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What’s up this week at Oklahoma Policy Institute? The Weekly Wonk shares our most recent publications and other resources to help you stay informed about Oklahoma. Numbers of the Day and Policy Notes are from our daily news briefing, In The Know. Click here to subscribe to In The Know.
This Week from OK Policy
Policy Matters: Our children are paying for grown-up power plays: Going back to school always brings both nerves and excitement: new teachers, different classmates, and high hopes. But this year in Oklahoma, students face a greater threat: schools, teachers, and classrooms shaken by the political ambitions and reckless decisions of our state’s school superintendent. [Shiloh Kantz / The Journal Record]
Oklahoma’s booms, busts, and tax cut déjà vu (Capitol Update): I’m wondering if the tax cutting is going to continue. I hope our state leaders are paying attention to Oklahoma history. The tax cuts and revenue surpluses in recent years remind me of the leadup to the Oil Bust of the 1980s. [Steve Lewis / Capitol Update]
OK Policy in the News
Leaders reflect on state revenue one year after grocery sales tax cut: A year after Oklahoma dropped its sales tax on groceries, Republican and Democratic leaders agreed Friday that the cut helped everyday Oklahomans, but some called for keeping a watchful eye on state revenue and for caution going forward to guard against threats in funding for vital services. OK Policy’s fiscal policy analyst questioned how much of a difference the grocery sales tax cut has really made to Oklahomans. She said savings might add up to just a couple of dollars a week for many with modest incomes and that the small gain would be outweighed by their potential loss of state services. [Tulsa World]
CoreCivic Advertises Jobs at Vacant Prisons in Watonga and Sayre: As federal spending on immigrant enforcement and detention soars, a private prison company is advertising detention officer positions at vacant prisons in Watonga and Sayre. [Oklahoma Watch]
- From OK Policy: Oklahoma shouldn’t allow private prisons to reopen as immigration detention centers. Here are 6 reasons why.
Report updates progress of criminal justice reform measures: A new report claims that judicial reform enacted by state voters in 2016 has saved more than $200 million in diverted correctional costs but that more needs to be done to get more counties to participate in mental health and substance abuse treatment. [Tulsa World]
Oklahoma lawmakers consider adding state oversight for homeless shelters: The Oklahoma lawmakers behind a controversial bill to restrict the locations of homeless shelters are now pushing for more state oversight. [The Frontier]
Weekly What’s That
Emergency certification is a process for Oklahoma school districts to fill a position when there is no candidate available who meets the state’s certification requirements. To be approved for emergency certification, a district must go through an application process proving that exhaustive efforts to fill the position with a certified teacher have been unsuccessful. All applications must be approved by the State Department of Education. The certificates allow individuals to be employed as teachers for up to two years before they complete the education or training requirements for regular or alternative certification.
The State Department of Education issued just 32 emergency certifications in 2011-21; by 2018-19, that number had soared to over 3,000 as the state struggled to recruit and retain qualified teachers. New records in the number of emergency certifications continue to be set year after year, with the number reaching 4,676 for 2023-24.
Look up more key terms to understand Oklahoma politics and government here.
Quote of the Week
“If anyone wants to stop talking about inflation and do something about it, they should roll up their sleeves and help administer the Summer EBT Program.”
– Cherokee Nation Principal Chief Chuck Hoskin Jr., speaking about summer food assistance administered through the Tribes, including the Cherokee Nation, and how they have improved food security among participants. [KOSU]
Op-Ed of the Week
Opinion: In just 10 years, Oklahoma’s reading, math scores fell to be the worst in the US
At the very time we need to repair and strengthen public education, the governor, the former speaker of the House and the state schools superintendent were so focused on vouchers, tax credits and tax cuts — a total distraction from improving education outcomes. It took time, resources and attention away from the real need.
Under the previous speaker, political fights dominated education policy, but we did vote on things like Inspired to Teach, Redbud Fund, AP course requirements, science of reading and the new graduation requirements. But the Legislature neglected institutional investment and allowed national ideological battles to overshadow Oklahoma’s own urgent needs.
Our Legislature, governor, superintendent and Oklahoma State Board of Education must all be focused on outcomes, and the political games must stop. People talk about the Mississippi Miracle. We passed a lot of the reforms that they did. However, in Mississippi, leaders worked together to see this vision through. We need to start listening to those who have the education knowledge needed to move forward.
Our focus right now needs to be on education and how we are going to fix this mess that we have gotten into — and the lack of leadership from the Oklahoma State Department of Education. The system didn’t fall to the bottom overnight. It happened because of choices, including years of legislative meddling, budget cuts and political distractions that hollowed out our teacher force.
[Read the full op-ed from Former Representative Mark McBride / The Oklahoman]
Numbers of the Week
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$202.3 million – The state of Oklahoma has saved about $202.3 million in savings as the result of reduced incarceration from 2018 to 2025. SQ 780, approved by voters in 2016, reclassified certain low-level drug and property offenses from felonies to misdemeanors, reducing the number of individuals eligible for lengthy prison sentences. Annual savings are to be invested into community-level treatment programs through the Community Safety Fund. [OK Policy analysis]
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50% – The share of likely undocumented immigrant adults who were uninsured in 2023 — compared to just 6% of naturalized citizens and 8% of U.S.-born citizens. Noncitizen immigrants face significantly higher uninsured rates due to limited access to employer-sponsored insurance, exclusion from many public programs like Medicaid and CHIP, and numerous enrollment barriers including fear, language access, and confusion over eligibility. [KFF]
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77% – The percent decline in youth confinement from 1995 to 2023, reflecting a drop in overall youth arrests, but not a more equitable system. By 2022, youth referred to court still faced nearly identical odds of confinement as in 2005. Minor offenses often led to detention, with racial disparities unchanged. [Annie E. Casey Foundation]
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$990 billion – The amount the federal government is projected to cut from Medicaid and CHIP over the next decade under a law enacted in 2025, according to Congressional Budget Office estimates. Only a small fraction of these cuts — about 2.5% — relate to fraud, waste, or abuse, while most will shift significant costs to states, adding to financial pressures alongside other mandated program changes. [Congressional Budget Office]
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16th – Oklahoma’s rank out of all 50 states for having one of the most regressive tax systems. A regressive tax system means low-income Oklahomans pay a larger share of their income in taxes than the wealthy. [Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy]
What We’re Reading
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We Can’t Afford It: Mass Incarceration and the Family Tax: For too long, the economic impact of America’s high incarceration rate has been framed in terms of the $89 billion taxpayers spend on jails and prisons. But the true cost is far greater and falls most heavily on families already struggling to make ends meet. New research from FWD.us shows that incarceration costs families nearly $350 billion each year, primarily in lost wages and increased out-of-pocket spending. [FWD.us]
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The Health Costs to Children of Stepped-Up U.S. Immigration Enforcement: Heightened immigration enforcement — including mass arrests, worksite raids, and expanded presence — creates a pervasive climate of fear among unauthorized immigrants and mixed-status households, causing many to delay or avoid vital health care. Children born in the U.S., whose undocumented parents fear deportation, face rising risks of both physical and mental health harms. [Migration Policy Institute]
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Why Are We Backsliding on Juvenile Justice?: Over the past few decades, juvenile justice reforms focused on rehabilitation and evidence-based approaches led to major declines in youth incarceration and crime. But recent shifts—fueled by fear-based narratives and political pressure—are reversing those gains, with states increasingly returning to punitive policies that are less effective and more harmful to youth. This backslide threatens to undo years of progress in creating a more just and data-driven juvenile justice system. [Governing]
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Medicaid, CHIP, and Affordable Care Act Marketplace Cuts and Other Health Provisions in the Budget Reconciliation Law, Explained: The “Big Beautiful Bill” makes sweeping cuts to Medicaid, CHIP, and Affordable Care Act marketplace subsidies, fundamentally reshaping U.S. health coverage. New work and eligibility verification requirements, limits on how states can fund their share of Medicaid, and federal caps on spending will shift costs to states and restrict access to care. These changes are expected to drive up uninsured rates, strain state health systems, and increase financial and health insecurity for low-income families.[Georgetown Center for Children and Families]
- How anti-worker policies, crony capitalism, and privatization keep the South locked out of shared prosperity: Longstanding anti-worker policies — such as state-level preemption that blocks local wage increases, right-to-work laws, and bans on public-sector unionizing — are deliberately designed to suppress wages and entrench racial and economic inequality across the South. This strategic disinvestment in public goods and services, alongside crony capitalism and privatization, perpetuates economic precarity, limits worker power, and reinforces the racial hierarchy established after slavery. [Economic Policy Institute]
