Walters touts Teacher Freedom Alliance, alternative to "Woke Teachers' Unions"

Walters Touts Alternative to Woke Teachers' Unions

Teacher Freedom Alliance provides a necessary free market solution

OKLAHOMA CITY, OK (March 10th) – Today, Superintendent Ryan Walters announced intent to lead the charge to offer a private industry solution to the far left-leaning Teachers' Unions that have infected our public education system for decades. The Freedom Foundation launched the Teacher Freedom Alliance (TFA) on Saturday, introducing a program that provides liability coverage for teachers, promotes historically accurate curriculum, and offers professional development opportunities. These measures aim to help excellent teachers be rewarded for their proficiency rather than their longevity and allegiance to the union.

Carter: Career teachers are scant in the Oklahoma Educators Hall of Fame

There was an uproar - a tempest in a teapot, really - the other week over new State Superintendent Ryan Walters removing portraits in a hallway at the State Department of Education building placed in recognition of a non-governmental organization's "hall of fame". Instead of using government space to laud this one group's favorite people, he wanted to use the space to honor and recognize the parents and children that the Oklahoma State Department of Education is supposed to be working for. 

Read below for some excellent context to the kerfluffle:

CAREER TEACHERS ARE SCANT IN THE OKLAHOMA EDUCATORS HALL OF FAME

by Ray Carter | February 24, 2023

When reviewing the more than 100 individuals inducted into the Oklahoma Educators Hall of Fame since 1985, Ruth Genevieve Hudson stands out—because Hudson, inducted in 1994, is one of the very few career classroom teachers to make the cut.

While Hudson spent 45 years primarily teaching music at Sand Springs, Tulsa, and Blackwell Public Schools, as well as in the state of Kansas, her lengthy classroom service is in stark contrast to many of the other people honored in the educators’ hall.

Instead, the Oklahoma Educators Hall of Fame is filled with the names of politicians, union leaders, lobbyists, consultants, and individuals who worked in college settings rather than in the K-12 school system.

The hall is also filled largely with men, even though the overwhelming majority of classroom teachers are women.

“To me, it wasn’t showing respect for the classroom teachers,” said Teresa Turner, who taught school for 26 years in rural Oklahoma before retiring. “It was just showing more respect for administrators and others instead of the ones that are in the daily grind doing the work with the children.”

Dahm files legislation to protect teachers’ First Amendment rights

Sen. Dahm files legislation to protect teachers’ First Amendment rights

OKLAHOMA CITY (Dec. 28, 2022) – Sen. Nathan Dahm, R-Broken Arrow, has filed legislation requiring school districts to inform teachers of their First Amendment rights and obtain reauthorization every year before deducting union dues from teachers’ paychecks.

Stitt issues executive order to reassure teacher freedom regarding unions

GOVERNOR STITT ISSUES EO TO PROTECT TEACHERS’ FIRST AMENDMENT RIGHTS AND STAND UP TO TEACHER UNIONS

OKLAHOMA CITY (Aug. 19, 2022) – Today, Governor Kevin Stitt issued Executive Order 2022-18  to protect Oklahoma’s teachers’ and school district employees’ First Amendment rights by fighting back against liberal teachers’ unions. With the executive order, Oklahoma educators will be assured of the freedom to decide whether or not to participate in unions, rather than allowing union bosses to intimidate teachers into handing over part of their salaries.

Anti-Trump, pro-Clinton/Biden labor union backs Frix

UPDATE: More left-wing, anti-Trump donors funding Frix for Congress

On Wednesday, 2nd District GOP runoff candidate Avery Frix accepted a $5,000 maximum contribution from the UA Union Plumbers & Pipefitters Vote! Political Action Committee, an anti-Trump, pro-Obama, pro-Clinton, pro-Biden labor union with deep pockets for liberal candidates.

This PAC is a huge supporter of left-wing candidates, with 91%+ of their tens of millions of dollars in donations going to Democrats, and the remainder generally going to the most moderate Republicans in office.

Fiscal Failure Frix, the worst choice for conservatives in CD2

Among the Republican candidates in the super crowded, 14-member 2nd Congressional District race is State Rep. Avery Frix (R-Muskogee), who is posturing himself as a super-conservative next-gen MAGA warrior intent on storming Washington.

Frix, elected to the State House in 2016, may be a registered Republican, but he's by no means a super-conservative. In fact, on many issues, he's simply not conservative. At all. Let me give you almost seven billion reasons why.

OCPA column: the OK House - where good bills go to die

The Oklahoma House of Representatives: Where good bills go to die

By Jonathan Small

After the 2020 elections, GOP leaders bragged that Republicans held 82 of 101 seats in the Oklahoma House of Representatives. Yet House leadership repeatedly declined to pass bills of significance this year.

A press release issued by House Speaker Charles McCall upon conclusion of the regular 2022 session provided sad confirmation of that problem. Roughly half the release focused on last year’s achievements—not measures that advanced in 2022.

A quick review explains why. The House was often the chamber where good bills went to die.

1889 Institute: COVID shows why gov't collective bargaining should be illegal

COVID-19 Illuminates Why Collective Bargaining with Government Employees Should Be Illegal

By Byron Schlomach

By one recent ranking of the fifty states and the District of Columbia, Oklahoma’s public schools are 48th in quality. Texas is big, diverse, and has immigration issues; nevertheless, it ranks 30th, ahead of Missouri (32nd), and Arkansas (39th), but behind Oklahoma’s other neighbors Kansas (27th) and Colorado (17th).

Demographics, culture, and other issues outside schools’ direct control play some part in the rankings. Still, our schools were not doing what they needed to do even before the COVID-19 pandemic. Things have only gotten worse. Since Oklahoma’s schools closed in March 2020, Oklahoma’s public schools have become intellectual wastelands. Unready to conduct classes online last spring, most of Oklahoma’s schools – at least the large districts – simply punted the rest of the school year. Things are only marginally better this year.

Yet, schools have not been a source of COVID-19 spread. Sweden and other European countries have demonstrated this fact, and a study from the United States shows COVID-19 spreading at a minuscule rate in schools, with just 0.04% of students being infected at school. There was apparently no transmission from students to adults in the schools.

OCPA column: Prioritizing free speech for teachers

Prioritizing free speech for teachers

By Jonathan Small

How important is the right of free speech to you? To some, but fortunately not all, lawmakers, it’s not even worth a piece of paper and an email.

The nation’s two major teachers’ unions—the National Education Association and the American Federation for Teachers—both support many far-left political causes and candidates, including abortion on demand. As a result, the dues paid by members of those unions ultimately support those political causes.

Yet many teachers—including thousands in Oklahoma—do not support left-wing political causes. And the U.S. Supreme Court, in its 2018 decision in Janus v. American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees, Council 31, ruled that employees cannot be forced to participate.

Partly in response to that ruling, Sen. Julie Daniels has filed Senate Bill 634, which would require schools to get annual reauthorization for union-dues withholding from employees. The bill requires that schools provide teachers with a form to sign each year that notes employees “have a First Amendment right, as recognized by the U.S. Supreme Court, to refrain from joining and paying dues or making political contributions to a professional employee organization” and that they cannot be discriminated against it they choose not to join a union.

Stitt responds after Board of Education nominee withdraws after targeting by labor unions

STATEMENT FROM GOVERNOR STITT REGARDING OKLAHOMA STATE BOARD OF EDUCATION 

OKLAHOMA CITY (Dec. 7, 2020) – Governor Kevin Stitt today released the following statement regarding the Oklahoma State Board of Education: 

“I spoke with Melissa Crabtree today and she requested that I rescind her appointment to the Oklahoma State Board of Education.  

I was extremely disappointed to see how many were so quick to judge her without taking the time to personally speak to her.  

Ms. Crabtree is a loving mother and wife, and her public school teaching experience and work with special needs children would have been valuable assets to our state. 

However, it’s become clear that Democrats and unions only value the voices of teachers when they are willing to fall in line with their political agendas. 

That being said, I respect her decision and will rescind her nomination. We will reopen the search process and identify a new appointee as soon as possible.” – Governor Kevin Stitt 

Crabtree also issued the following statement: 

“I am grateful to Governor Stitt for nominating me to serve on the Oklahoma State Board of Education and it is a tremendous honor to be considered. However, after careful consideration, I have determined that this is not the right opportunity for me to serve my state.” – Melissa Crabtree 

Blogger's note -- here is an example of the vitriol directed at Crabtree by some in the left-led education field:

1889 Institute: ban collective bargaining in government

RESTORE SOVEREIGNTY TO THE PEOPLE: BAN COLLECTIVE BARGAINING IN GOVERNMENT

Even Franklin Roosevelt opposed collective bargaining in government employment.

OKLAHOMA CITY, OK (November 23, 2020) – The 1889 Institute has published a new paper titled “Liberate Oklahoma from Public Sector Union Domination.” The paper argues that allowing government to collectively bargain with public employees “robs the people of their sovereignty over government,” which happens because unions can hold the public hostage by denying essential, government-monopolized services when they strike.

As demonstrated a few years ago, Oklahoma’s anti-strike law is inadequate, especially as it relates to teachers. In that case, the more subtle way that unionized public employees undermine the people’s sovereignty is in the way unions act as powerful political influences, effectively allowing government employees to hire their employers by being a key voting bloc. School boards clearly acted more as representatives of unionized employees than representatives of the people, parents, or students.

1889 Institute: Legislature should shield kids from Teachers' Union strikes

The Oklahoma Legislature Should Shield Kids from Teachers' Union Strikes

By Ben Lepak

Oklahoma’s largest teachers’ union has demanded the state adopt a policy that would see schools in 39 of Oklahoma’s 77 counties closed if only three people test positive in the entire county. Any excuse appears to be enough for unions to demand teachers be allowed to stay home from work, but still get paid. The lesson unions took from their successful 2018 walkout is that unbending obstinacy and elevation of adults’ economic interests over children’s well-being and educational advancement will not be punished, but rewarded.

The Legislature should make sure this lesson is unlearned.

It can do so by revising the state’s existing teacher strike law to squarely ban public employees from going on strike, punishable by an automatic loss of employment and benefits, like pensions.

Texas has such a law. There hasn’t been a single public employee strike in that state since the law’s passage in 1993. Incidentally, Democrats controlled Texas when that law was enacted. There was a time when even champions of organized labor like Franklin Roosevelt recognized government employee strikes for what they are, a subversion of government.

OCPA column: Governor addresses real need with education plan

Governor addresses real need with education plan

By Jonathan Small

Governor Kevin Stitt’s background as a businessman is often apparent in his understanding of financial realities that traditional politicians ignore. Hence, the governor’s willingness to save, rather than spend, much of last year’s budget surplus.

But Stitt’s “Stay in School” initiative highlights another benefit of his private-sector expertise: the governor’s understanding that Oklahoma cannot afford to squander human capital.

State Rep. Mark McBride Named OEA Legislator of the Year

McBride Named OEA Legislator of the Year

OKLAHOMA CITY – State Rep. Mark McBride, R-Moore, on Thursday was recognized by the Oklahoma Education Association (OEA) with the Outstanding Legislator Award for 2020.

The organization, which represents teachers in working with state and local government agencies as well as with lawmakers and the governor, said it selected McBride because of his outstanding support of public education and public educators.

“I’m appreciative to be recognized for my legislative work to ensure Oklahoma public school students have the very best education possible,” McBride said. “During this time of uncertainty and change, it is more important than ever that all education stakeholders come together to work for what is best for Oklahoma students. Making sure students have access to highly qualified teachers and up-to-date classroom materials and resources improves their academic success and prepares them to be productive members of society.”

“We may have disagreements at times over our approaches,” McBride said, “but at the end of the day if students receive the best education possible, it is worth it.”

Mark McBride serves District 53 in the Oklahoma House of Representatives, which includes parts of Moore in Cleveland County.

OCPA column: Police chiefs warn of dangers of government unions

Police chiefs warn of dangers of government unions

By Jonathan Small

It’s long been understood that unions make government workers unresponsive to public needs. This applies to police as much as any other worker. A University of Chicago study found that between 1996 and 2015, newly unionized law enforcement agencies saw a 27 percent increase in misconduct complaints.

People in Camden, New Jersey, took actions to promote accountability and address police union problems. In 2012, Camden, New Jersey, dissolved its police department and replaced it with an entirely new one.

Small: Government and government unions killed George Floyd

Government & government unions killed George Floyd

By Jonathan Small

The death of George Floyd has been much discussed, yet some aspects of this incident have not received sufficient attention.

For example, news reports indicate Floyd was among the millions left unemployed by government-ordered shutdown of “non-essential” businesses—an act of government overreach. When he was killed, Floyd was being arrested for passing a fake $20 bill. If it were not for government action that deprived Floyd of his job and income, his alleged crime may have never been conceived. Instead, he could have continued to work and provide for himself and his family.

That’s just one way big government killed George Floyd. Another is the role played by government employee unions and their political supporters.

The Minneapolis police officer who effectively choked Floyd to death by kneeling on Floyd’s neck had a history of complaints. But thanks to government unions who funnel money to politicians and then “negotiate” with those same politicians, the police officer had little reason to fear loss of his job.

Government robbed Floyd of his income, may have incentivized his alleged non-violent crime, and then emboldened some on the Minneapolis police force to abuse their power.

Government and government unions killed George Floyd.

Reps. Ford, May ask governments to treat COVID-19 as line-of-duty injury for first responders

Ford, May Ask for Job Injury Pay for Public Safety First Responders

OKLAHOMA CITY - State Reps. Ross Ford and Stan May, both R-Broken Arrow, are asking state, county and municipal governments to cover public safety officers that contract COVID-19 in the same manner as a line-of-duty injury.

“Any public safety officer that contracts this illness should have it treated as a presumptive line-of-duty injury the same as any other injury,” the lawmakers said in a joint statement.

Op-ed: Don't blame OEA for transgender school readings -- ask the GOP Legislature

Lawmakers prop up OEA/NEA despite radicalism

by Brandon Dutcher, OCPA Senior Vice President

[Original link] For several years in a row, Oklahoma Republican lawmakers have done the bidding of the National Education Association (NEA) and its state affiliate (OEA) by refusing to enact a common-sense, pro-teacher, union reform bill.

This week, the NEA urged teachers to have transgender storytime in public schools.

There’s a direct link between those two things.

Under Oklahoma law, you don’t have to join a teachers’ union, but if you do join one your choice is limited to whatever entity has been certified at your local school. The certification vote was often taken decades ago. Should teachers want to decertify a union and seek new representation, the process is onerous and—most significantly—requires a teacher to publicly identify as a union critic and open herself up to retaliation.

Legislation this year (as in years past) would have given teachers greater leverage by requiring a “secret ballot election” on union recertification every four years. This would force unions to pay greater attention to member needs and also allow teachers to change representation if they believe a union is not serving them or is too involved in unrelated political lobbying—including things like transgender reading days in class.

Not only is this good policy but it is supported by a whopping 67 percent of Oklahoma voters (while only 13 percent oppose).

The OEA/NEA strongly opposed this year’s legislation, SB 1716. Six Republican senators sided with the OEA and voted to kill the bill in committee: Sens. Chris Kidd, R-Waurika; Tom Dugger, R-Stillwater; Dewayne Pemberton, R-Muskogee; Paul Scott, R-Duncan; Brenda Stanley, R-Midwest City; and Joe Newhouse, R-Broken Arrow.

There is similar legislation in the Oklahoma House of Representatives this year, but it too has gone nowhere—even though Republicans control all the levers of power.

And this week, the OEA/NEA urged schools to hold a Jazz & Friends National Day of School & Community Readings. As part of that event, the union recommends that teachers read three books, including one about a child who “knew that she had a girl’s brain in a boy’s body” and a book on pronoun use that breaks down “assumptions of who is ‘she’ or ‘he’ and expand beyond the binary to include ‘they’ and more.”

In years past, teachers who have read the book in class included none other than an OEA award winner who the union says represents “all that’s great” in Oklahoma public schools.

Left-wing teacher unions are firmly allied with liberal billionaires in an explicit effort to normalize transgender children. But how does this child abuse relate to Oklahoma Republicans spiking common-sense union reforms year after year? Because of the $466 in dues paid by an Oklahoma teacher to the OEA in 2017-18, $189 went to Washington, D.C. to the NEA. That money helps directly and indirectly fund NEA programs and events like transgender reading day and a host of other left-wing causes.

No doubt, many teachers don’t support a transgender reading day, and neither do many Oklahomans who send their children to public school. Yet those teachers are limited in their ability to decertify their union and stop funding such extreme political activism.

If transgender reading day occurs at your child’s school, don’t just blame the OEA/NEA. Ask the Oklahoma Republicans who control the state legislature why they continue to preserve the union’s grip on local schools.

OCPA column: Bernie Sanders reveals teacher union goals for Oklahoma

Bernie Sanders reveals teacher union goals for Oklahoma

By Jonathan Small

In a recent column published by The Oklahoman, U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders, a self-described socialist, declared himself connected at the hip with Oklahoma teacher unions. There’s good reason to take that claim seriously—the Oklahoma Education Association’s national parent, the National Education Association, has given Sanders an “A” rating for years—so one should take seriously Sanders’ agenda as one shared by his teacher union comrades.

It’s an agenda that means more money for the government and less money for working Oklahoma families—even though Sanders tries to pretend otherwise. And it’s an agenda that would limit educational opportunity for Oklahoma children.

Over two years, Oklahoma lawmakers have increased K-12 school appropriations by 20 percent, funneling $638 million more into the system for teacher pay raises and classroom funding. Much of that funding came from more than $1 billion in tax increases and other revenue measures passed since 2015.

Sanders says those tax increases have “not been nearly enough” and calls for even more taxes. But Sanders decries Oklahoma’s recent tax increases—explicitly demanded by Oklahoma teacher unions—as falling “heavily on working families.” And he argues Oklahoma school problems were caused by state “tax cuts favoring the wealthy and large profitable corporations.” Since 2005, Oklahoma’s income tax was cut from 6.65 percent to 5 percent. That tax cut kicks in at $8,700 of taxable income for single filers. Who knew that earning $8,700 made one “wealthy”?

So Sanders is in the odd position of praising unions for forcing Oklahoma tax increases on working families, even as he decries those tax increases, and then argues that tax cuts that benefitted those working families were a mistake. Make of that what you will.

And Sanders says he now wants additional tax increases—on the “wealthy,” of course.

Sanders also took aim at EPIC charter schools, an online provider, saying that school is “draining” $112 million from public schools, and declared as president he would put “a moratorium on the expansion of charter schools.”

Never mind that every dollar spent on a student at EPIC—which is a public school—would have been spent on those same students in other public brick-and-mortar schools, so there’s no diversion of funding from education at all. And never mind that charter schools disproportionately serve low-income and minority students who would otherwise not get a quality education. Sanders and his teacher union allies are willing to sacrifice those children simply out of ideological pique.

In 2019, Gov. Kevin Stitt and legislative leaders chose a different path than the 2018 teacher-walkout model that Sanders praises. Instead of raising taxes, they increased state savings—something the OEA opposed, even though those savings will protect schools from budget cuts in future downturns.

Let’s hope saner heads continue to prevail in 2020, because if Sanders and his teacher-union allies prevail, the tax-increase drubbing Oklahomans took in 2018 will become the rule, not the exception.

Jonathan Small serves as president of the Oklahoma Council of Public Affairs.

OCPA column: New Years' (and session) resolutions

New Year’s (and session) resolutions

By Jonathan Small

When it comes to resolutions, one should pursue those that are simple and achievable. That’s true whether you’re talking about personal resolutions or (as I am today) resolutions for public policy goals for Oklahoma.

In that spirit, I offer the following.

Lawmakers should raise the cap on Oklahoma’s Equal Opportunity Scholarship Program. Research has shown, repeatedly, that this program saves state funds and increases overall spending on education. It also increases academic opportunity for needy children and puts Oklahoma on the path to a better future by ensuring more students become prepared for work or college.

The Legislature should also advance much-needed union reforms (excluding those serving hazard-duty public-safety employees). First, unions should be required to obtain recertification regularly. The strikes of 2018 demonstrated they have the power of elected officials and the ability to shut down our schools. That kind of power needs regular accountability. Today’s teachers and other education employees should not be bound by a certification vote taken by their grandparent’s generation. When a union provides value, recertification is no threat, and when a union doesn’t there’s no reason to limits its members’ options.

Unions should also be required to proactively receive a worker’s permission before union dues can be obtained from teachers and education employees. Also, state and local government shouldn’t be involved in collecting dues for unions.

To benefit teachers, lawmakers should provide state-funded liability insurance coverage. Many teachers don’t agree with their union’s political stances, but still feel compelled to join because membership includes liability insurance coverage. Teachers who maintain classroom discipline should not have to fear frivolous lawsuits. The state should give them more financial peace of mind.

Finally, the Legislature should advance genuine health care reforms, not budget-busting Medicaid expansion. It’s time to restrict hospitals’ ability to “surprise” bill patients for out-of-network charges even when treatment is obtained at an in-network facility. Also, Oklahomans should not have their credit scores reduced in situations where they were not given advance notice they would face high charges for a provider they didn’t know was out of network.

Rural health care is facing serious challenges, but lawmakers can address those needs without expanding welfare. (It must be noted most financial gains from Medicaid expansion will accrue to wealthy big-box hospitals in Oklahoma City and Tulsa anyway, not rural communities.)

To achieve this goal, lawmakers can dedicate Oklahoma’s annual tobacco settlement payments and endowment earnings (totaling more than $100 million annually) to rural hospitals and doctors. Oklahoma has the money to meet rural health care needs.

Finally, state spending should stay in line with current tax collections.

If policymakers want to produce a better Oklahoma for the next generation, these simple steps are a good start.

Jonathan Small serves as president of the Oklahoma Council of Public Affairs.