The debate over SB 834, the bill that would lift various mandates currently binding on public schools and make it easier to terminate teachers, has been one of the most contentious this legislative session.The bill passed both the House and Senate on virtually straight party lines, and is awaiting action by the Governor. (Update: Governor Henry vetoed the bill on May 8th)

The bill has deeply divided the state’s education coalition, with school boards and administrators strongly supportive and teachers vigorously opposed. We have good friends on both sides, so we decided to ask two of our friends – Cathy Burden, Superintendent of Union Public Schools, and Elaine Hobson, President of the Oklahoma Speech and Hearing Association – to make the case for and against SB 834. Here are their submissions.

Read the rest of this entry »

As most observers of Oklahoma legislative politics know, in cases when only a handful of Democrats support controversial bills being promoted by the Republican majority, it’s usually the more conservative members of the caucus representing rural districts who buck party lines. But on SB 1111, a bill authored by Sen. Clark Jolley that moves various education reporting and accountability functions from the State Department of Education to the Office of Accountability based with the Regents for Higher Education, it was four mostly liberal Democrats (Anastasia Pittman, Rebecca Hamilton, Seneca Scott, and Jabar Shumate), representing some of the lowest-income urban districts in the state, who joined with 54 of 59 Republicans to pass the bill in the House and send it to Governor Brad Henry. Two of the Democrats supporting SB 1111 in the House (Pittman and Shumate), along with one of the two Democratic supporters of the measure in the Senate (Judy Eason-McIntyre), are among the five African-American Democrats in the Legislature (the other two African-American Democratic legislators, Rep. Mike Shelton and Sen. Connie Johnson, opposed the measure). Read the rest of this entry »