Congress must pass the Dream Act to protect young Oklahomans and our economy

Visit the Dream Act Toolkit website and urge your legislators to pass the Dream Act. President Trump recently announced his plan to end the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program by the start of next March. DACA, created by executive… Read more [More...]

Millions of dollars in court debt hang over residents of Oklahoma’s poorest neighborhoods

Earlier this year, we released a report detailing the growth of fees attached to criminal court cases in Oklahoma. We found that as legislators attempt to prop up falling state revenues, fees have risen for every type of crime. When… Read more [More...]

Lawmakers must confront racial disparities head-on as they reform the justice system

The need for criminal justice reform is well illustrated by outrageous top-level statistics showing Oklahoma’s imprisonment rate among the highest in the nation (about 700 in prison per 100,000 residents), and a need to bring down spending on corrections (nearly half… Read more [More...]

America’s racial wealth gap was 397 years in the making; we shouldn’t take that long to close it

Chattel slavery of African-Americans lasted for 246 years, from when the first slaves were brought to Virginia in 1619 to when it was finally abolished in 1865. Another 99 years passed until the 1964 Civil Rights Act ended Jim Crow… Read more [More...]

Why the wealth of college-educated minorities is especially vulnerable (Guest post: Ryan Gentzler)

Ryan Gentzler is a Research Associate at the Early Childhood Education Institute at OU-Tulsa and a former OK Policy Research Fellow. The Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis recently issued a report that highlighted the effect of higher education on… Read more [More...]

Oklahoma has a tragic history when it comes to Indian education. Here’s how we’re turning it around.

Bah-He-Toya-Mah is an OK Policy summer intern. She has a political science degree from Oklahoma City University and is completing postgraduate studies at the University of Minnesota-Duluth, Tribal Administration and Governance program. Prior to OK Policy she worked at her… Read more [More...]

What this panhandle county tells us about the future of Oklahoma

Chan Aaron is an OK Policy summer intern. He is pursuing an environmental policy degree at The University of Tulsa. He is also a graduate of Oklahoma State University with a degree in philosophy and a veteran of the United… Read more [More...]

Oklahoma’s refusal of federal dollars especially hurts African-American and Hispanic families

Drew Capps interned with OK Policy this spring and recently graduated from the University of Tulsa. We’ve discussed previously, and at length, why Governor Fallin’s decision to reject federal funds to expand health coverage to low-income Oklahomans is the wrong… Read more [More...]

Don’t ban bilingual education (Guest post: Shannon Guss and Ryan Gentzler)

Shannon Guss is the Educare Project Director at the Early Childhood Education Institute (ECEI) at the University of Oklahoma  – Tulsa. Ryan Gentzler is a Research Associate at ECEI and an OK Policy Research Fellow. With two bills from 2011… Read more [More...]

Sleeping dogs of the 2015 session

The 2015 session is now underway and it’s clear that this year, as always, will feature heated debates on a multitude of contentious issues, from proposals to expand school choice through vouchers and charter schools to efforts to rein in… Read more [More...]