There’s still no free lunch: Impact of massive tax cuts in Kansas offers a warning to Oklahoma

As Oklahoma considers tax cuts similar to those that took effect in Kansas last year, a new report shows that following in Kansas’s footsteps is a bad idea.  Kansas’s massive tax cuts have failed to improve the state’s economic performance,… Read more [More...]

Priority for Oklahoma: Restore Education Funding

As part of the Together Oklahoma coalition, OK Policy has developed four top priority issues for this year’s Legislative session. These priorities have been identified as practical, politically achievable steps to move us toward lasting, broad-based prosperity. One of these… Read more [More...]

Revising the third-grade reading retention law

In 2011, the Oklahoma legislature approved major amendments to the Reading Sufficiency Act, a law originally enacted in 1997 to improve Oklahoma children’s reading skills. As of this year, the law requires third-grade students who score “unsatisfactory” on a state… Read more [More...]

Rip-off U (Guest Post: Camille Landry)

Camille Landry is a writer, activist, and social justice advocate who lives in Oklahoma City.  This post is part of our “Neglected Oklahoma” series, which tells the stories of Oklahomans in situations where the basic necessities of life are hard… Read more [More...]

The Governor’s Budget In-Depth: Budget cuts plus tax cuts don’t add up

With state agencies and schools still struggling to climb out  of deep budget holes from the last recession, Governor Mary Fallin’s FY 2015 Executive Budget proposes even deeper cuts that could seriously harm our families and our economy. With initial… Read more [More...]

The Legislature returns to work today. Here’s what should be top on the agenda.

Political debates often divide us between Republicans and Democrats, between conservatives, progressives, and libertarians. Winner-take-all political campaigns tend to emphasize those divides. But when we envision what a good future looks like for our state, Oklahomans aren’t that far apart.… Read more [More...]

Tower of Debt (Guest Post: Camille Landry)

Camille Landry is a writer, activist, and social justice advocate who lives in Oklahoma City.  This post is part of our “Neglected Oklahoma” series, which tells the stories of Oklahomans in situations where the basic necessities of life are hard… Read more [More...]

Feed our starving educational system, Oklahoma (Guest Post: Bailey Perkins)

Bailey Perkins is an OK Policy Research Fellow and a second year Master of Public Administration student at the University of Oklahoma. She serves on the board of directors for the Oklahoma Institute for Child Advocacy as the advocacy chairman… Read more [More...]

Action Items for Education: Focus on English Language Learners

What passes for an education policy debate in Oklahoma spends a lot of time on a few familiar subjects — education funding vs. tax cuts, vouchers and charters vs. traditional public schools, high-stakes testing vs. teacher and school independence. What’s… Read more [More...]

How Oklahoma’s A-F grading system discriminates against high-poverty schools — and how to fix it

The debate over Oklahoma’s A-F grading system has in large part centered on a debate over the effects of poverty on student performance. Whatever you think about how much we can expect schools to overcome the effects of poverty, one… Read more [More...]