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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.
he Oklahoma Department of Human Services has not made a “good faith effort” at attracting new foster homes, bringing down worker caseloads, reducing shelter use for children older than 6, staffing the hotline and finding permanent homes for foster children, according to a report issued Wednesday by an independent oversight panel. You can read the full report here. On the OK Policy Blog, Steve Lewis discussed some recent efforts at the Capitol to look at child welfare, juvenile justice, and suicide prevention. The Oklahoma State Board of Education approved a new $3.4 million no-bid contract with New Hampshire-based testing company Measure Progress to conduct winter testing in Oklahoma schools.
Public Radio Tulsa discussed levels of participation in parent-teacher conferences at Oklahoma schools and research on whether this matters. The Tulsa World examined a new effort by ImpactTulsa to coordinate everyone working to improve Tulsa schools. We previously discussed this effort on the OK Policy Blog. The okeducationtruths blog examined the recent decision by State Regents to certify PASS standards, which Oklahoma reverted to after repealing Common Core, as college and career ready. The OK Policy Blog discussed a new report showing Oklahoma continues to lead for making the largest education cuts in the nation since the recession. Tulsa World columnist Ginnie Graham suggested that legislators ought to have their session in classrooms to see the effect their decisions have had on public schools.
Dozens of state agency directors quietly received raises averaging 18 percent during the last fiscal year, according to a report released by the Office of Management and Enterprise Services. Oklahoma’s relationship with tribal nations has warmed in recent decades with economic success, but tensions are rising over education funding and sales taxes. Tulsa World editor Wayne Greene discussed what Oklahoma is giving up by refusing federal dollars to expand health coverage. A series of public safety summits by Tulsa Mayor Dewey Bartlett’s will start by focusing on prescription drug abuse. The OK Policy Blog previously discussed why prescription drugs are Oklahoma’s biggest drug problem.
An Oklahoma County district judge was asked Friday to put a controversial abortion bill on hold pending the outcome of a legal challenge. Amid frequent earthquakes, the US Geological Survey is installing 4 seismographs around Cushing, Oklahoma. There were ten earthquakes in Cushing last week, the two largest at 4.0 and 4.3 magnitude, and one geologist said the earthquakes are a potential catastrophe at the town where up to 46 million barrels of crude oil are stored. As oil prices drop, the number of rigs exploring for oil and gas has begun to decline in Oklahoma. Oklahoman reported William Crum discussed how anyone can vote by mail in Oklahoma.
The Number of the Day is the number of new foster homes approved by the Oklahoma Department of Human Services, 27 fewer than the previous fiscal year and nowhere near their goal. In today’s Policy Note, a Miami Herald in-depth report looks at how America’s racialized view of poverty bears no resemblance to reality — the vast majority of those in poverty are white.
In The News
Report: DHS faltering in progress in foster care services
The Oklahoma Department of Human Services has not made a “good faith effort” at attracting new foster homes, bringing down worker caseloads, reducing shelter use for children older than 6, staffing the hotline and finding permanent homes for foster children, according to a report issued Wednesday by an independent oversight panel. The report is the third commentary on the improvement plan, referred to as the Pinnacle Plan. It is the agreement made to settle a federal class-action lawsuit in 2012 filed four years earlier by the nonprofit group Children’s Rights.
Read more from the Tulsa World.
Juvenile justice, child welfare, suicide get attention
Dealing with continuing social issues has been front and center at the Capitol of late. Juvenile justice, child welfare and suicide prevention received attention. The Senate Health and Human Services Committee, chaired by Sen. Brian Crain, heard a couple of interim studies dealing with juvenile justice. The first, requested by Sen. A.J. Griffin, looked into the possibility of passing legislation next year requiring courts to consider the competency of a juvenile to stand trial in a delinquency proceeding.
Read more from the OK Policy Blog.
State board OKs new vendor for winter standardized testing contract
Winter testing opportunities for about 50,000 high school students will go ahead as planned since the Oklahoma State Board of Education on Friday approved a new testing deal. The $3.4 million, no-bid contract is with a New Hampshire-based, nonprofit company called Measured Progress. In late September, the board balked at a recommendation by the state Department of Education to pay $2.8 million for winter testing to CTB McGraw-Hill — the same vendor the state fired months earlier after statewide testing disruptions occurred for the second year in a row.
Read more from the Tulsa World.
In Education, Do Parents Matter?
At John Marshall High School in Oklahoma City, only 22 percent of parents attended a parent-teacher conference in 2012-2013, state records show. In Tulsa, just 4 percent of parents at Central Junior High School made at least one parent-teacher meeting – the lowest rate in the district. At Chandler High School in east central Oklahoma, no parents attended any parent-teacher conferences, giving the school the lowest rate in the state. The small participation in parent-teacher meetings at many Oklahoma schools is evidence that more parents need to become involved in their children’s education, many educators say.
Read more from Public Radio Tulsa.
ImpactTulsa a new effort to focus on common, regional K-12 education goals
ImpactTulsa is launching with a specific end in mind: improving educational outcomes for students across the metro area. But it’s the method that sets this new initiative apart. The idea, which came from a national network called Strive Together, is to harness expertise, resources and a variety of perspectives from across an entire region to collectively set goals, work to achieve them and measure progress. ImpactTulsa already counts the leaders of 10 school districts, CareerTech, higher education, and dozens of business, philanthropic, nonprofit, civic and faith entities as lead partners.
Read more from the Tulsa World.
See also: Initiative seeks to bring together the puzzle pieces for improving Tulsa schools from the OK Policy Blog.
About the State Regents Certifying PASS
Much has happened here in Oklahoma while most of the school districts in the state have been on Fall Break the last few days. We knew last week that the State Regents would finally decide whether or not to certify PASS as College and Career Ready, but their decision had remained pretty secretive. After cross-walking PASS to ACT’s standards, the committees in place for both language arts and math determined that there was significant alignment between them. This decision befuddled our current state superintendent.
Read more from okeducationtruths.
Oklahoma continues to lead U.S. for deepest cuts to education
Last year, Oklahoma had the dubious honor of having made the deepest cuts to school funding in the nation since the start of the recession in 2008. Now an update from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities shows that our lead has widened. Adjusted for inflation, Oklahoma’s per student school formula funding has dropped 23.6 percent over the past six years, significantly more than in any other state. Oklahoma is one of 20 states that continued to cut education funding this year, even as the economy recovers, leaving per student spending $857 below pre-recession levels after inflation.
Read more from the OK Policy Blog.
Ginnie Graham: Legislature ought to have its session in classrooms, not the Capitol
I believe in running. It’s healthy, invigorating, good for the environment and a priority for me. Anyone who knows me is laughing. I dread this exercise. It’s also how I view most Oklahoma politicians right now when they say, “I support public education.” That simply can’t be true. The majority must not really feel this way. Sure, the idea is great, and it plays well with crowds. But, those of us in the crowds are wising up. For the second year, our state is No. 1 in education cuts since 2008. We spend 23 percent less than we did six years ago to educate our kids.
Read more from the Tulsa World.
Raises quietly handed out to dozens of Oklahoma agency chiefs
Dozens of state agency directors quietly received raises averaging 18 percent during the last fiscal year, according to a report released by the Office of Management and Enterprise Services. They were doled out to four dozen agency heads. The raises total $776,714. The average raise was $16,182. Gov. Mary Fallin said that while some of the raises may have merit, she is skeptical that 48 directors had to have raises immediately above the other needs at their agencies.
Read more from the Tulsa World.
Tension over education, sales tax grows between Oklahoma and tribal nations
Oklahoma’s relationship with tribal nations has warmed in recent decades with economic success, but tensions are rising over education funding and sales taxes. Originally the forced homeland to more than 200 Indian tribes, Oklahoma is now home to 39 of the country’s 567 federally recognized tribes and has the second largest Indian population. And while denied citizenship until 1924, now more than 10 percent of Oklahoma citizens are Indian. After a change in federal policy in the 1930s, tribes began rebuilding and growing their governments. It has not been easy.
Read more from the The Oklahoman.
Wayne Greene: The end of imagination, and Medicaid expansion
I think of myself as an imaginative person. One time, I looked at a 80-year-old house that didn’t even have walls where the kitchen was supposed to be and imagined a home. I cook dinner in that home every night. Another time, I got tired of being slow and fat, so I went running. I made it around the block one time, got winded and stopped, but I imagined myself doing better. I lost 80 pounds and, on Saturday I ran in my eighth marathon. But my imagination has its limitations, and I just can’t come up with any scenario where Oklahoma ends up accepting federal funding to expand its Medicaid program to cover thousands of poor people under the Affordable Care Act. That’s too bad.
Read more from the Tulsa World.
“Safer, Stronger Tulsa” Begins With Look at Prescription Drug Abuse
Mayor Dewey Bartlett’s series of public safety summits starts by focusing on prescription drug abuse. Tulsa County has the 18th most prescription overdose deaths in the U.S. Oklahoma Department of Mental Health and Substance Abuse Services Commissioner Terri White said bringing the problem to light is the first step. “Once people become aware of it, then they want to know, ‘What do we do about it?’,” White said. “So it’s what can you do in your home? What can you do if you’re part of law enforcement? What can our medical community do to address the fact that we have more prescriptions written in Oklahoma than almost any other state in the nation? And those are the plans that are being worked on today.”
Read more from the Public Radio Tulsa.
See also: Oklahoma’s biggest drug problem isn’t what you think from the OK Policy Blog.
Oklahoma County judge hears arguments in challenge to abortion law
An Oklahoma County district judge was asked Friday to put a controversial abortion bill on hold pending the outcome of a legal challenge. Oklahoma County District Judge Bill Graves, who as a lawmaker supported several and authored some anti-abortion bills, took the matter under advisement and did not issue a ruling from the bench. Dr. Larry Burns, a Norman physician who provides abortions, challenged a measure passed last legislative session. Senate Bill 1848, which takes effect Nov. 1, would require abortion facilities to have a doctor onsite who has admitting privileges at a hospital within 30 miles when the procedure is performed.
Read more from the Tulsa World.
Amid Frequent Earthquakes, USGS Installs 4 Seismographs Around Cushing
It’s not the place you’d expect to find a piece of high-tech earthquake monitoring equipment, in the storage room of the Cushing Municipal Airport, but it’s exactly where the U.S. Geological Survey put one of its NetQuake Seismographs. Cushing is the ‘Pipeline Crossroads of the World.’ “It’s kind of the Grand Central station of the big oil,” petroleum geologist Bob Jackman said. But more recently, Cushing has been making headlines for its earthquakes. “This is a potential catastrophe,” he said. There were ten earthquakes in Cushing last week, the two largest at 4.0 and 4.3 magnitude.
As Oil Prices Drop, Exploration Declines in Oklahoma
Oilfield services company Baker Hughes Incorporated says the number of rigs exploring for oil and natural gas in the U.S. declined by 12 this week to 1,918. The Houston-based firm said Friday in its weekly report that 1,590 rigs were exploring for oil and 328 for gas. A year ago there were 1,739 active rigs. Of the major oil- and gas-producing states, Texas gained two rigs, while Oklahoma’s tally decreased by seven rigs, and New Mexico was down four.
Read more from Public Radio Tulsa.
Anyone can vote by mail in Oklahoma
How easy was that? I’m done. I voted by mail. It’s simple and saves everybody time Election Day. And there’s still time to get a mail ballot for the Nov. 4 election. Registered voters can request a mail-in ballot until Oct. 29. Voting by mail gave me the chance to think through my choices at the dining room table, with nobody waiting in line behind me. Benefits to voters are apparent, but there’s more.
See also: Oklahoma’s democracy is broken from the OK Policy Blog.
Quote of the Day
“Maybe instead of the next Legislative session being held at the Capitol, it should be held at various public schools. This goes for all statewide elected officials. Perhaps lawmakers will act quicker if they sit in a room with 32 colleagues in 75-degree heat and no fan. Bring a coat for winter because boilers in those old schoolhouses are testy. Instead of an office, they have to push a cart with their supplies from room to room, as teachers did in Oklahoma City. Or have them split time at one school then go to another the second part of day. No travel reimbursement is allowed. Just like teachers, officials must give wish lists to constituents for supplies like pencils, paper and hand sanitizer. When things really get tight and janitorial service is cut, they should be ready to mop at the end of the day.”
-Tulsa World columnist Ginnie Graham, writing about Oklahoma legislators who claim to support education while make the largest cuts to school funding in the nation (Source: http://bit.ly/11WC6dX)
Number of the Day
764
The number of new foster homes approved by the Oklahoma Department of Human Services, 27 fewer than the previous fiscal year and nowhere near their goal of 1,197 new homes.
Source: Co-Neutral Commentary Three
See previous Numbers of the Day here.
Policy Note
White poverty exists, ignored
In a small office on the first floor of the Owsley County Court House, across the street from the Hometown Cafe, Johnny Logsdon, chief of the two-man police department, is talking with a reporter about life in this town of 82 people in the hills of eastern Kentucky. Logsdon keeps his answers short. He acknowledges that drug use — methamphetamine, mostly — is a problem here, but insists it’s about the same as you’d find anywhere. He is much more interested in describing the department’s policy of free motorist assistance. “If they lock themselves out of their cars, we provide a service; we unlock it for them. Away from here, they charge $60 to $100. We just do it for free as a community service.” It’s not that he is unfriendly, but there is something guarded about him, something that is constantly taking your measure. People here, he explains, have been burned before by media.
Read more from the Miami Herald.
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