Cowards among us
How does Oklahoma not look out for public education? Like this.
Where would Oklahoma be without the Republican Party?
Let’s give it some thought.
Women in our state would have reproductive freedom, autonomy over their own bodies and access to reproductive health care.
Big deal?
It’s the civil rights of half the state, give or take. Seems like it ought to be.
A minimum wage that’s not ridiculous on its face, $7.25 per hour, same as it’s been since 2008.
There’s a referendum slated for June of next year that would raise it to $15 per hour.
If the vote happens, it’s bound to pass, yet then we’ll have to worry about the legislature undermining it before the law goes into effect, because that’s just what a Republican ruling party would try to do, go after a state question that’s already passed.
Oh, here’s one.
Our education system would be ranked higher than 49th in the nation, obviously, and here recently we got more proof of it after Oklahoma senate Republicans, even those claiming to be reasonable, made clear the cowards they are.
It’s a lot to have followed day-to-day and, good for all of us, terrific reporting from The Oklahoman’s Murray Evans put it all out there in a fact-filled, down-the-middle, wrap-it-all-up piece you can read here.
Still, allow me to explain, too, for the preposterous process that’s fraudulently fabricated new public school social studies standards, can sometimes be hard to grasp without slight editorial license to drive it home.
So, pretend the person who once controlled the state board of education with an iron fist until the governor, no champion of public education himself, remade the board with new appointments, first put together an advisory group to come up with new standards back when his fist remained iron.
And that many from that advisory group were never educators, nor Oklahomans, just activists dressed up as experts from extreme right-wing media and think tanks with no interest in turning out critical thinkers, just those who think like them.
Actually, stop pretending because that’s exactly what happened.
Back before Ryan Walters had worn Kevin Stitt out, back when he still had the governor’s political backing, Walters put together just such a group to author the new standards.
Yet, before they could be voted upon, Stitt indeed abandoned Walters, removing three of his original state school board appointments, who never once voted against Walters’ positions, with three new appointments who might.
Those new members were in place when the board passed the new standards, or what they thought were the new standards, only to learn they’d been bamboozled.
Evans put it like this:
Three new board members have said Walters deceived them, both in making last-minute additions to the standards without notifying them or the public and by telling them the standards had to be approved during a late February meeting, when in reality they could have been presented to the Legislature for approval as late as this week.
In a previous piece, telling the story of Mike Tinney, one of Stitt’s three new appointments to the state school board — there has since been a fourth; learn about that here — Evans wrote this:
Mike Tinney thought he’d come to his first meeting as a member of the Oklahoma State Board of Education prepared. Tinney knew the board would consider new social studies academic standards, so he pulled up the version of the standards he found online and read through them. He wanted to be informed …
After news reports surfaced that Walters had quietly edited the standards upon which the board was to vote, Tinney compared what he’d found online to what had been provided as part of a large informational packet presented to board members. The documents were considerably different.
Among the changes, the new version of one section of the standards says high school students should “Identify discrepancies in 2020 elections results by looking at graphs and other information, including the sudden halting of ballot-counting in select cities in key battleground states, the security risks of mail-in balloting, sudden batch dumps …”
Oh, brother.
The new board members didn’t know what they were voting on because Walters pulled a fast one, acted entirely in bad faith, purposely misrepresented the new standards to fellow board members because it was the only way to get them passed.
It seems like something could be done about that, right. A cheater, Walters, has been exposed, so how hard can it be to undo the cheating?
As it happened, Republican state senator Adam Pugh, from Edmond, thought the same thing and authored Joint Resolution 20, a measure that would have done away with the new standards.
He even, get this, had the governor’s support, not to mention the support of the senate’s top Republican, president pro tempore Lonnie Paxton.
Republicans willing to stand in the way of Walters, you’ve got to love it. As long as they didn’t turn out to be feckless give-up artists, that is.
Alas, they did.
Evans got a long quote from Alex Gerszewski, Paxton’s communications guy, to explain and here it is:
“Pro Tem Paxton worked with Sen. Pugh on the resolution that had to be filed by last Thursday’s deadline to further the conversation on the education standards, after Governor Stitt called for the standards to be sent back.
“Following a lengthy conversation Monday, the caucus was not on board with rejecting the standards based on the process in which they were presented to the board of education.
“The standards are not a legislative obligation, and the curriculum is developed by the State Department of Education.”
What?
They’re not even bringing it to a vote?
Walters lied, cheated and stole to get the new standards approved, hoodwinking the board not only about what they included, but also about the time available to pass them when the clock had far longer to tick.
And because the wing supporting the new standards — or unwilling to stand against them — outnumbers the wing that doesn’t, those originally inclined to do the right thing have lost interest, turned the page and folded to the clowns in their caucus, or perhaps just to a Moms for Liberty lobbying effort promising to primary them should they show backbone.
A bunch of cowards.
They could have made the yahoos own their vote. Could have gone down fighting for public education rather than giving up on it. Could have done what they knew to be fair and right, but ran the other way.
An advisory board chosen on the basis of politics and right-wing indoctrination …
A state board of education voting on new standards it had not seen, nor read, nor had explained to them, purposely, by the state superintendent …
Republican leaders inclined to do the right thing if it’s easy, but not when met with resistance from the idiots within.
It’s a wonder we’re still 49th.
Since ‘06 the Republicans have been in charge…and the state is worse off plus is a pariah amongst states. The uneducated in the state continue to vote these idiots in because of the lack of democratic backbone. The few Democrats in the legislature release “statements”. What good is that? Why aren’t they on tv and the radio and social media decrying everything the cult party is doing? When I contacted the Democratic Party all I got was a list of “events”. Where is the pushback?
As soon as you accept Discovery Card I can subscribe.