Recent Articles

Health care spending slowdown warrants sigh of relief

This post was written by OK Policy volunteer Zoraya Hightower. Zoraya completed her undergraduate degree at the University of Tulsa and this fall will begin a Master of Environmental Management at Yale. America spends more than any other nation on… Read more [More...]

Oklahoma’s education policy is on the right track (Guest Post: John Thompson)

John Thompson is a former Oklahoma historian and inner city teacher who is now an education writer focusing on inner city schools. The accountability-driven school “reform” movement argues that schools are so broken that the only answer is rapid and… Read more [More...]

Lesson from Louisiana: Don’t Forget the Renters (Guest Blog: Elizabeth Fussell)

Elizabeth Fussell is a professor in the Sociology Department of Washington State University and a member of the Scholars Strategy Network. Her research focuses on migration and population change in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina. On May 20, 2013, a… Read more [More...]

Why Public Funding for the Arts Matters (Guest Post: Ken Busby)

Ken Busby is the Executive Director and Chief Executive Officer of the Arts & Humanities Council of Tulsa.  This post originally appeared on ArtsBlog, the blog of Americans for the Arts, and is reposted with the author’s permission We’ve just… Read more [More...]

The Oklahoma Standard (Guest Post: Cindy Cason)

Cindy Cason is a native Oklahoman who helped launch the Together Oklahoma statewide grassroots coalition, working to ensure Oklahoma values are connected to state budget priorities.   Last week at Norman’s Jazz Aid Concert to benefit tornado recovery efforts, a young… Read more [More...]

How the VA became a leader in American health care (Guest Blog: Colin D. Moore)

Colin D. Moore is Assistant Professor of Political Science, University of Hawai’i at Manoa, and a member of the Scholars Strategy Network (SSN).  His research examines how the development of public bureaucracies has shaped politics and public policy in the… Read more [More...]

Social impact bonds could fund smart on crime reforms (Guest Post: John Pearson)

John Pearson is a retired executive in the worldwide logistics industry. He is chairman of the Oklahoma Partnership  for Successful Reentry, a statewide coalition of organizations working to help ex-felons reintegrate into society. Social Impact bonds (SIB) are a promising… Read more [More...]

Critical nursing care staffing shortages must be addressed (Guest Post: Fred Benjamin)

Fred Benjamin serves as the Chief Operating Officer of Medicalodges, Inc., an employee-owned company that owns and operates over 30 facilities in Kansas, Missouri and Oklahoma, employing over 2,200. This post is adapted from his testimony before the US House… Read more [More...]

New report examines 30 years of education reform efforts in Oklahoma (Guest Post: Kathy McKean)

Kathy McKean is the director of the Oklahoma Technical Assistance Center, which provides evaluation and professional development to Oklahoma schools. The drive to improve education that began with the publication of A Nation at Risk in 1983 has continued for… Read more [More...]

We still don’t know how much SQ 766 will cost (Guest Blog: Michelle Cantrell)

Michelle Cantrell is a tax specialist residing in Tulsa.  Last November, Oklahoma voters approved State Question 766, a constitutional amendment which exempts all intangible personal property from ad valorem taxation. Though the new law seems simple, it creates complex questions… Read more [More...]