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In The Know is a daily synopsis of Oklahoma policy-related news and blogs. Inclusion of a story does not necessarily mean endorsement by the Oklahoma Policy Institute. You can sign up here to receive In The Know by e-mail.
Today you should know that a state law requiring a drug test as a condition for receiving welfare benefits has resulted in only 29 people out of 1,300 being denied the assistance. Just 16 tested positive, with another 13 refusing to take the additional tests. On the OK Policy Blog, Camille Landry latest post in our “Neglected Oklahoma” series shares the story of a homeless vet in Oklahoma City. The leader of a group of Oklahoma corrections professionals writes in the OK Gazette that lawmakers are playing political games to send more money to private prisons.
State Superintendent Janet Barresi’s announcement that Oklahoma will go it alone on its next generation of standardized tests has left educators scratching their heads about the future, but her claims that schools are responsible for testing technology failures, not a private testing vendor whose server problems disrupted multiple days of testing, have made them furious. In an exchange on Twitter with okeducationtruths, the State Department of Education said Oklahoma may not actually be leaving the testing consortium.
Gov. Fallin is pushing to raise taxes on tribal tobacco sales to a level that could reduce or eliminate the price advantage of tribal smoke shops. Oklahoma Congressman Frank Lucas said at Town Hall meeting that conservative activist groups like the Heritage Foundation are “coming after” him because he didn’t propose cutting more from food assistance programs. He said these groups are more interested in scaring people to sell subscriptions and raise money than in dealing with the real world.
The Number of the Day is how many Oklahoma women (per 100,000) are currently incarcerated, nearly twice the national average and more than any other state. In today’s Policy Note, Wonkblog writes that the Affordable Care Act’s employer mandate to provide health care, which the Obama administration just delayed for a year, should be repealed.
In The News
State law that screens welfare applicants for drugs found only 16 out of 1,300 tested positive
A state law requiring a drug test as a condition for receiving welfare benefits has resulted in only 29 people being denied the assistance, although Oklahoma tested more than 1,000 applicants during the four-month period after the law took effect. From November 2012 through February 2013, about 1,300 people went through initial screenings, according to the state Department of Human Services (DHS). Of those, 340 received additional testing. Of the 29 denied benefits, 13 refused to take the mandatory additional tests, and 16 had children who were still eligible to receive benefits.
Read more from the Oklahoma Gazette.
Homeless vet, please help
I met him standing in the median strip at a busy Oklahoma City intersection. He was holding a sign that read “Homeless vet. Please Help. God bless.” I handed him a couple of dollars and drove away. I saw him in the same area a few days later. This time I asked him if he’d share his story. He shook his head. I gave him $5. When I ran into him outside a fast food restaurant a week later, he asked me why I wanted to talk to him. I told him I was trying to understand what it was like to be homeless so that I could share that information with other people. He said he would talk to a friend but not a social worker. “For real, you’re not a social worker? You’re not a cop?” he asked for the fifth time. “I don’t need a social worker. I don’t like cops.” We sat down. He ordered 3 burgers, fries and a malt.
Read more from the OK Policy Blog.
Playing politics with prison
This year’s legislative session ended with the usual thud for employees of the Oklahoma Department of Corrections. The only agency-requested bill approved by lawmakers authorizes the director of the agency to give the badge of an officer killed in the line of duty to his or her spouse, which tragically happened just last year. Yes, lawmakers were very generous to us this year. And now, only weeks after session adjourned, the governor has forced out our director, Justin Jones, who served the state and the DOC for 36 years. The reason: He resisted efforts to privatize the state’s prison system. Private prison corporations have deep pockets, and the governor and Republican leadership are only so willing to take their money.
Read more from the Oklahoma Gazette.
Public school leaders left wondering about future tests, mad about Barresi claims
State Superintendent Janet Barresi’s announcement that Oklahoma will go it alone on its next generation of standardized tests has left educators scratching their heads about the future, but some of her claims behind her reasoning have made them furious. Barresi claims that the vast majority of technical problems public schools across the state experienced with testing this spring were proof that Oklahoma does not yet have the capacity for the volume of online testing required for PARCC tests. But schools statewide have reported that their difficulties were with the state’s new testing vendor, CTB McGraw-Hill, not with their own technology.
Read more from the Tulsa World.
Oklahoma still part of testing consortium, not using test in 2015
Today, we have some clarification of yesterday’s announcement about PARCC. Oklahoma is not pulling all the way out of the testing consortium. We’re in, but we just won’t be using the test. Perfectly clear, right? I had noticed that the PARCC website still listed Oklahoma as a governing state in the organization, so I posed a question on Twitter. Admittedly, I was trying to be funny, but it led to a brief exchange with the SDE. Clarifications and commentaries aside, yesterday’s announcement that Oklahoma is leaving PARCC leaves a number of unanswered questions. Aside from the strictly political ramifications, I see at least five areas needing further discussion.
Read more from okeducationtruths.
Gov. Fallin pushing to raise taxes on tribal tobacco sales
Oklahoma officials are pushing to raise taxes on tribal tobacco sales to a level that could reduce or wipe out the competitive price advantage tribal smoke shops have enjoyed for decades. The effort, if successful, also could make smoking less attractive for Native Americans, who have high rates of smoking and smoking-related illnesses Gov. Mary Fallin’s office, however, said the main goal in its negotiations with tribes over of new tobacco compacts is not to improve health outcomes, but to make tobacco taxes more consistent in the state.
Read more from Oklahoma Watch.
GOP’s Lucas says conservative activist groups are ‘coming after’ him
The conservative schism that has all but paralyzed the U.S. House of Representatives and contributed to the defeat of one long-time Oklahoma Republican congressman showed itself Monday at the town hall meeting of another veteran GOP congressman who is catching heat from the right. Taking their cue from the Heritage Foundation and other conservative groups, a half-dozen or so people in a crowd of about 25 at Skiatook’s First Baptist Church urged 3rd District Rep. Frank Lucas to cut even more from the farm bill than the $40 billion he and the Agriculture Committee he leads propose. “I’m under attack by those people,” said Lucas. “They’re coming after me. They are all special interest groups that exist to sell subscriptions, to collect seminar fees and to perpetuate their goals. “You’ve got to understand: They don’t necessarily want a Republican president or a Republican Congress,” he continued. ” … They made more money when (Democrat) Nancy (Pelosi) was speaker. … It’s a business.”
Read more from the Tulsa World.
Quote of the Day
Because the wages of DOC employees are so low, we struggle to keep anyone on the job, much less recruit anyone. This is dangerous because our prisons are full and we continue to imprison Oklahomans at a higher rate than just about anywhere in the world. There were large disturbances involving dozens of inmates at three institutions in recent months. One officer caught in a melee at the Lexington Assessment and Reception Center in March admitted that the inmates beating him could have killed him if they’d so chosen. He’s thankful they didn’t, and legislators should be, too.
-Sean Wallace, executive director of Oklahoma Corrections Professionals (Source: http://bit.ly/14QiqUu)
Number of the Day
129
The number of Oklahoma women (per 100,000) that are currently incarcerated, nearly twice the national average (66) and more than any other state
Source: Bureau of Justice Statistics, 2011
See previous Numbers of the Day here.
Policy Note
Affordable Care Act’s employer mandate shouldn’t be delayed. It should be repealed.
The Affordable Care Act includes a provision penalizing employers with more than 50 full-time workers who either don’t offer health insurance or whose employees who can’t afford insurance without taxpayer help. Those penalties begin in 2014. At least, that’s what the law says. It’s a bad bit of policy. In fact, when it first emerged during the Senate’s negotiations, I called it “one of the worst ideas in recent memory.” The reasons are well summarized in this brief from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, which looks at an earlier, but structurally similar, version of the idea.
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