What needs to happen after the education rally (Steve Lewis Capitol Updates)

Steve Lewis served as Speaker of the Oklahoma House of Representatives from 1989-1991. He currently practices law in Tulsa and represents clients at the Capitol. You can sign up on his website to receive the Capitol Updates newsletter by email.

This week put the focus on public schools — at least that was the intention of several thousand teachers and other education supporters who rallied at the Capitol Monday.  Last year’s rally did not seem to produce much in terms of results.  Education supporters should be in the effort for the long term, but I’m not sure what success would look like for the rally this year.  At the least, supporters will demonstrate that they are still around and still unhappy with the status quo.  But in a year with a shortage of funds and few substantive proposals to rally around it’s going to be hard to produce any tangible victories.

The substantial risk to having a rally year after year is that you can only call out the troops so many times.  Without positive results some get discouraged and quit the fight.  Without a good turnout the movement can lose momentum.  But, balancing the negative is the fact that a solid core of leadership gets battle hardened, tougher and smarter with each outing.  That’s what has to happen if the public school situation in Oklahoma is to turn around any time soon.     

The other thing that has to happen is that most Oklahomans have to show that they give a care.  Legislators respond to constituents.  So long as legislators feel education is a special interest of teachers and administrators they’re going to feel they’re doing what the people want with tax cuts, low teacher salaries, large class sizes, limited offerings and teachers deserting the classroom to be replaced by under qualified substitute teachers. 

A teacher and education supporter rally is a good start.  The question is whether it will be followed by business leadership interested in more than protecting their own special tax privileges and demanding more than charter schools, high stakes testing and giving failing grades to starving schools.  The education and business community together could help citizens find their voices and move Oklahoma public education to a better place.  Let’s hope the rally gets something started.