Quotes of the Day

“The traditional American high school is based on the premise that 15 percent of kids need extra help, 15 percent need remediation and 70 percent will do fine if you give them a good teacher. In high-needs schools, it’s like 95 percent need the additional support. We concentrate our neediest kids in a subset of schools that weren’t designed for that level of need.”

– Robert Balfanz, a research professor at the Johns Hopkins University School of Education, who helped to develop a program that has increased graduation rates at a Tulsa high school from 53 percent of seniors in 2013 to 75 percent of seniors in 2016 (Source)

“We send them into school, and we trust these other adults have been trained to deal with these problems … and they do these outrageous things and we don’t know.”

– Jennifer Ashford, a mother who in 2010 sued the Edmond Public Schools district over their practice of shutting students alone in small closet-like rooms to control their behavior (Source)

“Any loss of service in rural Oklahoma will likely be lost forever.”

–  Nico Gomez, Oklahoma Association of Health Care Providers President and former Oklahoma Health Care Authority CEO, following Friday’s OHCA board vote approving rate cuts to SoonerCare providers and nursing homes (Source)

“Sometimes change is hard to accept, especially here in Oklahoma. Change is a positive thing. It’s good for Oklahoma. We cannot stay the same as in the late ‘40s or ‘50s. We have a new community now, and we need to learn how to accept that community. By learning about each other, I think it will make it easier for the immigrant community and the nonimmigrant community as well.”

– Francisco Trevino, president of the Tulsa Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, reacting to a study showing that Tulsa’s growing immigrant population is responsible for significant economic gains (Source)

“There is simply no way for Congress in 2017 to anticipate what the fiscal and economic circumstances will be over the next decade and to design a trigger that will work as intended at some point off in the future. Senator Lankford should hold firm to his insistence that the tax bill not increase the deficit and not settle for a defective substitute.”

– OK Policy Executive Director David Blatt, urging Senator James Lankford to oppose the GOP’s federal tax cut proposal. Lankford indicated he would support the bill if it included a trigger to raise taxes if revenue falls sharply (Source)

“It sounds like a lot of money because it is a lot of money. The days of bailing wire and pliers are over. We have to fund this agency properly. This budget represents exactly what our needs are.”

– Oklahoma Department of Corrections Director Joe Allbaugh, after the state Board of Corrections voted to submit a budget request of $1.5 billion, roughly triple its current state appropriation (Source)

“I understand why 640 was passed, and I appreciate why it was passed. I would like to see the threshold lowered a little. Something a little more reasonable because obviously not another tax increase has ever been passed by this body since then.”

– Sen. Kim David (R-Porter), explaining the need to reconsider State Question 640, which requires a three-quarters majority in both legislative chambers or a vote of the people to approve revenue-raising measures (Source)

“We have the opportunity to do a whole lot better than we did last time, but at the same time, I don’t think there’s going to be some magical ah-ha moment. It may, for some of them, very well dig them in deeper. I think those 32 are holding up what I believe the people who elected me sent me here to fix.”

– Sen. Greg McCortney (R-Ada) expressing skepticism that another budget special session will yield different results than the budget bill that Gov. Fallin vetoed at the end of the recently-ended special session (Source)

“I didn’t ask to get old. … I was really hurt and disappointed because they seemed to fool around so much on the budget and they left us to the last.”

– Bob Hooker, a resident at Village at Oakwood Assisted Living Center in Oklahoma City, which receives most of its funding from the Department of Human Services. The facility’s funding was threatened by the budget shortfall (Source)

“Fallin accepted part of the budget, sparing the state’s most vulnerable citizens from threats of horrific service cuts, but the veto certainly means lawmakers will have to return to the Capitol to address the state’s unmet needs: long-term funding solutions to chronic budget holes and teacher pay raises to end the exodus of Oklahoma’s education talent. We hope lawmakers got the message: Fallin won’t waver on core concerns. But she needs the public’s help.”

– The Tulsa World Editorial Board, urging Oklahomans to call their representatives and demand a better budget in the second special session (Source)