Thank goodness the folks who gave us Ryan Walters are here to save education
My favorite part about the State Chamber of Oklahoma is how it acts like it’s doing everybody a favor.
Here it is, unveiling its agenda for the coming legislative session, beginning Feb. 2.
“It all starts with your ability to read at grade level post-third grade,” State Chamber president and CEO Chad Warmington told The Oklahoman. “It’s the foundation on which everything is built for your educational workforce journey. Unfortunately, Oklahoma’s not doing a great job there.”
Behold.
Such courage. Such clarity.
No wonder Republican legislators fall right in line behind “the chamber,” a business group that clandestinely dropped “of commerce” from its name so it could mansplain policy on business, education, infrastructure, the environment and whatever else comes to mind.
It’s all about service. It’s here to help.
Because who needs environmental experts offering thoughts on environmental policy when the state chamber’s standing by?
Who needs infrastructure professionals to explain what’s broken when the chamber can do it itself?
It’s a one-stop shop.
Really, we’re fortunate “of commerce” was removed. Too limiting.
Conservative business leaders understand everything.
Right?
This year’s big push — third-grade literacy — is a lift from the so-called “Mississippi Miracle,” a reform effort that did produce real results, though it came with a not-insignificant detail: $100 million in private funding from Jim and Sally Barksdale, complete with strict guardrails to prevent politicians from hijacking or diluting their investment.
Learn all about that right here.
Thankfully, house speaker Kyle Hilbert is here to explain.
“The goal … is not to retain a bunch of kids in the third grade,” Hilbert told Oklahoma Voice. “The goal is that we have this accountability metric that says if you don’t pass the third grade, you’re retained. But the hope is for school districts to identify students if they’re behind in kindergarten, first grade, second grade … so we can catch them up sooner.”
What could go wrong?
But wait, what about the $100 million.
Does Michael Price have that kind of dough lying around?
Does George Kaiser, and would he be willing to partner with a state legislature that continues shoveling public money into private-school tax credits overwhelmingly benefiting wealthy families already sending their kids to private schools?
Or would the legislature consider ending a policy that amounts to wealth redistribution to the already rich?
If only the poor had lobbyists.
Which is the point: Mississippi worked because it was funded, protected and insulated from political meddling — three things Oklahoma Republicans, happy to be told what to think and how to vote, have no appetite for. And given governor Kevin Stitt’s desire to uncap what’s already a $250 million giveaway, it won’t happen.
It’s almost like another party should be in charge.
Step back and the ending is easy to see. Without new resources — real resources, including real teachers replacing so many unqualified warm bodies left behind after so many were chased away — the policy will be abandoned, having proved unsustainable, the logjam between third and fourth grade crippling so many districts.
Still, we should be grateful to the state chamber.
It’s really trying.
Warmington understands the skepticism.
Oklahoman reporter Alexia Aston quoted him acknowledging teachers’ concerns about why the chamber is only now engaging in education policy.
“They’re right to be a little bit concerned,” Warmington said. “They’re right to maybe question, ‘Why now?’ for the state chamber, so we’re going to work to rebuild that trust.”
Swell.
Unless it’s the worst kind of lie.
Or a complete lack of self-awareness.
Has the state chamber forgotten it gave us Ryan Walters in the first place?
In May 2019, the chamber created its own education spinoff, Oklahoma Achieves, and hired Walters to run it; it quickly rebranded into Every Kid Counts Oklahoma; Stitt brought Walters into his administration as education secretary; Walters defrauded Oklahoma families and the federal government in what became the ClassWallet scandal; he ran for state superintendent and won.
And when everybody eventually wanted him out, Republican leadership, the state chamber included, did nothing to get him out.
But thank goodness the state chamber’s back.
Thank goodness for its leadership.
“It’s one of those things when opportunity and the right people and the right momentum get together,” Warmington said. “Our timing’s just kind of ordained to make some really big gains.”
Because nobody understands education reform better than the folks who gave us the man who tried to kill it.
Hey state chamber, even if you’ve stolen the kernel of a good idea, maybe sit this one out.
Maybe this time legislators should skip the lobbyists and listen to the experts — many of them in classrooms every day — who can explain what real reform’s bound to require.
So thanks for stopping by.
But your credibility’s shot.
Come back in a couple of years. Maybe longer.
You know it’s the best thing.
Right?