Governor Mary Fallin

In her State of the State address, Governor Fallin laid out numerous areas where Oklahoma needs to invest to fix serious problems. She mentioned the shortage of troopers on the highways, the millions still owed to local governments to reimburse emergency expenses, the dilapidated state capitol and medical examiner’s office, crumbling bridges, high infant mortality, a beleaguered foster care system, and unfunded teacher health benefits.

These diverse problems have a common denominator: they are all substantially caused by inadequate funding to core public services after three straight years of budget cuts. Rather than setting a bold course for Oklahoma’s future, we are playing catch-up just to repair what we have allowed to fall apart.

In the same speech, Governor Fallin proposed a huge cut to the personal income tax. The plan is estimated to cost $350 million in the first full year. It also includes triggers to automatically cut taxes again any time the budget begins to recover.

The effect is that for the foreseeable future, tax cuts are shoved to the front of the line. It won’t matter what problems or responsibilities we face as a state. It won’t matter if our infant mortality stays high, if our water isn’t safe, if our schools are failing, if our communities are devastated by extreme weather. Whenever there is additional revenue, the number one priority will always be tax cuts.

That’s reflected in the Governor’s full budget proposal, which was also released yesterday. Going down the list of percentage changes from this year to next, we see a long string of zeroes. The budget is almost totally flat, which really means we can accomplish less due to inflation, rising health care costs, and further deterioration of infrastructure and equipment that we can’t afford to maintain.

The Governor does propose moving money around to fix some of the worst problems resulting from previous cuts. Certainly we should do this. However, since the pie is not any larger, we will inevitably defund other areas as we try to fix what’s already gone wrong.

What new problems will we hear about in next year’s State of the State address? Will we pay for teacher health benefits by defunding school buses? Will we fix our bridges and let dams break? If the Governor’s plan passes, we may never escape this vicious cycle.

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View other clips from OKPolicy’s “Watch This’ video series:

What is an IDA?

Elderly parole

Long term unemployment, 1967-2011

Packed Oklahoma prisons, rising costs

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What’s up this week at Oklahoma Policy Institute? The Weekly Wonk is dedicated to this week’s events, publications, and blog posts.

This week OK Policy explained what federal budget cuts could mean for Oklahoma.  Doug Hall of the Economic Policy Institute underscored the urgency of fixing America’s crumbling infrastructure.  Our director David Blatt spoke at a StateImpact Oklahoma forum about why proposals to reduce or eliminate the income tax would effectively raise taxes for most Oklahomans.

Also this week, we featured remarks by Maryland Governor Martin O’Malley on how health care reform improves business competitiveness.  We posted event information about the first annual Grandparenting Workshop at Oklahoma State University.

Numbers of the Day

• $107 – Average tax increase on sixty percent of Oklahoma households under a legislative proposal to eliminate a slate of broad-based tax credits and exemptions.
• 8,600 – Number of jobs lost in state and local government in Oklahoma over 2010.
• $22,007 – Annual average wage for home health aides in Oklahoma, just below the federal poverty level for a family of four in 2010, $22,050
• 11 percent – Percentage of ex-offenders released in Oklahoma who were re-incarcerated for technical violations of their probation/parole in 2004, up from 3 percent in 1999.
• $34 million – Amount needed to repair sewer lines and make major improvements to two facilities slated for closure that house medically fragile, mentally disabled Oklahoma residents.

In The Know, Policy Notes

• The Center for Economic and Policy Research shares five reasons we should be concerned about the rising share of low-wage work.
• Touchstone examines the austerity curve, or the point at which cutting government spending becomes self-defeating because it lowers growth, depresses tax revenues, and pushes up social security spending by more than the government is cutting.
• The Century Foundation shares a series of graphs that bust the myths about food stamps.
• The Kaiser Family Foundation released their annual survey of employer health benefits, with a detailed look at trends in employer-sponsored health coverage.

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Arthur Laffer

Some Oklahoma politicians have trumpeted a report by economist Arthur Laffer to claim that eliminating the state income tax will fuel an economic boom. Laffer is best known for the Laffer Curve, which he famously sketched on a napkin while meeting with Dick Cheney in a hotel bar. It went on to form the basis of the Reagan administration’s trickle-down economics.

The Laffer Curve makes an obvious point: government revenues peak at a tax rate somewhere between zero and one-hundred percent. In the lower half of the curve, raising taxes will increase revenue, but go too high and the reduced economic activity due to excessive taxation will result in lower revenue.

The argument was not original to Laffer. It had been stated previously by thinkers ranging from 14th Century Arab philosopher Ibn Khaldun to John Maynard Keynes, the founder of modern macroeconomics. What made this idea influential in recent decades was not any special insight into economics, but its powerful appeal for politicians. Rather than explaining how tax cuts (popular) would be paid for by budget cuts or increases in other taxes (unpopular), they could simply claim that the tax cuts would pay for themselves.

However, whether a tax cut will result in higher or lower revenue depends on where you are on the curve. Estimates of the revenue-maximizing tax rate differ, but defenders of tax cuts have a much stronger claim when the top marginal rate is 70 percent, as it was at the beginning of the Reagan administration, than they do when the top rate is 35 percent, as it is today.

Laffer Curve with a maximum revenue point at about a 70% tax rate, based on "How Far Are We From The Slippery Slope? The Laffer Curve Revisited" by Mathias Trabandt and Harald Uhlig.

That doesn’t stop politicians from repeating to the point of absurdity the idea that all tax cuts lead to revenue growth. In Oklahoma, the top marginal rate is only 5.25 percent, and the average family pays an effective rate of less than 3 percent. No credible economist will argue that cuts from such a low starting point can pay for themselves.

To be fair, Laffer doesn’t say this either. His report argues that increases in other tax revenues will replace just one-half of what would be lost by eliminating the personal income tax. Even that much rests on rosy predictions for the economy and the highly questionable assumption that the state income tax is the most important variable for economic success.

Most people realize the picture is more complicated. Oklahoma’s economy is vastly more affected by oil and gas prices, as well as national and global economic trends, than it is by our modest state income tax. Tax cuts won’t put more oil in the ground or protect us from a European collapse.

Laffer also conveniently leaves out the obvious point that budget cuts have a cost. The economic benefit of a modest increase in individual income would be countered by cutbacks in what we can accomplish collectively, with fewer resources to ensure good schools, well-maintained roads, and a safe and healthy community. We have already slashed budgets for three consecutive years, and the result is larger class sizes, fewer officers on the streets, and longer waiting lists for treatment of children with disabilities, to name just a few.

It comes down to this: Arthur Laffer’s work leaves out more than it includes, because his goal is never to provide an accurate economic assessment. It is to tell politicians what they want to hear. As Jay Bookman put it, “It’s like telling someone with an obesity problem that the best way to lose weight is to always eat more ice cream — more times than not, their eagerness to believe overwhelms any skepticism.”

As a result, we keep going further down the tax cut rabbit hole. At least one lawmaker has already said that eliminating the income tax should be the first step towards… more tax cuts. Where does it end?

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James W. Utterback, Ph.D. is President of Seminole State College and Chair of the Oklahoma Educational Television Authority Board. The opinions expressed herein are those of the author and do not reflect the opinions of OETA or any other group or business.

In his acceptance of the Republican Presidential nomination in 1880, James A. Garfield stated that, “Next in importance to freedom and justice is popular education, without which neither freedom nor justice can be permanently maintained.”  The Oklahoma Educational Television Authority (OETA) plays a vital role in enhancing the public education mission of our state.

As Chairman of the Board for OETA, it has been exciting to witness over 24,000 Oklahoma families step forward to donate in excess of $2 million annually to support Oklahoma’s only statewide public television network.  An additional $1.5 million is donated annually by Oklahoma foundations and corporations. In spite of such overwhelming grassroots support, a small group of Oklahoma Legislators are calling for the elimination of funding for OETA.  As an educator and a concerned citizen who cares deeply about the future of our state, I believe this action would be reckless and irresponsible.

The Oklahoma Educational Television Authority is a valuable resource that provides tremendous educational benefits to the children of Oklahoma and cultural and informational experiences for all ages.  Not only have many of our children learned their ABCs with help from Sesame Street’s Big Bird, but they also have learned values and ethics from public television children’s programming.  Similarly, students in classrooms all across our state are inspired and motivated every day about science and nature by watching NOVA.  OETA also provides Oklahomans the opportunity to experience world-renowned musical and theatrical performances through “front row” seats at Great Performances, Live from the Met and Masterpiece Theatre.  Additionally, the citizens of Oklahoma benefit from OETA providing the only statewide news network – delivering unparalleled coverage of political, cultural, and entertainment events and activities.  OETA is the only media outlet to have the capability to transmit the culture of Oklahoma all across this state.  It is also the only means of communication that can simultaneously reach virtually every Oklahoman with statewide emergency information.

Recently, OETA has extended its reach into Oklahoma communities adding diverse outreach initiatives to complement programming.  Highlights include Centennial productions, World War II and Native American story collections, and literacy initiatives.

Our public television authority is one of only 14 states that have statewide licenses to operate.  It receives less state funding per capita than all but one of these 14 networks.  Currently, only 39 percent of its funding comes from the state.  This year, citizens of Oklahoma are served with public television for less than $1.02 per capita in state funds.  By comparison, citizens of Nebraska pay $5.73 per capita for public television access.

The value of OETA in meeting Oklahoma’s educational mission cannot be overstated and is in many ways immeasurable.  As Supreme Court Chief Justice Earl Warren wrote about the now famous decision of Brown V. Board of Education of Topeka, “Today, education is perhaps the most important function of state and local government.”

What a travesty it would be to deprive the 1.8 million weekly viewers of our Oklahoma network access to the many benefits of public television simply to save roughly 0.06 percent of the state budget.  It is imperative that we all speak out to help save funding for OETA.  As the Reverend Martin Luther King once said, “The time is always right to do what is right.”

The opinions stated above are not necessarily those of OK Policy, its staff, or its board. This blog is a venue to help promote the discussion of ideas from various points of view and we invite your comments and contributions. To see our guidelines for blog submissions, click here.

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[This post has been changed slightly from the original. An earlier version questioned SoonerPoll's reliability without providing evidence to back up that claim.]

As part of the agreement to raise the federal debt ceiling, Congress will vote on a Balanced Budget Amendment this fall. Every Republican Senator has endorsed it. So have many Oklahoma state legislators.

So what’s the problem with a Balanced Budget Amendment?

#1: The BBA endorsed by Senate Republicans is not really about balancing the budget.

In fact, this amendment would make it much harder if not impossible to balance the budget, because it would require any tax increases to have a two-thirds majority in both houses of Congress.

On top of that, it says total spending cannot exceed 18 percent of GDP. To understand how radical this is, we should realize that not a single year’s budget under the George W. Bush or Reagan administrations would be constitutional under this rule. Even Rep. Paul Ryan’s budget plan, which included cuts so unpopular that they were quickly abandoned by Republicans, would have spent too much under this amendment.

There are problems with using GDP as a metric in the first place. Calculating GDP is not an exact science, and it is constantly revised, sometimes retroactively. Nor is government spending as a percentage of GDP useful as a measure of anything. The size of government fluctuates over time to reflect age demographics (older populations require more government services), an evolving economy (as health care becomes a larger part of the overall economy, the public sector will grow), and democratic will (generations of Americans have voted in the social safety net that we have today).

That brings us to…

#2: The Balanced Budget Amendment is undemocratic.

The appropriate size of government has been contentiously debated for decades, and Americans remain split on this issue. By creating supermajority requirements for tax increases and putting arbitrary limits on budget size, the Amendment attempts to make an end run around this debate in favor of a minority’s desire to shrink the public sector.

In some cases, it is important to protect minority rights against an overweening majority. That is the motivation behind the First Amendment, which protects the freedom of speech and religion even for unpopular beliefs. These and other rights are the principles we have elevated above democratic influence.

However, we should be very cautious about creating new rights. Those who want smaller government should not have the right to enforce that desire outside the normal democratic process. The BBA is just an attempt to fix the game.

Besides, when inevitable disagreements arise over how to define “balanced” or which revenue projections to use, it is unclear how any requirements will be enforced. Do we really want the courts to take over government budgeting?

#3: State-level balanced budget requirements only work because of federal help.

A common argument made by supporters of a BBA is that most states, including Oklahoma, have a balanced budget requirement, so the federal government should be able to have one too. However, states are only able to balance their budgets during bad times because the federal government does not. This chart provides a clear example:

Oklahoma avoided disastrous cuts during the recession by using federal relief from the stimulus bill (shown in yellow) to supplement state appropriations. In 2010, that federal money accounted for more than 12 percent of all state appropriations. The picture is the same nationwide – without an influx of counter-cyclical federal spending, we would have seen devastating job losses in the public sector that almost certainly would have sent the economy into a severe depression.

Even during good years, federal money makes up a significant part of the state’s budget and the overall economy of Oklahoma. The federal government spent $38.5 billion in Oklahoma last year, which works out to $10,256 for each resident. The budget has never been balanced without federal help.

The Takeaway

The fact that the proposed balanced budget amendment was written with such obvious flaws should tell us something: it was only ever a political ploy. Certainly it’s important to pay attention to our debt over the long-term, but almost no budgets are balanced year-to-year in this way. Even individual households routinely take on debt for a mortgage or auto loan. A shoddily constructed BBA allows politicians to claim credit for supporting “balanced budgets” while knowing it will never pass.

At least we should hope so, because the prospect that they believe their own rhetoric about this terrible idea is even scarier.

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• Good short summaries of the basic mechanics of the deal are provided by this White House fact sheet and by the Center for American Progress; the full bill and accompanying materials can be found here.
• In a statement by Robert Greenstein, the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities argues that “the deal places the nation on a disturbing policy course and sets what may become important precedents that are cause for serious concern.” The Center is especially worried that the deficit reduction framework set up by the agreement paves the way for cuts of “an unprecedented depth” to discretionary spending programs and makes a balanced approach that includes additional revenues an unlikely outcome.
• Lawrence Mishel, President of the Economic Policy Institute, criticizes the agreement for prioritizing deficit reduction at the expense of job creation, arguing that “the spending caps do not allow the budget to meet our nation’s basic needs for public investment, regulation and other domestic needs.” Deep spending cuts beginning in 2013 could kick in at a time when unemployment is expected to remain between 8 and 9 percent.
• While progressives are generally critical of the agreement, Talking Points Memo’s Brian Beutler points out four “silver linings”, in addition to four major problems, with the debt deal. Beutler praises the agreement for backloading the spending cuts past next year, thus giving the economic recovery more time to take hold; putting defense spending and Medicare providers on the line for automatic cuts while protecting Social Security, Medicaid, and programs for the poor if the Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction gridlocks or Congress fails to pass its recommendations; and establishing a process that could favor the expiration of the Bush tax cuts at the end of 2012.
• From the right, Ed Feulner, President of the Heritage Foundation,  strongly criticizes the agreement for relying too heavily on cuts to defense spending; leaving the door too far open to tax increases, and missing the opportunity to advance the cause of a constitutional Balanced Budget Amendment.  Meanwhile, the Cato Institute’s Michael Tanner and Bruce Edwards challenge whether the reductions in discretionary spending will end up amounting to real cuts and question whether any real entitlement reform will emerge from the work of the Joint Select Committee.
• On the Health Affairs blog, Joseph Antos looks at what the agreement might mean for Medicare and other health care programs. On the discretionary spending side, Antos warns that public health programs, the National Institutes of Health, the Agency for Health Research and Quality, and others will be under the budget axe – but not until 2013. Meanwhile, Medicare providers, whose payment rates are already being squeezed by the Affordable Care Act and other legislation, are a likely target of cuts under the second round of deficit reduction put in place by the agreement.
• In a post on the Off the Charts blog, the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities’ Nick Johnson argues that the debt limit deal will likely hit hard on state budgets.  Johnson points out that “the debt limit deal will likely lead to well over half a trillion dollars in cuts in non-security discretionary funding over the next decade”, while noting that fully one-third of non-security discretionary spending flows through state governments in the form of funding for education, health care, human services, law enforcement, infrastructure and other services. In addition, there’s a significant chance that the Joint Select Committee will propose reductions in federal funding for Medicaid – although if their proposal fails and automatic across-the-board cuts kick in instead, Medicaid will be exempted.
• A Stateline article provides a survey of state reactions to the debt agreement – most of which involve uncertainty and anxiety. According to Michigan’s budget director, “We’ve always known that big reductions were coming. Now, it’s just a matter of figuring out where they’re going to come and how quickly.”

The Joint Select Committee has only until November 23rd to issue its proposal for the next $1.2 trillion or more of deficit reduction, and Congress is required to vote on Committee recommendations by December 23rd. Chances are that come winter, we will again have high political drama in Washington to divert us from our next round of extreme Oklahoma weather.

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Anyone following the news finds daily stories of the public sector under assault.  Across the nation and in Oklahoma, cuts to state government continue into their third straight year, while in Washington, the rhetoric around budget cuts has reached a fevered pitch, much of it couched in terms of the need to downsize government to allow the private sector to thrive. We thought this an opportune time to re-post a blog entry that we first ran last summer that takes aim at the idea that cutting government jobs and spending  best serves the private sector.

Last month I gave a presentation to a meeting of the State Chamber of Commerce along with a representative from another state policy organization.  I was struck, and frankly dismayed, by the extent to which my co-presenter  spoke as if government and the private sector were opposing forces pitted against one another in a  zero-sum competition. In this view, taxes assessed on businesses and households extract dollars away from productive consumption and investment in the private sector in order to “grow government”.

It is certainly true that a vibrant private sector will always be the main engine of economic growth in a capitalist economy. Public spending can at times crowd out private investment, although, as economists like Brad DeLong argue, during times of sluggish economic growth like the present,  government spending can be vital for keeping the economy from grinding to a halt and for incentivizing private investment. But more fundamentally, this polarizing conception of “government versus the private sector” misses the important ways in which businesses, as well as families and communities, cannot thrive without a strong and effective public sector. You cannot have a vibrant, productive private sector without state and local government helping to:

• Educate our children and train our workforce;
• Police our neighborhoods, investigate crimes, and detain lawbreakers;
• Enforce patents, copyrights, torts and other foundations of the legal system;
• Coordinate the response to natural disasters and outbreaks of disease that threaten public health and safety;
• Maintain and upgrade our roads and bridges;
• Assist those unable to support themselves due to age, disability, disease, or poverty;
• Protect the quality of our air and water supplies;
• Allow consumers to know that the products they buy and the food they eat are safe;
• Support research and development.

In addition to all these functions that the public sector assumes directly, state and local governments are also a primary payer of services to private for-profit businesses and not-for-profit agencies providing a vast array of health care, social service, correctional and educational services – from nursing homes, private hospitals, and home health agencies to private prisons and educational testing companies.

The deep and prolonged state fiscal crisis is leading to a decay of public services that affects the private sector both directly and indirectly. The Oklahoman recently reported that budget cuts to the State Fire Marshall, for example, are leading to delays of up to two to five months in issuing the fire safety plans required by every new business. The reimbursement rates paid to medical service providers have been cut by the Oklahoma Health Care Authority,  the Department of Mental Health and Substance Abuse Services, and other agencies. As school districts, state agencies, counties and cities struggle to operate on reduced funding, they cut back on their purchasing and contracting with thousands of private vendors. Layoffs and furloughs of public employees, no less than private sector job losses, leads to less economic activity and slower economic growth.

The broader point is that we are all in this together. Oklahoma’s success depends on the public sector as well as the private sector, along with non-profit organizations, the faith community, local communities, and families all playing a role.  If we “shrink government” to where public school children are taught in larger classes and offered fewer programs, crimes are not investigated and prosecuted in timely fashion, infrastructure is allowed to deteriorate, and vulnerable individuals and families are not protected, the quality of life that we all count on and that is required for our security, health and economic prosperity suffers. That isn’t good for business and it isn’t good for Oklahoma.

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What’s up this week at Oklahoma Policy Institute? The Weekly Wonk is dedicated to this week’s events, publications, and blog posts.

This week at OK Policy, we reported that June General Revenue (GR) collections came in $66.2 million, or 13.0 percent, above the official certified estimate.  While revenues are on an upwards swing, they still face a steep upward climb and will have little, if any, impact on the current year budget.

Also this week, we detailed the toll of budget cuts to education on programs promoting high-quality teaching and schools.  If Oklahoma is to have any chance of improving our students’ educational performance, we need to support excellence in our teachers and administrators.  Read an interview on OK Policy’s Blog with Dr. Thomas Benediktson about the University of Tulsa’s new focus on urban education.

You can watch a preview trailer of the film Panic Nation on our blog. The film addresses Oklahoma’s HB 1804 in depth, which at the time it passed in 2007 was seen as the most restrictive state immigration law in the country:

In the Know, Policy Notes

• The Georgetown Health Policy Institute released a paper detailing Medicaid’s role in caring for children with special health needs.
• The National Employment Law Project issued a report documenting widespread hiring discrimination against the unemployed.
• Health Beat explains why raising the eligibility age for Medicare would increase the nation’s health care costs.
• Bruce Bartlett explains how we risk repeating the mistakes of 1937 that prolonged the Great Depression.
• Demos discusses how public sector job losses are hurting the economy.

Numbers of the Week

• 6 – Number of federal district courts that have upheld the Affordable Care Act as constitutional; 2 have ruled all or part of the health care reform law unconstitutional
• 7 to 15 – Percentage points by which students of Nationally Board Certified Teachers (NBCTs) outscored students of non-NBCTs on year-end tests, 2004
• 1,203 – Number of concealed carry license applications denied by the State of Oklahoma in 2010.  247 were denied because of a pending criminal case or a previous criminal conviction
• 80,000 – Oklahoma’s jobs deficit – or the difference between the number of jobs Oklahoma has and the number it needs to get back to pre-recession levels
• 54 percent – Percentage of Oklahomans who do not think crime is a problem in their community, 2010

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The decision to eliminate funding for these programs must be viewed within the state Department of Education’s budget context. This year the Legislature cut appropriations to the Department of Education by $108 million, or 4.5 percent, compared to FY ’11. Within the total Common Education budget, the Legislature allocates a set amount for “the support of public school activities”, which encompasses the costs of the flexible benefit allowance for teachers and support staff, the teachers retirement credit, and all the educational programs that are funded outside the state aid formula. The FY ’12 allocation of $401.2 million is $18.7 million less than that of FY ’11 and $57.4 million, or 12.5 percent, less than FY ’10.  For the second straight year, the Legislature chose not to provide line-item allocations within the Activities Budget, leaving it in the hands of Superintendent Janet Barresi and the Board of Education to manage the shortfall.

To help bring the Activities Budget into balance, Superintendent Barresi made the controversial decision to fund employees’ flexible benefits allowance only through the end of the upcoming fiscal year (June 30th), rather than through the end of the upcoming contract year (August 30th), as has traditionally been done. Even with this move, which freed up $33.7 million, the Department could not maintain funding for all its existing programs and activities. As a result, it trimmed funding for some activities and eliminated funding entirely for several others, including annual stipends for National Board Certified Teachers, at-risk school programs and evaluation, and adult education (see this breakdown of funding decisions for FY ’10 – FY ’12).

Among the programs worst hit in the FY ’12 budget are those that provide training and resources to teachers and schools. The Department zeroed out six programs that had been funded in FY ’11 for a total amount of $7.7 million. Among these are  three programs that provide intensive instruction and support to school staff and leadership of schools based on nationally-tested and proven models:

• Literacy First, also known as the Professional Development Institute (PDI), is a comprehensive three-year program aimed at improving reading achievement by training teachers in the Literacy First reading instruction process and developing schoolwide leadership teams. Participating schools go through a multi-stage process that begins with teachers participating in eight days of reading professional development and culminates in Phase IV schools having access to an on-site reading consultant. Evaluations of the program have shown Literacy First Grant schools outperform the state average on reading API scores by a considerable margin. For the principal of a Tulsa elementary school that went from being the district’s worst performing school to the 2010-11 National Title I Distinguished School, Literacy First “was the core of improvement for us”.  The program, administered by the Oklahoma Commission for Teacher Preparation, received $3.0 million in state funding in FY ’11.
• Great Expectations is a professional development program that provides teachers and administrators the skills and knowledge needed to improve academic achievement, school climate, attendance, and parent involvement. The program begins with a week-long summer training institute for some 3,000 teachers focused on the program’s eight core tenets and 17 classroom practices, with follow-up training over the year. At later stages, selected schools receive three-year scholarships that bring master teachers to the school to serve as mentors over the course of a week. Evaluation of the program has found that students in Great Expectations classrooms perform better across a wide range of academic, behavioral, and attitudinal benchmarks. GE, which is run by a non-profit organization, received $1.1 million in state funding in FY ’11.
• A+ Schools is a statewide network of 68 schools that provides intensive and ongoing training guided by a mission of  “nurturing creativity in every learner.” Each summer the staff of ten or so selected schools participate in a week-long training in the eight core principles of the A+ model; key staff from each school then participate in mini-institutes during the year and the schools receive on-site professional development visits during the year. The program’s five-year research report found “higher student achievement, better attendance of students and teachers, decreased discipline problems, stronger parent and community involvement, and a more creative and joyful school climate.” The program, operated out of the University of Central Oklahoma, received annual state funding of $663,000.

Common to all three programs is a commitment to getting a school’s teachers and administrators working together to improve teacher skills, student achievement, and school effectiveness. The programs are all research-based with proven results. They all provide intensive front-end training with opportunities for ongoing assistance and mentorship. In short, they are precisely the kinds of programs we should be supporting if we are serious about improving our education system.

The future of the staff development programs is uncertain. Leaders of Great Expectations and A+ Schools who I spoke with  indicated they would scale back their programs this year while seeking greater financial support from philanthropies and private donors and working to get the Legislature to restore funding next year. For Literacy First, the Oklahoma Commission for Teacher Preparation (OCTP) indicated that no new Phase IV schools would be added this year; the Commission will request that funding be restored in FY ’13 and and be appropriated directly to OCTP.

In the professional development budget, the Department was able to restore $6.3 million for Reading Sufficiency, the summer reading academies for third grade students determined not to be reading at grade level.  With a new state law ending social promotion for third graders not at grade level in reading, this program assumes special urgency. Ironically, or sadly, one of the qualifications to teach in a summer reading academy is completion of Literacy First training – the program that has now been defunded.

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