OKPOLICY.ORG
A group of education leaders and others from across the state are organizing an effort to improve Oklahoma’s schools under the name Advance Oklahoma’s Kids. They are gathering input through a short online survey, community forums, and listening sessions to develop a policy agenda they’re calling Better Outcomes for Oklahoma’s Schools, or BOOK, that harkens back to the 1990 education reform package known as House Bill 1017. They hope to come up with 10 to 15 education reform proposals.
Education reform is a tough challenge, even more so today than in 1990 when HB 1017 was passed. In the mid-eighties, banks had lent money based on high oil prices. When oil prices dropped and the banks failed, many Oklahomans, from the economically elite down, were in danger of losing everything, and some did.
The hard times unleashed considerable creative activity in both the private and public sectors in hopes of sparking an Oklahoma recovery. Improving public education became the centerpiece in the effort. Republican Gov. Henry Bellmon who, a quarter century earlier during his first term as governor, had vetoed a teacher pay raise, called a special session of the legislature to increase funding for education.
In his memoir Bellmon explained he had attended a Republican teacher organization meeting and, expecting to be warmly received, he “never encountered a more hostile group.” The teachers “were furious at their low level of compensation, shortage of funds for textbooks and supplies, and at the lack of significant progress in education funding throughout their careers.”
After that, the governor brought up the idea of a special session with his cabinet and to his surprise found almost immediate and unanimous support.
After nine months of debate, the legislature passed HB 1017, which looked nothing like Bellmon’s original proposal that had received only one vote on the House floor and never reached the State Senate. The voters and the legislature were relatively evenly split between those who thought the problem was inadequate funding, resulting in low teacher pay, high class sizes and other maladies, and those who thought ideas like charter schools, ending teacher tenure, cutting administrative costs, and school consolidation were the answer.
While the same issues are still around, today’s world is different. The economically elite are doing just fine, thank you. Others, not so much. There’s a surplus of cash in state coffers. The issue is priorities: Whether the priority is public education or income tax cuts, or can we do both-or neither? Today’s education issues seem to be mostly ideological, re-litigating issues once thought to be either settled or non-issues.
School reform is always going to be hard, accomplished with a narrow majority. Today’s change proponents are going to have to both develop a consensus that there is a crisis, then convince a slim majority of the solution. To make it happen:
- People on the education front lines…teachers, principals, superintendents, school board members, parents, advocates, must take the lead and refuse to tolerate the status quo.
- Business and civic leaders must recognize the crisis in Oklahoma schools and be unselfish enough to spend energy, time and money to help develop solutions.
- The governor, legislative leaders and legislators must be willing to respond by taking risks and doing the work necessary to develop solutions and enact them.
It’s a tall order. No doubt the Advance Oklahoma Kids organizers understand the magnitude of the challenge.
