’s the denial that Oklahoma doesn’t have a serious problem when it comes to funding education. The state is last in a seven-state region and 49th in the nation in per-pupil spending.

State Question 744, which would have raised K-12 education funding to the regional average, was defeated by a landslide vote last Tuesday. So now the state has the distinction of voting down “average” funding for its schools by a rounded 81-19 percent margin. There’s a long, decades-old story behind those numbers. It’s hard to imagine a more anti-education statement or a more stark reflection of avoidance.

When state voters were given a chance to increase funding for schools, it wasn’t even close: We don’t need average funding here. We’re just fine with 49th in the nation, thank you.

For those who supported the measure, there’s little consolation. True, there was the bad timing. The poor economy and the budget crisis put an extra burden on the measure’s supporters to explain how the increase, estimated from $850 million to $1.7 billion over a three-year period, would be met. Also, who could have guessed a year ago that Gov. Brad Henry and his wife would appear on our television screens day after day in a relentless anti-SQ 744 advertising campaign regurgitating the sophomoric “the answer is always no” slogan?

But those are minor caveats. The truth is Oklahoma voters decisively voted against education. The truth is Oklahoma schools will remain among the nation’s poorest for at least a generation if not longer. The truth is that much of the lip service from political leaders and pundits about finding ways to improve school funding outside the SQ 744 rubric is simply misleading rhetoric as a Republican-dominated government gets set to probably cut education even more if tax revenues don’t drastically improve.

Meanwhile, The Oklahoman editor Ed Kelley, in a gloating, anti-union video editorial titled “Scram!,” criticized the National Education Association for donating money to the pro-SQ 744 campaign. The post-election editorial was mean spirited and unnecessary. Kelley can’t or won’t even acknowledge the argument that at least some corporate sponsors of the anti-SQ 744 campaign were probably just protecting their recent tax cuts. Call it yet another case of denial.

In the end, the 189,127 people who did vote for SQ 744 didn’t succumb to political scare tactics and took a longer, intellectual view of education here and its importance in developing smarter, healthier citizens. If you’re one of those people who did vote for SQ 744, don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.

Tragically, though, the election now tells us we simply can’t count on a majority of Oklahomans to demand self-awareness of its political leaders when it comes to education funding. It’s bleak, but it’s the truth. There’s nothing to gain from denying it. Just ask Bob Stoops.

The premise behind State Question 744, a proposed constitutional amendment, is straightforward. If approved on Nov. 2, it would require the state fund common education at a six-state, per-pupil regional average.

It does not mandate tax increases nor does it mandate cuts at state agencies.

SQ 744 is desperately needed here because the state currently ranks 49th in the nation in per-pupil spending and is last in our regional area, which includes Texas, Arkansas, New Mexico, Kansas, Missouri and Colorado. By starving schools over the decades, Oklahoma lawmakers have created a prevailing anti-education climate in the state. It’s now part of the state’s historical narrative that Oklahoma schools are drastically underfunded, and this has real-life consequences beyond tarnishing the state’s image. SQ 744 fixes that.

SQ 744’s opponents, which include powerful corporate interests, have launched a fear-mongering campaign against the measure, running television advertisements that talk about specific tax increases and specific cuts to specific programs. That’s nonsense. Don’t buy into the scare tactics. How can anyone know what Oklahoma’s lawmakers will do with the budget in coming years? If passed, SQ 744 would simply require lawmakers to come together and work out a budget that will have to anticipate the phase-in of the new funding, which has been estimated at $850 million to $1.7 billion over a three-year period.

As I’ve written before that might mean the state will need to look carefully at its current tax exemptions for big corporations or consider different interpretations of SQ 640, a measure passed in 1992 that makes it virtually impossible to raise taxes. Remember this: In recent years, lawmakers have passed income tax cuts that have primarily benefited the state’s wealthiest citizens. Let’s be real. Does anyone think the state’s rich folks will someday suddenly stop demanding tax cuts so schools here can be adequately funded here?

Lawmakers have financially starved our public schools too much and for too long, and it’s time for a major historical correction.

The scare tactics of SQ 744’s opponents are based on what will happen if the measure passes. So let’s look at that from the other side and argue what will happen if SQ is defeated.

If SQ 744 is defeated, Oklahoma will remain known throughout the nation as an anti-education state that places corporate tax exemptions and tax cuts for wealthy people above school children.

If SQ 744 is defeated, the state’s fate is sealed for years. Without SQ 744, common education will most likely face major, debilitating cuts over the next couple of years, and those cuts will not be restored until there’s a major political shift in the state away from the right-wing, anti-public schools extremism that has come to define us. Who sees that happening anytime soon?

SQ 744’s defeat would mean crowded classrooms, more teacher layoffs, less technological equipment for students, fewer textbooks, a high dropout rate, fewer college graduates and a less qualified workforce.

If SQ 744 is defeated, the historical record will show that in 2010 many of Oklahoma’s then elite political leaders—from Gov. Brad Henry to OU President David Boren—helped to stop average school funding in a place that has tragically underfunded its schools for decades. Note the word “average.” It’s central to the debate over SQ 744. These political bigwigs, who also include OSU President Burns Hargis, both gubernatorial candidates and U.S. Sen. Tom Coburn, took a strong stance against average. We just can’t have that average funding for schoolchildren here, they argued, because it’s too expensive. I guess average is just too good for Oklahoma kids.

The question deserves to be asked before the election: What will it say about Oklahoma if state voters reject simple average funding for schools?

The Oklahoman continues to deal in rhetorical demonization and deceit in its obsessive opposition to State Question 744, a proposed constitutional measure that if passed in November would simply fund state schools at the regional average.

No one can get a fair sense of what SQ 744 is about on the newspaper’s editorial page or in its news columns. At this point, The Oklahoman has forfeited any right to be taken seriously about the issue.

A recent editorial, (“NEA investing plenty in Oklahoma school funding initiative,” August 3, 2010), criticizes the National Education Association, which has apparently donated more than $3 million to help fund the Yes on 744 campaign. The editorial engages in fear mongering and omission.

Here’s the gist from the editorial:

Is there any organization more wedded to the status quo than the NEA? It bucks reform efforts at every turn — try getting rid of a bad teacher, for example. It sees the answer to every problem as nothing a little more money couldn't solve.

Note that it’s the NEA’s fault about bad teachers and it’s all about problems “nothing a little more money couldn’t solve.” Where is the quantifiable research supporting these claims? Are bad teachers the fault of the NEA? That’s nonsense. Does the organization only care about money? That’s nonsense, too. Please, cite the evidence. The editorial doesn’t even pretend to do so.

The NEA is a 3.2 million-member organization of educators in this country. It was formed in 1857.

Here’s the NEA history:

In 1857, one hundred educators answered a national call to unite as one voice in the cause of public education. At the time, learning to read and write was a luxury for most children—and a crime for many Black children. One hundred and fifty years later, public education and the profession of teaching are transformed. In 1966 we joined forces with the American Teachers Association. Since then, our voice has swelled to 3.2 million members, and what was once a privilege for a fortunate few is now an essential right for every American child, regardless of family income or place of residence.

Since its beginning, the National Education Association has been ahead of its time, crusading for the rights of all educators and children. Learn more about NEA's rich history, from welcoming Black members four years before the Civil War and electing a woman as president a full decade before Congress granted women the right to vote, to the 1966 merger with the American Teachers Association during the height of the Civil Rights Movement.

Is The Oklahoman going to dispute this information? Why doesn’t it bring up this history of NEA as it vilifies one of the most important educational organizations in the nation?

So, really, are “welcoming Black members four years before the Civil War” and empowering women before they were even given the right to vote bad attributes under the worldview of The Oklahoman, which the Columbia Journalism Review once claimed has a blatant history of racism?

The point here is The Oklahoman won’t engage SQ 744 on its basic merits or just its basic idea. The measure would fund schools here at the regional average. Do The Oklahoman editorial writers believe regional average funding for schools here is a bad thing? Why? Should we continue to fund schools here at some of the lowest levels in the country? Why? The editorial writers will never thoroughly address these questions.

Recent studies shows Oklahoma is dead last in a seven-state region, which includes Arkansas and New Mexico, in per-pupil spending and 49th in the nation. Should we all be proud about that because, well, that awful NEA, it stands against racism and supports empowering women?

It’s only in historical character that The Oklahoman editorial writers denigrate an organization that was on the major forefront of educating African-Americans and giving women positions of authority.

So here’s the bottom line: SQ 744 is not a Republican or Democratic issue. You can be a conservative Republican and support the measure or you can consider yourself a progressive, liberal Democratic and oppose it. The Oklahoman, as it attempts to politicize the issue with its bag of clichés, has lost this one.

SQ 744 is about average funding on a regional level for the state’s school children. If voters here want that average funding, then they do. Ultimately, the issue is not about the NEA or the corporate interests, such as The Oklahoman, which oppose SQ 744. It’s about doing the right thing for Oklahoma school children.