Oklahoma being an anti-teacher state is well documented.
Oklahoma cut education funding by nearly 23 percent from 2008 to 2014, the most of any state. Teacher salaries here are some of the lowest in the nation. Now Oklahoma faces a major teaching shortage.
The state also just weathered the turbulent four-year term of Janet Barresi, the former state Schools Superintendent who divided and conquered, and then, fortunately, lost by a landslide in a Republican primary in November. The new superintendent, seemingly the less contentious Joy Hofmeister, has actually announced a plan to raise teacher salaries, but the state faces a whopping $611 million budget shortfall, and it might even get larger. Where’s the money for the raise going to come from?
It’s an understatement to argue there’s a public school education funding crisis here, yet some lawmakers seem focused on keeping quiet whatever small voice educators have here in trying to rectify the situation, and it’s petty, mean, ideological and typical of our current Republican-dominated legislature. Teachers are not our enemies. They’re our hope in this place.
House Bill 1749, sponsored by state Rep. Tom Newell, a Seminole Republican, would prohibit the state from taking out payroll deductions for union dues in teachers’ checks. The bill has passed the House 59-39 and will be considered by the Senate, where it seems likely to pass out of the General Government Committee.