Owasso a test case for political expediency taking over, accountability kicked to the curb
It’s all politics now.
Or so it would appear.
So much for effective policy, as long as it can be sold.
Say goodbye to pragmatism. It’s more important to stay on brand.
Right?
You know, for one side and not the other, though it would be glorious if we could get beyond sides.
Were state superintendent Ryan Walters to come out and agree with a U.S. Department of Education investigation into Owasso Public Schools in the aftermath of Nex Benedict’s death, it would be welcome relief.
Heck, he ought to just for the optics, just to pretend he cares about all Oklahoma students’ welfare, to (ironically) proclaim he won’t stand for bullying or marginalization, though they happen to be two of his go-to tactics.
It would be nice, too, if, say, six months from now the new “Office of Faith-Based Initiatives,” introduced by governor Kevin Stitt only last week, might convince a few of the Democrats who’ve managed to get themselves elected into the state legislature to come out and say, “Hey, this thing of the governor’s is actually doing some good, it’s not the Christo-fascist thing we thought it was going to be.”
Or in the sprit of that.
No need to inflame.
Also, circle Feb. 15 on your calendar and wait to see if what’s supposed to happen that day happens at all, or if whatever’s left of the federal government’s education department, presuming it still exists, will continue holding the Owasso district accountable for the misdeeds and toxic culture it created, aggravated or exacerbated, so say the feds who performed and have now reported out their investigation.
Because it’s on that day the Owasso district has been charged with issuing a public anti-harassment statement, one of the conditions imposed upon it in the wake of the investigation.
Dale Denwalt had the story in Thursday morning’s Oklahoman.
Here’s his lead:
A U.S. Department of Education investigation that began after the death of student Nex Benedict found that Owasso Public Schools has repeatedly failed to address sexual harassment, resulting in a culture of deliberate indifference to students’ civil rights.
Here’s a little more about what the investigation found:
The U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights identified repeated instances, over a three-year period, where Owasso Public Schools staff members were told of possible sexual harassment against children but either did not respond adequately or did not respond at all.
The lack of action “rose to the level that the district’s response to some families’ sexual harassment reports was deliberately indifferent to students’ civil rights,” the department said on Wednesday.
Denwalt’s piece continued with specifics and details. It’s a good read and I recommend it and I hope the district does the right thing simply in the name of doing the right thing.
I’m also concerned that will be the only it winds up doing it.
Yet, for our purposes here, it could have been any district in any red state in which an embarrassment like Walters is state superintendent, alongside a governor like Kevin Stitt who sees nothing wrong with the embarrassment, even as the attorney general and several individual members of the legislature do.
All right, maybe it had to be Oklahoma.
The operative questions are thus:
In a second Donald Trump administration, in which loyalty reigns and quaint things like the civil rights of students can so easily be gobbled up by an us-them political prism, will the U.S. Department of Education, led by its Office of Civil Rights, continue to enforce the conditions and remedies the Owasso district momentarily, at least, faces?
For that matter, will an active Office of Civil Rights within the U.S. Department of Education still be operating on Feb. 15? Or, really, will there be any U.S. Department of Education at all?
Believe it or not, there continues to be talk of Walters becoming Trump’s choice as education secretary; or, more accurately, as Trump’s choice to be the last U.S. Education Secretary. Nonetheless, pretend that never happens and ponder what he might do in his current job between now and Feb. 15.
Already he’s announced the formation of an “Office of Religious Liberty and Patriotism” within our state department of education, which doesn’t sound like anything indoctrinating at all.
Sarcasm.
“It is no coincidence that the dismantling of faith and family values in public schools directly correlates with declining academic outcomes in our public schools,” Walters said Tuesday. “In Oklahoma, we are reversing this negative trend and, working with the incoming Trump Administration, we are going to aggressively pursue education policies that will improve academic outcomes and give our children a better future.”
Indeed, so not political.
More sarcasm.
Already, he’s agreed with Trump the U.S. Department of Education should be dismantled, an act that would conveniently kill the watchdog looking out for bullied students in Owasso, the same entity from which Oklahoma receives so much of its education funding, which is not doled out for free, but with conditions that small men desperate to wield power like Walters do not believe applies to them.
So what happens on Feb. 15.
Will a school district in Oklahoma that’s been found negligent in looking out for the civil rights of its students still be subject to any conditions at all?
Will the dissolution of the U.S. Department of Education, or merely the pulling of the teeth previously given it to keep districts within the law — its Office of Civil Rights — pull Owasso off the hook?
Or will Oklahoma’s state superintendent run interference, appeal to his presidential deity, Donald Trump, and use his new-found influence and sway to pull Owasso off the hook himself.
You know, we have a federal (and state) government, and all of its departments within, all of its regulations and red tape, for a reason and that reason is to protect Americans, bullied and mistreated students in a Tulsa suburb included.
Let’s hope that’s not ending.
But it might end before Feb. 15.
It might end that day.
Because now, it may all be politics.
All about winning, not about serving.
To hell with the public good.
Can’t let that get in the way of of getting one over on the other side.
Because, you know, politics.