Unless you have been comatose for the last few days, it cannot have escaped your notice that something deep and fundamental is stirring in God’s own free country, Oklahoma.
Yes, Oklahoma, you heard that correctly and few can be more surprised than me. I have written over four hundred Diaries in this place, hundreds of thousands of words and never did I expect the good citizens of my chosen home to be the subject of many of them. Yet here we are.
Oklahoma teachers have done the unthinkable. They have Shut it Down. Indefinitely.
Before I get into the whys and wherefores I’d like to take a moment to remind everyone why we have done this. The following video is a 2016 performance of the “Pride of Owasso”, Owasso Public Schools. I chose this video because it is my District, one that I am very proud to be associated with. I could very easily have chosen similar material from any number of Oklahoma school districts within a stone-throw of here.
They used to say in my home county, and country of Yorkshire, England, that if you needed a fast-bowler for your cricket team, just go to the nearest coal mine and shout down the hole. Here it is the same. If you want a sax player, snare drummer or indeed football player, just drop into the nearest high school.
The coal mines in England are gone, and the fortunes of the cricket team with them. They are doing the same to our schools in Oklahoma. Not just for the band and sports teams, but for the lesser known but equally important disciplines of STEM, Art, Languages, Social Studies ….
Let’s watch the band:
This fight is, in part, about the salaries of our teachers and support staff. I will declare an interest. My wife is a math teacher and I am on the support staff.
More than that, because teachers the world over are about more than that, this is a fight for the very system of quality public education that this country, and this state values above almost all other services. Our students, current and future, are the future of our nation, and teachers hold that inviolable trust absolutely. If our state leaders are not prepared to fight for our children, then we, the professional staff of our public schools, are.
This action has not been taken on a whim. Oklahoma teachers have not had a pay raise in over ten years. Depending on how you run the numbers, teacher pay in Oklahoma ranks either 49th or 50th in the nation. We won't quibble if another state wants to grab 50th place, but we would encourage you to get out on the streets and fight. Meanwhile, our legislator pay is 15th in the nation, and Oklahoma is 1st (read it you other 49, and weep) in cuts to public education. I'm unconvinced that this 1st Place is worth having. The state legislature has cut the funding of common education by around 25%, about double the cuts of any other state. Meanwhile, the student rolls have increased by many thousands.
The state is hemorrhaging teacher to surrounding states where they can get starting salaries of up to $20000 more. This current year Oklahoma has had to issue around 2000 emergency certifications, and enrollment in college education courses is at an all time low. The fact is, we do not know where the next generation of teachers is coming from. They will not come from other states because doh! and we are not graduating sufficient.
I know it is fashionable to look down a bit at Oklahoma, and God knows we sometimes deserve it, but I have to tell you. We have awesome kids. They are smart, hard-working and we love them dearly. They are the equal to kids anywhere and we are letting them down.
So we have said: ENOUGH!
Oklahoma teachers made a series of modest demands:
$10000 for teachers over three years
$5000 for support staff over three years
$200 million for common education
The pay raises are less than we are worth. The extra funding for education is less than we need, but together both would represent a modest step in the right direction. The legislature knew this was coming. They not only knew teachers were unhappy, they had weeks of notice prior to the 2nd April walkout date.
They responded by doing nothing. Not a thing. Zip, zero, zilch …. right until two or three days before.
At that time they made a great show of passing education funding, well kinda, sorta.
They passed a bill giving teachers an average raise of $6000, and a raise of $1250 for support staff (be still my beating heart). They agreed additional revenue of around $150 million, which is well short of the funding required to meet the new, legally binding mandatory spending they just passed. Before the ink was dry, they cut $50 million from the revenue.
This means that they will have to cut every other state department, including the common education fund, to meet the new obligations for teacher pay.
It was hoped that teachers would now go back to work and, if they attended the Capitol on Monday the 2nd, they would do so to thank Governor Fallin. We knew this was the expectation because she said so. Well we did attend, and no one was feeling much in the way of gratitude.
It was quite clear that they tried to buy-off the teachers and split public opinion. They failed miserably and they do not know how to proceed. I could tell them, but they haven’t asked.
So the action goes into its third day tomorrow, and attitudes are hardening. We have heard state representatives make disparaging comments about teachers. We have a state Governor who today said on CBS that teachers are “behaving like a teenager who wants a better car”. This is not someone we can negotiate with. I would, however, remind her of the Stoneman Douglas teenagers who are changing their state and changing our nation … for the better. However, seeking to demean and diminish professional employees with degrees, masters degree and Phds, in this manner, is the particularly stupid response of an odious human being.
They think they can wait us out. They have made that clear not just by their attitude, but by words from their mouths. They think that they can ride out this week, and on Monday we will troop back into our classrooms and behave ourselves, lest Mary ground us.
They need to be wrong about that. If we had 30000 at the Capitol on Monday, we need 50000 there next Monday. If that doesn’t work we need 100000 the Monday following. Steel workers restoring the Capitol refused to cross picket lines today. We need to follow that example. If this is not resolved next week we need to be stronger. We also should consider encouraging other state workers (who were promised a measly $2000 raise), to join us.
If shutting down the schools is not enough, then we need to shut down the state.
A word about the politics of all of this. As an action, this has not been labeled as a Party Political endeavour, and I think most teachers would prefer it to be kept that way. That said, there are truths that are self-evident. The entirety of the obstruction in the Oklahoma Congress is coming from Republicans.
They have, over the last few years, taken a fiscally well-managed state with healthy reserves and created a $1 billion hole in the budget. They have scrapped tax on capital gains. They have cut the state income tax by around 25%. They have slashed corporate taxes, specifically the GPT on the oil and gas industry from an already paltry 7%, down to 3.2%. Employment is not increasing. There has been no boom in jobs. The state is stagnating with ever spiralling debts and little hope of new revenue. or even a return to the old revenue. None of this has “trickled down”. They can, however find another $800 million to build two new prisons because we are not quite #1 in the number of our citizens we send to jail … Getting there though. Also. Mary Fallin was a big beneficiary of campaign funding from the private corrections industry.
I am very conscious that many of my colleagues are Republican voters. Hey, it’s Oklahoma, it’s almost a birthright. What I would say to them is simple. I may disagree with your views but I respect you. The current breed of politician are not the Republicans you grew up with, that you and your parents before you voted for and supported. Those guys managed the state well, at least fiscally. They valued education and your contribution. We may get to a point where sane, reasonable Republicans reappear, and with them we can have a dialogue and you can feel great about your vote again.
But that is not this current crop. These folk will not listen to you. They will not have your back. They will not negotiate with you. Any compromise you make will be treated as a weakness, and a way to split you from your students, and from your cause. Your cause is modest and it is just.
We will only win this by showing an uncompromising strength. We will only win this by refusing, absolutely, to step one inch over that line in the sand we drew. We will only win this by giving those representatives and senators who agree with us, the back-up and support they need to carry our fight through to laws passed.
If we blink, we will lose.
We are not losers … We are the Pride of Owasso, The Pride of Broken Arrow. We are the Jenks Trojans and the Okmulgee Bulldogs, and all the other awesome districts in this great state.
We can win this thing, and our students need us to.
As long as it takes!