Recently in Tulsa::Education Category
Strategic Vision polled 1200 Oklahoma voters for the Friedman Foundation for Educational Choice. Here is the executive summary:
This scientifically representative poll of 1,200 likely Oklahoma voters measures public opinion on a wide range of K-12 education issues. The underlying theme of the Friedman Foundation's Survey in the State series is to measure voter attitudes toward their public institutions, leaders, innovative ideas, and the current K-12 power and priority structure.In particular, Oklahomans have shared with us their views about "school choice" in the forms of taxcredit scholarships, school vouchers, charter schools and virtual schools. Results imply that voters like the idea of customizing the school selection process in a way that best meets the needs of a child and his or her family. So how high is the support for school choice reforms? Percentages favoring tax-credit scholarships, school vouchers, and charter schools are consistently in the 50s--generally and across nearly all subgroups.
In some cases, favorability to a particular school choice reform reaches the 60s. For example, 60 percent of African-Americans favor a scholarship granting system funded through business tax credits; 63 percent of African-Americans like charter schools; and 63 percent of Hispanics favor "allowing students and parents to choose any school, public or private, to attend using public funds."
School choice is not a partisan issue among voters in Oklahoma. Favorability spans political parties and political self-identification. Democrats, Independents, and Republicans favor publicly funded scholarship granting systems (through business or individual tax credits), school vouchers, and charter schools.
Proportions are very similar across these subgroups on school choice-related questions. In some cases, support is extraordinarily high: 61 percent of Democrats favor tax-credit scholarship legislation; 60 percent of Republicans and 58 percent of Independents favor a scholarship granting system funded through individual tax credits; and all three political groups are more likely to vote for rather than against a candidate who supports a tax-credit scholarship policy.
A total of 1,200 phone interviews were conducted by Strategic Vision, between April 25 and April 27, 2008. The margin of error for the full sample of likely voters is ± 3 percentage points; the margin of error is higher when considering the response percentages for a given demographic subgroup.
Key findings include:
- About two-fifths of Oklahoma voters are not satisfied with the state's current public school system--41 percent rate Oklahoma's public school system as "poor" or "fair." Excluding the one of five voters who are undecided, this proportion rises to 51 percent.
- Nearly two out of three Oklahomans are content with current levels of public school funding. A large majority of voters (64 percent) say Oklahoma's level of public school funding is either "too high" or "about right." At least 67 percent of the poll's respondents underestimate the state's actual per-pupil funding, which suggests that the funding satisfaction level is probably a conservative figure.
- More than four out of five Oklahomans would prefer to send their child to a school other than a regular public school--only 17 percent say a regular public school is their top choice. This low figure is consistent with what we have learned from previous state polls asking the same question, most recently in Idaho (12 percent), Tennessee (15 percent), Nevada (11 percent), and Illinois (19 percent).
- Oklahoma voters value private schools--they are more than twice as likely to prefer sending their child to a private school over any other school type. When asked "what type of school would you select in order to obtain the best education for your child?" 41 percent of respondents selected private schools. This finding is consistent with other recent state polls asking the same question: Idaho (39 percent), Tennessee (37 percent), Nevada (48 percent), and Illinois (39 percent).
- Oklahomans like having a range of schooling options. Majorities express support for school vouchers (53 percent) and charter schools (54 percent), with many also open to virtual schools (40 percent), even though nearly a third of respondents stated they "have never heard of virtual, cyber, or online schools." School choice is not a partisan issue among likely voters. There is solid potential for building bridges between Democrats (D), Republicans (R), and Independents (I). Voters who identify themselves differently in terms of political affiliation are likely to have common views on various school choice reforms and policies spanning charter schools (D: 52 percent | R: 56 percent | I: 55 percent), virtual schools (D: 38 percent | R: 40 percent | I: 42 percent), school vouchers (D: 53 percent | R: 54 percent | I: 53 percent), or a generic public-funded school choice system (D: 55 percent | R: 53 percent | I: 56 percent).
- More than half of voters are favorable to a tax-credit scholarship system. When asked "if a proposal were made in Oklahoma to create a tax-credit scholarship system," 54 percent say they favor a scholarship system funded by business charitable donations. A slightly higher figure (57 percent) say they favor a scholarship system funded by individual charitable donations.
- Likely voters view recent tax-credit scholarship legislation positively--58 percent say they are favorable to such school choice legislation. Majorities cut across Democrats (61 percent), Republicans (55 percent), and Independents (53 percent).
- Oklahomans are more likely to vote for a state representative, state senator or governor who supports a taxcredit scholarship system. Nearly twice as many voters say they are "more likely" (21 percent) rather than "less likely" (11 percent) to vote for such a candidate. Independents are nearly five times more likely to vote for a person supporting tax-credit scholarships (23 percent vs. 5 percent).
- Knowledge about school vouchers is at a low baseline in Oklahoma--there is an information deficit about this type of system reform. Although a majority of Oklahoma's likely voters (55 percent) said they were either "very familiar" or "somewhat familiar" with school vouchers, there is still a lot of potential for educating citizens on the issue. This figure is comparable to what has been measured in other states such as Idaho (59 percent), Tennessee (45 percent), Nevada (55 percent), and Illinois (51 percent).
Read more about the battle for school in Oklahoma at the Choice Remarks blog.
Congratulations to Tulsa County voters: KTUL is reporting that the TCC bond issue failed 45-55 and the TCC permanent property tax increase failed 43-57.
And congratulations to John Tyler Hammons. The 19-year-old OU freshman poli-sci major won a runoff tonight to become Mayor of Muskogee, defeating the incumbent a former mayor in a landslide. (Hammons said he would transfer from OU to nearby NSU if elected.) Hammons will also be a delegate to the Republican National Convention; he was on the slate approved at the May 3 state convention.
A reaction from "Kiah" to the TCC tax defeat at TulsaNow's public forum:
Can we now officially retire the Chamber/World's cynical approach to local governance (i.e. hide the ball; the fewer voters the better, and the less they know, the better -- in short, don't worry your pretty little head about it, let the grown-ups handle the details . . . .)
UPDATE: Thanks to Jamison Faught for the correct description of Hammons's opponent -- the incumbent, Wren Stratton, didn't seek another term; Hammons defeated a three-term former mayor, Herschel McBride. The final vote total was Hammons 3,703, McBride 1,616.
Tulsa County voters will decide today whether to grant Tulsa Community College a permanent property tax increase of 1.7 mills for operations and maintenance (a 23% increase over the current level of 7.21 mills) and, in a separate proposition, a temporary seven-year property tax increase of about 3.1 mills to fund a $76 million bond issue for construction and remodeling.
My column in this week's Urban Tulsa Weekly urges a vote against the two propositions. In short, TCC is in good shape and has plenty of money to accomplish its mission. Our priority ought to be fixing what needs the most improvement: Our city's grade "D" streets. We can't afford to let other taxing entities use up the public's limited tax tolerance. There isn't an overall local budget authority that oversees the City, the schools, the County, TCC, and other local government entities. It's up to us as taxpayers and voters to set funding priorities among these various agencies and governments.
You'll find more links about the proposed TCC tax hike in this earlier blog entry. To read the other side of the issue, you'll find a pro-tax-increase website at tccworks.com. You'll find much more about TCC and the tax vote at Stan Geiger's website, including this recitation of all the tax increases we've been asked to approve over the last 8 years.
All Tulsa County polling places will be open from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m.
MORE: No surprise: The Tulsa Whirled never met a tax it didn't endorse. I love the way they minimize the tax increase by putting it in terms of dollars per month. They don't tell you that it means a 67% increase in TCC's take from he taxpayers. Hardly "modest property tax increases." Of course, the Whirled would never concede that the other side might have a point:
They are anti-tax, antigrowth, anti-prosperity and anti-community. They don't care what they tear down, so long as they don't have to pay for the conveniences of living in a civilized society. They've already got theirs and could care less about the other guy.
Who's tearing down? Most "antis" on this tax are generally pleased with TCC; they just think TCC has enough money to do its job, and there are better places to allocate that additional millage.
The Whirled can't defend the tax increase on the merits, so they have to resort to propaganda techniques. Their argument boils down to: "You don't want to be like one of those nasty, angry anti-taxers. You want to be progressive and foresighted, like us."
The Whirled would have more credibility if they at least conceded that there are valid concerns on the other side of the issue. If once in a while, they called a proposed tax increase "ill-timed" or "larger than necessary," they might make more of an impact when they endorse a tax.
Can anyone think of a tax increase the Whirled has opposed?
BY WAY OF CONTRAST: Oklahoma County is voting on five bond issues today, covering courthouse renovation, a new building for the cooperative extension program, improved record retention facilities, and flood control. The big ticket item is to purchase the old GM plant in Midwest City so that it can be leased and perhaps sold at some future date to the Air Force for Tinker AFB expansion. Room for expansion is a factor weighed by the DoD's Base Realignment and Closure commission. The total property tax increase will be 1.521 mills over 15 years. (Via Dustbury.
Tulsa County has been using sales tax for these kinds of projects; it's interesting that Oklahoma County has no county sales tax, leaving sales tax for the cities to use as they see fit.
Stan Geiger has a few blog entries up about next Tuesday's vote on Tulsa Community College's proposed property tax increases. (See my previous entry for links to my column on the topic and sources for additional information.) Here are some excerpts from Stan's latest -- click the links to read the whole thing:
TCC is pushing the tired notion that more tax money for higher education equals a stronger local economy. Man, if only that were true.The Tulsa area is up to its butt in public-subsidized higher education. TCC has 4 campuses---plus an office building for executives. We have an OU-Tulsa, an OSU-Tulsa and a Langston-Tulsa. We have a Northeastern State campus in Broken Arrow. And what was once a junior college in Claremore is now a 4-year school called Rogers State University under the auspices of the OU Board of Regents.
If pouring tax money into higher education resulted in economic prosperity, Tulsa would be a freakin' boomtown.
Well, 50 bucks a year might not be a big deal to educators. But to an average working person that has a real job out in the real world and is facing wolves at the door, 50 bucks is a lot of money.
Property Tax: The Ever Growing Tax, referring to an earlier comment by XonOFF, who notes that TCC currently gets almost as much property tax in a year as the City of Tulsa, and if the tax increase and bond issue pass, TCC will receive more property tax annually than Tulsa County government. Stan relates some budget research he did 10 years ago:
In 1997, TCC's budget figures showed property tax revenue of $15.3 million. Reports say the last permanent millage increase voted to TCC came in 1994. So in a 10-year span of time, in the absence of any increase in the tax rate, the amount of property tax revenue flowing into TCC doubled.The property tax is not a static tax. It grows. If you vote an increase today, whatever it is, 50 bucks, a hundred bucks or whatever, it will be a bigger tax increase next year, and the year after that and the year after that.
Tulsa Chiggers has some TCC facts for voters to weigh:
Did you know that space is available, especially at the Northeast Campus? ...Did you know that TCC has been operating with a surplus for years?
TulsaNow's public forum has a thread about the TCC tax hike, and it's interesting to see that many regulars there who usually support tax increases are balking at this one.
Commenter "waterboy" writes:
I received one of their calls last night. For the first time in my life I am voting against an education proposal.TCC is a poor administrator of tax dollars [in my opinion].
I believe they practice age discrimination.
Their human resources dept. is inept. and unresponsive. (I know this has become common throughout the business world but this is tax dollars)
They cannibalized the areas surrounding the downtown facility for asphalt lots.
Wage disparity is embarrassingly out of balance. Read their classified ads.
I told the caller that at some point TCC will have its attitude with the public reflected back towards them. For me, this is that point.
Commenter "swake" replies:
I also am voting no for the first time.TCC is a poor downtown citizen, works to block 1st and 2nd year classes from being offered by OSU and OU Tulsa and isn't the higher education entity that we need to work to grow.
This week in Urban Tulsa Weekly, I preview next Tuesday's special election for a permanent property tax increase and a temporary property tax increase tied to a $76 million general obligation bond issue for Tulsa Community College. All of Tulsa County will go to the polls. If approved, the permanent millage rate would increase from 7.21 mills to 8.91 mills, with a temporary seven-year boost to about 12.2 mills while the bonds are being repaid. In the column, I make the case that, in the absence of a body with authority over all the different local taxing entities, it's up to us, the voters of Tulsa County, to set priorities among the requests from these various agencies.
Here are links to some of my research helps:
TCC page about the May 13 proposals. (Here are direct links to their fact sheet, publicity piece, and newsletter.)
Sample ballot for the May 13 TCC election
Property tax apportionment in Tulsa County
An explanation of the color-of-money problem from the Defense Department perspective
The following reports cover all the schools in the Oklahoma higher ed system -- research universities, regional universities, and community colleges, among other institutions:
Incredible: The Republican-controlled State House of Representatives voted today to kill SB 2093, the New Hope Scholarship Act, by a vote of 40 to 57.
Fred Jordan, who represents Jenks, Glenpool, and south Tulsa, and Weldon Watson were the only Republican s representing Tulsa who voted no. (Earl Sears, who represents a small piece of north Tulsa County along with much of Washington County, and Skye McNiel, who represents Creek County, plus a small piece of southwest Tulsa County, also voted no.) I can only speculate about the motivation of Fred Jordan, a suburban homebuilder. The lack of adequate educational options in the Tulsa Public Schools district creates outward pressure that would help him sell new homes in far south Tulsa County.
A glance at the names of other naysaying Republicans reveals a number from rural and suburban areas. Perhaps they have the attitude, "What's in it for the schools in my district?" Perhaps their school board members and superintendents pressured them into voting no.
North Tulsa Democrat Jabar Shumate was a leading advocate for the bill, which would have been a great benefit to students in his district, which is plagued with underperforming public schools, but his Democratic colleagues in neighboring districts -- Lucky Lamons, Jeannie McDaniel, Darrell Gilbert, and Scott BigHorse -- abandoned him. It's hard to understand why the first three, who represent parts of the Tulsa Public School district, would oppose a measure that would provide educational choice and thus incentive for families with children to remain in the older parts of central and north Tulsa. I suppose pressure from the OEA, the most influential interest group in the Democratic Party, was a factor. Their votes may have been good for their political careers, but they were bad for their districts.
David Derby (R-Owasso) and Eric Proctor (D-northeast Tulsa) did not vote -- they are listed under "Constitutional Privilege."
This was a very modest bill that would have created a tax credit for donations to scholarship funds. These scholarship funds would be designated for students in underperforming schools. It was too limited -- capped at a certain dollar amount each year -- but it would have provided more school choice than we currently have for the students who need it most. Shame, shame on the House members, particularly the Republicans and those who represent inner-city districts, who voted against this bill.
Meanwhile, Oklahoma continues to languish at the bottom of the school choice charts with a failing grade.
Oklahoma is lagging behind the rest of the nation in offering a variety of affordable K-12 educational options to our children and their parents. In hopes of improving the situation, there's now an organization called Oklahomans for School Choice, with an official blog called Choice Remarks, headed up by Brandon Dutcher, vice president for policy for the Oklahoma Center of Public Affairs.
The blog's sidebar offers a synopsis of the issue:
School choice refers to any education policy which allows parents to choose the safest and best schools for their children, whether those schools are public or private. As state school Superintendent Sandy Garrett has correctly noted, "We have a lot of choice already in Oklahoma." Oklahoma is fortunate to have interdistrict choice, intradistrict choice, charter schools, magnet and specialty schools, privately funded K-12 vouchers, a thriving homeschool sector, and more. Unfortunately, we don't yet have what many other states have--vouchers or tax credits which allow thousands of students to choose private schools.
I've been invited to contribute to the blog, so as I come across news items relating to charter schools, tuition vouchers, scholarship fund tax credits, and other means of expanding parental choice in K-12 education, I'll be posting them at Choice Remarks.
A friend asked me about the candidates for Office 3 on the Tulsa Technology Center board and for Union Public Schools, specifically about their party registration and background. School board races are non-partisan, but party registration is a piece of information that some voters like to have.
You may also want to look over the complete questionnaire responses submitted to the Tulsa World and the League of Women Voters (400 KB PDF).
Bea Cramer, the incumbent, is the only Republican running for the Tulsa Tech seat. Tim Bradley and Mitchell Garrett are Democrats. Garrett, son of Muskogee trial lawyer David Garrett, parachuted into House District 23 to run against State Rep. Sue Tibbs in 2004. During that election campaign Mitchell Garrett was simultaneously registered as a voter in both Tulsa and Muskogee Counties.
The incumbent for Union Public Schools Office 3 filed for re-election, but Jim Williams announced on January 24 that he was withdrawing his candidacy. His name will still appear on the ballot. The only other candidate is Albert Shults, a Republican. The choice for voters in the Union district is to elect Shults or to let the other board members pick a replacement for Williams. If Williams is re-elected, he would presumably resign, with the vacancy to be filled by the board.
In Broken Arrow, both Keven Rondot (the incumbent, appointed to an unexpired term about a year ago) and Shari Wilkins are registered Republicans.
In Glenpool, the incumbent, Michael J. Thompson is a Democrat; Kenneth Ball is a Republican.
In Jenks, Joseph Hidy, the incumbent, and Kanna Adams, are both Republicans.
In Liberty, Richard L. Moore, Jr., the incumbent, is a Republican, and Billie Blackburn is a Democrat.
In Sperry, Tim Teel, the incumbent, and Derrell Morrow are both Republicans.
In Tulsa, Radious Y. Guess and Brian T. Hunt are both Republicans. (No incumbent -- it's an open seat.)
PonderInc considers the choices in tomorrow's Tulsa Public Schools board election:
The Tulsa World endorsed Guess, citing her extensive educational experience and training.On one hand, I want to believe that an education background is a good thing; but on the other hand, I think that many of the problems with our school system (inept teachers, principals, and administrators) are caused by people with education degrees.
My skepticism increased after taking education classes 10 years ago when I was considering teaching. I thought: this is the dumbest stuff I've ever heard, who invents this crap? It led me to believe that the school system would be much improved if everyone had a degree in the subject they teach...instead of a goofy education degree.
So...can an "insider" reform from the inside? Or is it better to support an "outsider" who might just bring some common sense to the table?
At the same time, I disagree with the pragmatists who think all schools should do is prepare students for the business world. Education is different from training. And those who would limit art, music, and theater programs for the sake of more "hard skills" don't realize the importance of creativity, experimentation and imagination.
I don't really know where each of these candidates stands on these topics. And I'm not sure who to vote for tomorrow. Looks like I've got homework to do!
That point about schools of education is the crucial issue in school reform, but it's overlooked amidst discussions of funding, testing, discipline, etc. One of the advantages that charter and private schools have over public schools is that it's easier for a charter or private school to hire a teacher who has a degree in the subject area he or she will be teaching. Public schools can hire teachers outside the usual ed-school track, but there are many more hoops to jump through with alternative certification, and many school officials can't be bothered, especially if there is no shortage of ed-school graduates, who won't require the extra effort to get them into the classroom.
Courses in an education degree program tend to be all about process, rather than content. If you love math or English lit or history and dream of imparting your love of the subject to young skulls full of mush, the process of gaining certification -- whether by traditional or alternative methods -- may very well drain you of your enthusiasm.
A friend of mine with an MBA and many years in the corporate world had the urge about a decade ago to go into teaching. He had gained some classroom time as a Junior Achievement sponsor and enjoyed the experience immensely. He thought he might teach math or business at the junior high or high school level, so he began working for his alternative certification. Texas, where he lived, had pioneered the process, but he wasn't able to get the time of day from two of the major school districts in the DFW Metroplex. (Thinking back on it, he might have had more cooperation from a smaller district.) He gave up on the idea.
It may be that schools of education, with their focus on process and theory and their ideological attacks on practices that work (e.g. phonics, math fact drills, and high expectations), are the heart of what's wrong with public schools in America. They deter many with the gift of teaching from getting into the profession, and they provide a bad foundation for those who do pursue teaching.
Sadly, people don't become aware of the problem until they encounter it directly as my friend and PonderInc did. PonderInc gets it now. I wish she were running for school board.
In last week's Urban Tulsa Weekly column, I wrote about how school choice could be used, as it has been in Milwaukee, to attract and retain families with children in the older parts of Tulsa, specifically the area served by Tulsa Public Schools. (I also posted a blog entry earlier in the week about charter schools having the same impact in Cleveland.) I didn't specifically address the Tulsa school board election, except to say this:
The candidate who can credibly promise to support new and expanded charter schools, to oppose the district's suit against the charter school law, and to work against nonsense like the Tulsa Model for School Improvement will have my vote.
In this week's issue of UTW, I go into specifics about the two candidates for TPS Board District 5, the race between Radious Guess and Brian Hunt:
From their websites and their responses to various questionnaires, neither one appears to be driven to fix what's broken with TPS. Do they see the shortcomings of the system's curriculum and teaching methods? If they do, they aren't saying.Do Guess and Hunt disagree with the school board's misguided effort to get the charter school law declared unconstitutional? They aren't saying anything about that either.
Since I wrote that, Hunt has made some public statements, at a forum and on his website, regarding charter schools and the TPS lawsuit to kill the law. Here is a statement from Hunt's Q&A page:
What is your position on Charter Schools?From across the country charter schools have had mixed results but have provided some innovative ideas. TPS already sponsors three charter schools and I believe there is a valid place within the public school system for them, recognizing their role as a laboratory for new ideas that can be shared with all schools regarding what works and what does not. I have toured 2 charter schools because I wanted to see them first hand and the people I met with indicated that in the 2 years they had been at each of their schools no one from the board or service center had ever visited or inquired about lessons learned and or best practices in their deregulated environment.
I do not know all the specifics or motivations of why TPS decided to pursue a lawsuit, but as a business person I believe it is not the most productive use of resources to challenge a law that is being implemented by other Oklahoma school districts, like Oklahoma City.
If Ms. Guess has something further to say on the topic of charter schools and wishes to e-mail or phone me, I'll add that information to this entry.
Today through Wednesday at 5 is the annual filing period for the February 5th school board elections in Oklahoma, as well as for the presidential primary to be held the same day. As of 1 p.m., only Barack Obama has filed for the Democrats. John McCain was the first Republican to file, followed by Tom Tancredo, Duncan Hunter, Ron Paul, Rudy Giuliani, and Jerry Curry of Haymarket, Va. The state election board will be updating this PDF file with the complete list of those who have filed for the Oklahoma presidential preference primary.
In all of Tulsa County's independent school districts except Tulsa, Office No. 3 is up for election to a five-year term, elected at large by the entire district. The two dependent districts (Keystone and Leonard) will elect a member for Office No. 3 to a three-year term.
In the Tulsa District, board members are elected by election district to four-year terms. Board members for District 5 and District 6 -- Cathy Newsome and Ruth Ann Fate, respectively -- are up for re-election. If for no other reason, they both deserve to be defeated for their hostility to charter schools and to expanded options for Tulsa's school children. It was the Tulsa school board's stonewalling that led to bipartisan state legislation this year providing for a way for charter school organizers to bypass the board.
Even if you don't have school-aged children, if you care about the vitality of the City of Tulsa's central core, you should want to see more opportunities for charter schools. We need to offer families better educational choices if we want them to stay in the city instead of moving to the 'burbs.
Click here for a PDF map of Tulsa County's school districts, also showing the boundaries of Tulsa Schools' seven election districts.
District 5 (Newsome) covers Utica to Yale, 11th to 41st, plus Utica to Harvard between 41st and 51st, Riverside to Utica between 21st and 51st, plus the remainder of precinct 106 south of I-44. District 6 (Fate) is roughly I-244 to 51st, Yale to Memorial, plus 51st to 61st, Sheridan to Memorial, plus the bit of the Tulsa district south and east of 31st & Memorial, with minor adjustments for precinct 56 (in the district) and 92 (out of the district).
Also on the ballot is the Zone 3 seat on the board of Tulsa Technology Center, for a seven year term. Bea Cramer, a retired Tulsa Tech staffer first elected in 1990, is the incumbent. Zone 3 is most of the City of Tulsa southeast of 31st & Yale, plus a bit of Broken Arrow northwest of 101st St and 145th East Ave. Click here for a map of the Tulsa Technology Center board election zones. Tulsa Technology Center serves all of Tulsa County plus a portion of each neighboring county.
If you don't like the school system, throw your hat into the ring.
UPDATE: As of 3:30, Mitt Romney and Hillary Clinton have also filed for the presidential primary. Also, Brian Hunt, vice president of CB Richard Ellis/Oklahoma, has announced that he is running for Cathy Newsome's Tulsa school board seat. You may remember him as chairman of the Tulsa Real Estate Coalition, the political wing of the local development industry, during last year's city elections, when TREC excluded mayoral candidate Chris Medlock from a debate. I've e-mailed him some questions and will let you know the answers I receive. Brian has two children in Tulsa Public Schools -- one at Eliot Elementary and one at Zarrow International Elementary.
PR consultant Gary Percefull won re-election to the Tulsa School Board, defeating retired teacher Brenda Barre by a vote of 449 to 412.
It's a very difficult thing to beat an incumbent school board member, and Barre is to be congratulated for coming so close. It means that she and her campaign team (led by Christie Breedlove) were able to raise awareness that a change is needed. Still, it's heartbreaking to come so close -- less than two votes per precinct. You can think of a hundred things that you didn't do, thinking they wouldn't make much of a difference in the outcome; all of those things together might have made all the difference.
Turnout was abysmal, as usual -- less than 5%, I would guess. It's hard to get the media excited about the school board election because only a small portion of the district votes each year. Any given year isn't likely to produce much change -- at most two of Tulsa's seven board members would turn over.
If our Republican legislators really want to increase voter involvement in the public schools and improve the schools' responsiveness to their taxpayers and parents, they should change the school board election laws, so that every seat is up for election every two years statewide.
This week's Urban Tulsa Weekly column is about the race for a seat on the Tulsa school board. Incumbent Gary Percefull, a PR consultant, is being challenged by Brenda Barre, a retired teacher with nearly 30 years of service at Tulsa's Booker T. Washington High School. The election is next Tuesday, and every voter in Tulsa school board district 1 should make plans to turnout and vote for Brenda Barre.
Blogger Jeff Shaw adds his own testimonial as a comment on the column:
Ms. Barre would make an excellent school board member. I'm confessing, she was my homeroom teacher at BTW, so I am a bit biased. She was a tough as nails educator with a soft heart for what's best for the kids. Since she taught at BTW, she knows all about excellence, which is what TPS needs; not a pack of legal eagles.
(By the way, Jeff's got a lot of new and interesting items on his blog, including an update on the proposed "East End" development. Be sure to click that link. And here's his blog entry endorsing Barre.)
Also in this week's edition, a cover story about Clifton Taulbert, author of Once upon a Time When We Were Colored, The Last Train North, and Eight Habits of the Heart. He'll be speaking on those eight habits this coming Tuesday at Holy Family Cathedral School, 8th and Boulder downtown.
There's some in depth local news coverage as well: A story on the management mess at Gilcrease Museum, interim City Attorney Deirdre Dexter (also cleaning up a mess in that office), and Senator Jim Inhofe and his stance on global warming.
Interesting point from the story about Dexter:
While Dexter was asked to serve as the interim city attorney for up to six months, she's currently in the middle of a process that city officials hope will make the legal department more effective for the people they represent. The first step in the search process for a new city attorney is to have all city department chiefs and city councilmen participate in a client survey."We want to know how they think the city attorney's office is doing, what can be done better and their ideas to fix problems," Dexter said. "We also want to be sure that our clients, who are the council and any city department, understand their relationship with the city attorney's office."
Some of the surveys, which were due back in Dexter's office last Friday, have shown a disconnect between the legal department and other city offices, she said.
"We've received good information that confirms some areas where we can better serve our clients," she said. "This survey information will also be helpful for whoever is hired to fill this position and it allows me to take some steps that would make their transition even easier."
It's seemed to me that the City Attorney's office long ago forgot who its client was, so I'm encouraged that this process is underway. (There are some very good individual attorneys in that office, I hasten to add, but I don't want to shorten their careers by praising them.) I was surprised when Mayor Taylor named Deirdre Dexter to this position, but she's an excellent choice.
One of the seven seats on the Tulsa Public Schools Board of Education is up for election on February 13. Incumbent Gary Percefull, a marketing consultant, is opposed by Brenda Barre, a retired Tulsa school teacher.
This Thursday at 7 p.m., there will be a candidate forum sponsored by the Southwest Tulsa Chamber of Commerce and Webster High School, in the Webster school auditorium. The address is 1919 W. 40th St.
This is an important race, a truly competitive election, and this is the last forum currently on the schedule. If you want to know where these candidates stand on educational philosophy, redrawing school boundaries, support for charter schools, you should make plans to attend.
The Whirled has endorsed Percefull.
MORE: If you want to understand why charter schools are an important issue in this election, read last week's column by Jamie Pierson, herself a graduate of Tulsa School of Arts and Sciences.
There's a nice story in Saturday's Edmond Sun about Providence Hall, a Christian classical school serving the Oklahoma City area. The story does a nice job of summarizing the trivium, the central concept of the classical Christian school curriculum:
The Trivium refers to three stages of learning, each of which coincide with the natural learning abilities of children.“Children in the first phase of learning, from the ages of (about) 4 through 11, have a tremendous ability for observation and memory,” Shipma said.
This stage is called the grammar stage, where students are taught the parts of speech, basics of math including multiplication tables, historical events, science, passages of Scripture from the Bible, and more by means of recitations and drills in addition to songs and chants.
“These are all activities that come naturally and are enjoyable at this age and build a framework of knowledge,” Shipma added....
Children in the second phase of learning, roughly the ages of 12 through 14, start to think abstractly and students begin to judge and critique the things they have learned.
“Quite frankly, they like to argue,” Shipma said.
This stage is called the dialectic or logic stage and fits with this phase of the students’ lives because it emphasizes formal logic, debates and putting together persuasive reports.
“The thinking is if the students are beginning to think abstractly and debate and argue, then let’s teach them to do that correctly and with an eye to the truth,” Shipma added.
Students in the last phase of learning, covering ages 15 through 18, have the desire to express themselves in interesting and creative ways. This stage is called the rhetoric stage.
It emphasizes the preparation and presentation of eloquent and persuasive arguments.
“Students at this point deal with more in-depth world view issues as they synthesize ideas, bringing together all they have learned and presenting it intelligently, coherently and biblically,” Shipma said.
If, after reading the story, you'd like to know where you can find an education like that in the Tulsa area, mark your calendar for February 8th, when Regent Preparatory School will be holding an open house. Call Regent at 663-1002 for details.
(The story from the Sun is via Brandon Dutcher, who serves on the Providence Hall board.)
My Tulsa World was at Monday's Tulsa Public School Board meeting and has video of the debate over the resolution that would stop the approval of new charter schools and the growth of existing charter schools.
Matt Livingood, school board president, brought the resolution to the board. If I understood him correctly, he was arguing that the Charter School Act might be unconstitutional, TPS won't fully implement the terms of the act, but because it might be constitutional after all, TPS won't shut down the existing charter schools either. Barbara Gamble, dean of Dove Science Academy, pointed out the damage to teacher and parent morale that would be caused by passage of Livingood's resolution. Perhaps that was his real intent -- cast more FUD (fear, uncertainty, doubt) over the future of charter schools, so as to dissuade parents from applying. If he could stimulate a decline in enrollment, it would be easier to shut the school down.
If the school board really wanted to support charter schools, they could pass a resolution assuring the teachers, parents, and students that the TPS board will do everything in its power to keep the charter schools running, regardless of what the courts do with the Charter Schools Act. Harold Roberts, director of development at the Deborah Brown Community School, noted that TPS could seek an opinion from the Attorney General. If the AG were to find constitutional defects with the law, the legislature would step in to cure those defects. TPS could help expedite this process, eliminate the uncertainty, and put charter schools on a firm footing for the future.
Jamie Pierson, my fellow UTW columnist and a graduate of Tulsa School of Arts and Sciences, urged the board to do as much as possible to support charter schools as an asset to the students and to the community, to be proud of what these schools have accomplished.
Instead it was clear that at least four of the seven board members are hostile to charter schools: Livingood and the other three white women -- Cathy Newsome, Ruth Ann Fate, and Bobbie Gray. Oma Jean Copeland and Lana Turner-Addison, the two African-American women on the board, spoke against the resolution. Copeland said that the matter should be left to the legislators and the Supreme Court, that Tulsa's charter schools are excelling, and that it is important to offer parents and students choice. Copeland also called for lifting the moratorium on new charter schools. Turner-Addison called the resolution a "renegade approach," ignoring the existing Charter School Act.
The supporters of the resolution were careful to avoid saying they opposed charter schools, but Cathy Newsome let the mask slip when she said that the Charter School Act discriminates against large districts because only large districts can have charter schools.
Gary Percefull, the only board member who is up for re-election next month, avoided giving his opinions by serving as chairman in lieu of Livingood while the board considered Livingood's proposal. In the end, he did vote against the resolution, but as the last voter he knew that his vote would not have an impact on the outcome, as four members had already voted yes.
The videos are short, well organized into segments, and small, so they won't suck up all your bandwidth. If you've never seen your school board at work, you need to watch these. And don't miss Steve Roemerman's coverage -- he was there too and has summaries and quotes from some of the speakers and the board members.
The Tulsa public school district is fond of calling itself the "District of Choice," but the board and school administration has always been hostile to giving parents in the district the choice of charter schools -- schools that are publicly-funded and tuition-free, but are independently governed. Other than home schooling or private schooling, it's the only opportunity to choose for your child a different educational philosophy than the one-size-fits-all plan crafted by the educrats at 31st and New Haven.
Tomorrow (Monday) night, the Tulsa School Board will consider a resolution protesting the fact that Tulsa is one of only 20 districts in the state allowed by law to have charter schools. More than protesting, the resolution sets out policy for dealing with the existing three charter schools in the district (Deborah Brown Elementary, Dove Science Middle School, and Tulsa School of Arts and Sciences), policy that would stop any further growth and endanger their ongoing viability.
The school board meeting is at 7:00 p.m. on the first floor of the Educational Service Center, just north of 31st Street on New Haven Ave. (between Harvard and Yale).
The author of the resolution believes the law establishing charter schools is an unconstitutional "special law," in much the same way as the early '90s county home rule bill, which allowed only counties between a certain minimum and maximum size to establish its own form of government. The numbers in the county home rule bill were deliberately set so that only Tulsa County qualified, and the Oklahoma Supreme Court ultimately ruled the law unconstitutional for that reason.
The charter school act is not so narrowly drawn as the county home rule law was, but whatever its flaws with regard to being a special law, it's telling that some board member or perhaps the administration is not seeking to mend it to allow charter schools to continue and expand the service they offer to Tulsa's students, but is using the constitutional issue as an excuse to throttle the three existing charter schools.
The proposed resolution, which you can read in full at Tulsa Chigger's blog, would set the following policies toward charter schools:
- Renewals of charters with existing schools will be for at most three years, with a provision that funding from the school district will end the minute that the charter schools law is found unconstitutional.
- Charter renewals won't be considered if the request includes plans to expand the number of students served.
- No new charter applications will be considered.
This will probably pass overwhelmingly, since our school board members see themselves as there to prop up the administration, not to hold the administration accountable on behalf of parents and taxpayers. It shouldn't pass, and people who care about Tulsa, even if you don't care about public education, should be there to protest tomorrow night.
If you're a student or the parent of a student in one of the charter schools, or an alumnus or alumna, you should be there to talk about how you've benefitted from that educational opportunity and to urge the board to allow more children to have that opportunity.
If you're concerned about the City of Tulsa's competitiveness with its suburbs, you should be there to explain how important the existence and expansion of charter schools are to keeping young families in the district. Charter schools allow parents and students to experience the same kind of administrative responsiveness and parental participation in school policy that they would enjoy in the suburbs.
If you're concerned about the vitality of inner city neighborhoods, you should be there for the same reason. I know many couples who started out in midtown, but as their first child approached school age, they stayed in the city of Tulsa, but moved into the Jenks or Union school district and left midtown behind. They hate to leave behind the shaded streets and the classic homes, but their children's education comes first.
For that matter, school board members and administrators and teachers should realize that the regular schools benefit from charter schools. Charter schools -- and more of them -- will keep people from moving out of the district, which means the homes are more valuable, which means higher property tax collections from homes. It also means that businesses catering to these families stay in the district, and that helps property tax collections as well. Then, too, more parents and grandparents who are happy with the school district will be more likely to help the passage of future bond issues. Not every parent wants their child in a school where, for example, the French class, by design, avoids actual instruction in French.
Voters in Board District 1 should pay special attention to how your board member, Gary Percefull, votes on this proposal. Percefull's term expires this year, and he has drawn an opponent in the February 13 election, and his position on charter schools ought to be an issue in this race. (Here's a PDF map showing election district boundaries. And here's a page listing the names of the board members. There's an email link for each one.)
For the area within the Tulsa Public School district to thrive, it needs to become truly the District of Choice. The proposed resolution would turn it into the District of Hobson's Choice.
Just when you thought elections were over.... The filing period for Oklahoma K-12 school boards and vo-tech school boards runs from Monday, December 4, through Wednesday, December 6. School board seats in Oklahoma run for three, four, or five years, depending on the size of the district, with different seats coming up for election each year.
Here's the official press release from the Tulsa County Election Board (with the list of offices reformatted for the web):
Candidates for the Board of Education in 15 Tulsa County School Districts will file Declarations of Candidacy beginning at 8 a.m. Monday, December 4. Gene Pace, Secretary of the Tulsa County Election Board, said the filing period will end at 5 p.m. Wednesday, December 6.Candidates for the Board of Education in Tulsa Technology Center District No. 18 also will file their Declarations of Candidacy during this same time period.
Board of Education positions at stake will be filled at the Annual School Election scheduled February 13, 2007. If no candidate receives more than 50% of the total votes cast in this election, the two candidates receiving the highest number of votes will meet in a second election on Tuesday, April 3.
Offices for which Declarations of Candidacy will be accepted at the Tulsa County Election Board office include the following:
ISD-1 Tulsa District Election District 1 4 yr term ISD-2 Sand Springs District Office No. 2 5 yr term ISD-3 Broken Arrow District Office No. 2 5 yr term ISD-4 Bixby District Office No. 2 5 yr term ISD-5 Jenks District Office No. 2 5 yr term ISD-6 Collinsville District Office No. 2 5 yr term ISD-7 Skiatook District Office No. 2 5 yr term ISD-8 Sperry District Office No. 2 5 yr term ISD-9 Union District Office No. 2 5 yr term ISD-10 Berryhill District Office No. 2 5 yr term ISD-11 Owasso District Office No. 2 5 yr term ISD-13 Glenpool District Office No. 2 5 yr term ISD-14 Liberty District Office No. 2 5 yr term C-15 Keystone Elementary District Office No. 2 3 yr term C-18 Leonard Elementary District Office No. 2 3 yr term Tulsa Technology Center District No.18 Zone 6 7 yr term - 30 -
Gary Percefull is the incumbent board member for Tulsa District 1. According to the school board's website, "schools in Mr. Percefull's election district include Addams, Chouteau, Emerson, Eugene Field, Lee, Park, Remington, Robertson, Roosevelt and Mark Twain elementary schools; Clinton and Madison middle schools; and Central and Webster high schools." That's Tulsa west of the river and west of downtown, plus downtown, Brady Heights, and the area between 11th and 21st, Utica and the Arkansas River. (Here's a PDF map showing the election district boundaries.)
Percefull was elected to an open seat in 2003, defeating Loyce Manning by 930 to 310 votes. Think about that -- if you're a credible candidate and run an organized campaign, it doesn't take much to win.
In 2005, turnout in Election District 2 was only 723 of the 17,884 registered voters -- 4 percent. Also in 2005, Election District 3 drew 887 voters in the primary for an open seat, and 2,106 in the April runoff.
The participation is a little better in the suburbs, but not by much. In 2005, a highly publicized Union School Board open-seat race drew 1,131 voters in the primary and less than 1,600 runoff voters.
(Notice that the Tulsa Whirled never questions the legitimacy of school board elections, even though the turnout is many times smaller than that for a similarly-sized City Council district?)
School board elections are governed by 70 O. S. 5-107A.
Local political activists Gregory and Susan Hill keep close track of elections, and they say that "in 2006, 17 school board elections were scheduled [in Tulsa County], but only 5 elections actually were conducted.... In 2005, 17 elections were scheduled, but only 7 elections actually were conducted." The other elections didn't happen because only one candidate filed.
Some might say these elections don't draw candidates because residents are content with the public school system. I think it's more likely that the filing period catches potential candidates by surprise, coming as it does during the busy run-up to Christmas.
We need to take school board elections as seriously as races for City Council or state legislature. In particular, the Tulsa board needs at least one member who is a staunch supporter of charter schools. Right now, Tulsa has only three charter schools -- one elementary, one middle, and one high school -- and the current board is hostile to allowing any more to open. Oklahoma City has more than 10. Charter schools make educational choice accessible to families who cannot afford private school tuition. Tulsa also needs board members who see their role as accountability, not cheerleading for the administration.
Wherever you live in Oklahoma, find out who your school board member is and think about whether you or someone you know could do a better job than the incumbent. If you're a reformer who decides to run, there are plenty of knowledgable and experienced campaign volunteers who would be glad to help you.
Bruce Niemi is one of three candidates for the board of Tulsa Technology Center. He wrote to respond to my comments about Tulsa's forgotten election -- this Tuesday's school board elections and Tulsa Tech board election. I promised that if school board candidates had some information they wanted to get to the voters, I'd post it here. Here's the question I asked:
For Tulsa Technology Center candidates: Tulsa County has a community college with four campuses, campuses for state universities (OSU, NSU, OU, and Langston), two major private universities, satellite campuses for at least three other private colleges (St. Gregory, Oklahoma Wesleyan, Southern Nazarene), and a plethora of private technical schools, such as Spartan School of Aeronautics. In the midst of all these opportunities for post-high-school education, what should Tulsa Technology Center's mission be? What is TTC's niche?
Here is Bruce Niemi's response, in full:
Michael,Thank you for your coverage of the TTC school boad election and for the opportunity to comment on the questions you raised concerning TTC role in education. Career and technical education is a hybrid system in Oklahoma. Our state is unique because of a dual system that places TTC and other area technical institutes under separate governance from other public educational institutions.
Academic high schools are a part of the K-12 common schools system, while public higher education is overseen by the chancellor and Oklahoma State Board of Regents for Higher Education. This dual system was established in 1966 with the passage of an amendment to the Oklahoma Constitution authorizing joint cooperation between common school districts for careertech education. The Oklahoma measure was a part of a federal vocational education initiative to fund training for scientific technicians in the wake of Sputnik and efforts to reduce chronic unemployment due to automation and rural poverty. Today, TTC serves over 5,000 full-time high school and post-secondary students in a variety of programs ranging from culinary arts to CISCO networking.
When I turn on daytime television, however, I am amazed by the number of commercial spots for private vocational schools. I have also followed the trend by universities such as Phoenix, Southern Nazarene, OCU, and St. Gregorys moving into this market. If TTC is doing its job then why all of the competition?
Like many government agencies, TTC has not been telling its story to the public. Why isnt TTC doing as effective a job at marketing its programs? Why is it when my daughter wanted to become a licensed massage therapist did she have to attend a private school to get this training at three times the tuition? TTC has a Business and Career Development Division that is geared to offer short courses, serving over 155,000 enrollees per year. This BCD division should receive greater emphasis to provide flexible, anytime/anyplace career education.
My reason for entering the TTC School Board Election is to improve access to career and technical training for the Tulsa County workforce. The voters of Tulsa County need accountability, transparency, and accountability for the people in the governance of our technical school system. Tulsa Technology Center spends $65 million per year received from federal and state sources, plus local property tax funds paid by Tulsa County taxpayers, which constitutes about 80 percent of the Districts revenues. These revenues should be used to help our young people find real opportunities for gainful employment in our community by the time they graduate from TTC.
Immediately north of Lemley Tech campus at the Broken Arrow Expressway & Memorial is a bus transfer station. The bus station is set back from Memorial Drive behind an abandoned car dealership. Between the bus station and the campus is a 15-foot chain link fence with no gate. So if a student must rely on public transit and disembarks at the station, he, or more likely she, has to walk all the way around the abandoned car lot and down Memorial to get to class. That fence is a symbol of the difficult access our kids, our veterans, and our underprivileged have to our tech school system and its programs and to do something about it is why I am running.
We can begin to accomplish improved academic accommodation through career counseling in cooperation with area public school districts to connect with children beginning in elementary school. I advocate a Tech Prep and Career Clusters program beginning in elementary school and continuing through high school, linking academic subjects to occupational training programs that include not only introductions to technical subjects, such as the sciences, engineering and information technology, but also the arts, business and the professions, as well as studies on the critical impact technological developments have on our society. I support a Tulsa Technology Center District Plan for establishing a technical high school and operating it in conjunction with the Tulsa Public Schools.
I support Tulsa Tech leading an economic development initiative for incorporating entrepreneurship skills training in all its trade and technical curriculum. So many students graduate from programs that are well suited to pursuing meaningful careers in small business enterprises that, armed with fundamental business skills, Tulsa Tech graduates can go out and create their own enterprises and significantly add to Tulsas economy. Why continue to crucify our youth on a Cross of Aimlessness? Tulsa Tech must also create a facilities-based, small business incubator program - as a number of other technical schools in Oklahoma have already done - on its campuses to assist both its graduates and other local entrepreneurs in getting a head start in business.
We must work to make Tulsa Tech a more active player in providing a seamless transition for students going from academic high schools through the tech school system and into degree-granting higher education institutions.
Tulsa Tech must do its part to support our Iraq Troops. I propose an immediate program of career and technical training provided free of charge to veterans of the Persian Gulf War II. We have an obligation to help our returning servicemen and servicewomen to readjust to civilian life after serving In Harms Way. An investment in veterans education can only reap dividends for the next generation.
Finally, we can pay for these new technical and vocational education programs without raising taxes by keeping a watchful eye on current expenditures and getting funds from the innovative sources that are out there for the asking.
I hope that this answers some of your concerns
Bruce Niemi
Thanks to Bruce Niemi for such a thoughtful answer. If any of the other candidates wish to respond to my question, e-mail me at blog AT batesline DOT com.
All the attention is going to the city elections, but several area districts have an election for school board coming up on Tuesday, February 14. One of those seats is on the Tulsa School Board: Incumbent Matthew Livingood faces challenger Frances Skonicki. There's a three-way race for seat 4 on the Tulsa Technology Center board: John Bernardine, Bruce Niemi, and Robert Price. (You old-timers know it as Vo-Tech.) And there are board races in Skiatook, Sperry, and Owasso.
If you need help understanding why school board elections are important, read Tulsa Chigger's report on this Monday's Tulsa school board meeting, dealing with charter schools. The attorney for Tulsa Public Schools (TPS) argued that the charter school's act is unconstitutional. In Oklahoma, charter schools -- schools that are governed by a board of parents but funded by the state -- are under contract to the local school district. TPS has been very uncooperative with charter schools, and on Monday the board nearly made life even more difficult for Tulsa's three charters by reducing the contract renewal period from three years to one year. TPS, which calls itself the "District of Choice," offers parents a choice between eight non-performing high schools (the ninth has a selective admission process), and is doing its best to eliminate the option of a charter school. Tulsa Chigger notes that the Oklahoma City school district has been much more accommodating, and they have 10 charter schools in operation.
Operation: Information asked candidates to respond to 17 questions and they've posted the responses. That questionnaire page also has a contact phone number for each candidate. Feel free to call those numbers; when I ran for office, I was excited to get calls from voters who wanted to ask me about the issues.
As in the past, if you're running for school board and have some info you'd like to get out to the voters, e-mail me at blog at batesline dot com, and I'll publish it.
There are a couple of questions I wish had been on the survey.
For Tulsa school board candidates: Do you pledge to be as accommodating and supportive as possible to existing and new charter schools?
For Tulsa Technology Center candidates: Tulsa County has a community college with four campuses, campuses for state universities (OSU, NSU, OU, and Langston), two major private universities, satellite campuses for at least three other private colleges (St. Gregory, Oklahoma Wesleyan, Southern Nazarene), and a plethora of private technical schools, such as Spartan School of Aeronautics. In the midst of all these opportunities for post-high-school education, what should Tulsa Technology Center's mission be? What is TTC's niche?
Even if you don't have kids in school, even if your focus is on the city elections, you should care and you should vote in the school board election. Tulsa's school board needs a complete housecleaning. The board members seem to regard themselves as boosters serving the administration, not as watchdogs serving the taxpayers and parents and holding the administration accountable. Although there are good teachers in the system, the district's fad-driven approach to education isn't working. Parents perceive the school system bureaucracy as unresponsive to their concerns, and it's driving young families out to the suburbs. If we want to retain and attract families to the City of Tulsa, the Tulsa school district needs to be the District of Good Choices, not the District of Hobson's Choice.
To find out which school district and board election district you live in, here's the Tulsa County Election Board's precinct locator. (Unfortunately, it doesn't report Tulsa Technology Center board district.)
Mike Mansur, who blogs at meanderingaphorisms.blogspot.com, writes regarding tomorrow's school bond election:
I got into an argument this past weekend with a gentleman who was furious that I would vote against the proposed school bond election that is being held tomorrow. He said I was dooming those children to a life of poverty.
You can read his response here.
I just had a look at the Tulsa Public Schools bond issue, which will be on the ballot this Tuesday.
There will be four propositions on the ballot, with names that suggest coherent groupings: building improvements ($116.4 million); library books, library materials, and building additions ($9.7 million); textbooks, classroom learning materials, and technology ($29.6 million); transportation ($6.5 million). That's a grand total of $162.2 million, or about $1,000 per student per year over the next four years. That money is over and above the operating budget of approximately $6,000 per year per regular student and $13,000 per year per special education student.
When you look at the details, they've made it very difficult for taxpayers to prioritize one kind of spending over another. Included in the building improvements package is money for artificial turf and other stadium improvements and money for renovating all middle school pools. The library and classroom packages combine one-time expenditures for capital improvements -- building additional library space -- with money for recurring operating expenses, like licenses for online research services.
Once upon a time, school bond issues were for building new school buildings or major renovations on existing buildings -- things with lifespans measured in decades. For the last 10 years or so, schools have been allowed to use bond money to fund textbooks, software, computers, and other equipment with a short lifespan, things that really belong to the operating budget.
It is important to maintain what we have and to expand facilities where it's needed, but it would be considerate of the school board to distinguish between absolute necessities and "nice to haves" when they come to us for funding.
Tulsa Chiggers has some analysis of the report that dozens of schools in Tulsa have made the federal "needs improvement" list. 38 schools within the Tulsa district are on the list, including seven of Tulsa Public Schools' nine high schools made the list, and an eighth high school (Memorial) is likely to make the list next year. If your child's school is on the "needs improvement" list, the school district is required to offer you the choice to transfer your child to any other school in the district, but that isn't much of a choice if nearly every other school in the district is on the same list.
The entry on Tulsa Chiggers has links to the report for Tulsa Public Schools. The gateway to reports for every district in Oklahoma is here.
"Red Bug" writes that it's time to drain the swamp at Tulsa Public Schools. It's my impression that TPS, still the largest single district in the state, is bound up in bureaucracy and too ready to adopt the latest educratic fad. The board seems to believe that its job is to act as cheerleaders for the administration, rather than as watchdogs. The students of the district would benefit from more charter school opportunities, but the district administration and board have resisted charter schools every step of the way.
To get a flavor for TPS's current educational philosophy, read this entry from October 2003, in which a TPS French teacher explains to a parent why, a month into the school year, the class has not yet learned any actual French. Of the teacher's email, I wrote: "This isn't the raving of some rogue teacher, imposing her own nutty ideas on her defenseless pupils, but a teacher trying to do what her school district has trained and instructed her to do. This is the 'Tulsa Model for School Improvement.'"
TPS is a significant obstacle to new development in north, west, and east Tulsa, and it's an obstacle to keeping families with children in midtown. If our city leaders are concerned about maintaining and growing the tax base in the City of Tulsa, they should work with our state legislators to expand school choice for children in the Tulsa district. The rest of us, the voters in the Tulsa district, need to start recruiting and preparing candidates to run for school board, candidates who will advocate for charter schools and for traditional, successful approaches to teaching. The filing period is in December.
In the meantime, keep an eye on Tulsa Chiggers for coverage of Tulsa Public Schools.
The recall campaign is over but yard signs are still sprouting up around midtown Tulsa. The campaign is not aimed at the general electorate, but at the board of Tulsa Public Schools (TPS) and the committee putting together the next school bond issue, slated for the November ballot.
A group of parents of Edison High School students are pushing for the inclusion in that bond issue of a $1.3 million "lightweight" football stadium for the Edison campus. Currently, Edison uses LaFortune Stadium on the Memorial High School campus as its home field. Memorial, Washington, East Central, Webster, and TSSC (formerly McLain) each have a football stadium on campus, and all but TSSC share the field with one other high school. In the past, TPS also used Skelly Stadium as a home field, and played home games on both Thursday and Friday nights. (Perhaps they still do, but I couldn't find a schedule from last fall to verify that.)
Proponents of a stadium for Edison have put together a detail-rich website, advertised on the yard signs. (I commend them for making the signs' type big enough to read while passing at 35 MPH.) They argue that the stadium can be funded without raising taxes by reallocating funds targeted for upgrading existing stadiums.
As impressed as I am by the website (which focuses on detail rather than flash), I am unmoved by their arguments. This is a telling passage:
An interesting fact is that TPS and the bond development committee have not once argued that this stadium is unnecessary because it would not benefit the students. They must clearly understand the benefits, but choose not to act on behalf of Edison students by funding this project. Instead they continue to channel much needed funding away from schools in need, toward schools which already have established championship athletic programs.
Notice that they contrast "need" with "already have established championship athletic programs." I have a hard time seeing the creation of a championship athletic program as a need.
Another page presents Google satellite images of the existing high school sports complexes. The writer observes that other sports facilities at schools with football stadiums are of higher quality and better maintained than equivalent facilities at the "have not" schools and implies that the presence of a football stadium would improve the general athletic situation at Edison.
I'm not inclined to put any of the upcoming bond issue towards athletics. Repairing or renovating academic facilities ought to be the highest priority. My mother was a kindergarten teacher at Catoosa Elementary School for 28 years, and I can remember her frustration when the school board put a lighted baseball field and a new high school gym ahead of fixing the roof and installing air conditioning for the WPA-era elementary school.
If you're going to spend bond money on athletics, it would make more sense to fund modernization and improvements to existing stadiums rather than build another facility that will require maintenance and, eventually, modernization and improvements.
The bond development committee should keep this in mind as it considers including an Edison stadium in the bond package: Tulsa's taxpayers sent a strong signal last December, when they rejected the library bond issue, that they aren't interested in paying for "wants" right now. If a stadium is included, it could cause the defeat of that part of the package. The bond issue will be split into several different ballot items, and the committee should be careful to separate academic projects from athletic projects, and perhaps put an Edison stadium on its own ballot item.
And before someone complains that East Central got a stadium in the last bond package, it should be remembered that the residents of the old East Central school district were promised a stadium decades ago (1960s?) when the district was annexed into the Tulsa district.
Even if the stadium is included in the bond package, building a stadium on the proposed site may require a zoning change, a special exception, or a variance to permit the stadium and to meet parking requirements, and there's no guarantee that the school district will get the necessary approvals.