Since this blog constitutes my opinion of "politics and public schools", I think I'll exercise my right to free speech and espouse my opinion (based on facts) of just a few of the upcoming "public school elections" for the 2018 primaries on June 29 (Disclaimer: My political party affiliation was (R) from 1980 to 1995, (D) from 1996 to 2014, (R) from 2014 to 2017, and presently (I).)
State Superintendent of Public Instruction - There is only one primary for the State Superintendent of Public Instruction as three republicans want the seat: Joy Hofmeister, Linda Murphy, and Will Farrell. The other two candidates, John Cox (D) and Larry Huff (I), will meet the winner of the republican primary in November. The bios for all five can be seen anywhere as to where they stand on education issues, so the purpose of this examination for the three primary (R) candidates is to ascertain from past public school related actions - each one's intent for our public schools and possible support.
Linda Murphy - Linda is a conservative who had been a public school teacher for many years. Like many public school supporters - she became disillusioned with the incumbent Joy Hofmeister, when Joy made decisions which were questionable for our public schools. Linda bills herself as a fiscal conservative who believes in low taxation and low government spending, and says she will find a better way to provide teacher pay raises. She is a constitutional conservative who believes in complying with the major tenets of the U.S. Constitution as well as the Oklahoma Constitution, instead of advocating for constitutional change. She also says she is a social conservative who supports our traditional public schools, instead of corporate reform of our schools. Linda is against rural public school consolidation, against corporate control of our lawmakers, and against the state or federal government controlling our local public schools. She believes that additional and appropriate funding for our public schools can be found in already existent tax dollars, not in tax increases.
Joy Hofmeister - The incumbent for any elected office always has the inside lane for being re-elected. Joy Hofmeister (R) was swept into office in 2014 on a wave of teacher and public school support - following the tumultuous reign of Janet Barresi. Joy was seen as the anti-Janet by many public school teachers and administrators alike. While it is usually difficult to ascertain the true actions of those candidates who are only running for office, it's much easier to judge incumbents - as "actions" always speak louder than mere words. Many teachers and administrators who were formerly supportive of "Joy Hofmeister for State Superintendent" - observed questionable "actions" over the past four years, and decided she wasn't right for our public schools or students. It was not the fact that Joy was charged with a felony (coordinating campaign activities with "dark money") that changed the opinions of many public school supporters, but other "legal" facts which challenged her loyalty to our traditional (conservative) public schools and students.
While it's unclear just what Joy Hofmeister's position is on "school consolidation" (for many teachers and public school supporters), she says she is against forced school consolidation. However, when questioned about whether more of the state's school districts should be consolidated, an OSDE official replied "We have 517 districts...That's 517 superintendents" indicating the number of districts pushes Oklahoma toward the higher end of administrative costs. This reply somewhat contradicts Joy's philosophy of being against forced school consolidation. Some form of forced school consolidation may be acceptable to Joy Hofmeister, but maybe not. In addition, it's still unclear if Joy Hofmeister is against her forcing school consolidation, but OK with the legislature forcing it.
In an article by David Perryman (Feb. 29, 2016) in The Oklahoma Observer, School Consolidation: This Ain't No New Deal - he writes ... State Superintendent Joy Hofmeister and the State Board of Education proposed changes to the administrative rules relating to "mandatory annexation" (forced consolidation). He goes on to say "the (forced consolidation) threats in the new rules appear in Rule 210: 1-3-2 (b) (1) and allow the State Board to bypass local school districts and force the consolidation of school districts when a school is determined to be in need of improvement... is unable to commence a school year... is financially unable to keep school open for entire year...or an audit finding that some person associated with the school mismanaged funds. The deciders for each of these scenarios is the State Superintendent and State Board of Education, leading many teachers and public school officials to believe that Joy Hofmeister actually supports forced consolidation.
For many teachers and school administrators - the litmus test for Joy Hofmeister's demonstrated support of traditional public schools and students was her State Board vote on January 26, 2017, regarding local (democratically elected) school board control of Seminole Public Schools. The Oklahoma State Legislature had previously passed a bill, which the governor signed into law, that provided authority for the unelected State Board of Education to seize control of traditional public schools and away from locally elected school boards. (Conservatives believe that government should be as local as possible, with minimal government control over citizens - and that all government should be democratically elected by the people. But then again, in the opinion of many teachers, Joy Hofmeister has never claimed to be a conservative.) The Joy Hofmeister test for conservatism and traditional public school support for many teachers and school officials arrived in the form of the "Seminole Public Schools Corporate Charter" case...
As mentioned, the law which allowed the state to overrule local public schools - when it comes to corporate charter school approvals - became effective in 2016. In Seminole, Oklahoma, the first test case for the new law was soon apparent, as an out-of-state corporate charter group requested the local Seminole School Board's approval to begin classes for Seminole students. (Locally elected Boards of Education are tasked with making appropriate decisions concerning their public school students.) The Seminole BOE turned down the Texas based charter request not once, but two times over the next several months. According to the new law, when a charter request is not approved by a local board on two different occasions, the request may then be appealed to the State Board of Education. The corporate charter chain group did just that toward the end of 2016 - It appealed its case to "a higher authority" the State BOE. (An important difference between local boards and the SBOE is that local superintendents have no vote in board decisions, while the State Superintendent does vote in all SBOE decisions.) This is the paramount reason that many teachers and school officials believed this case was a revealing test for Joy. She could "vote no" on the corporate charter request, proving in the minds of many that she really does support traditional public schools and local control of our public schools. She could abstain from the vote, reasoning that her loyalty to traditional public schools would prevent her from making an unbiased decision. She could "vote yes" - to take control away from the locally elected Seminole School Board, and provide that "control" to the SBOE. Joy Hofmeister voted "Yes" on the corporate charter request. Her reasoning may have been that when local boards do not act in the best interest of its students, it becomes a "higher authority" responsibility to act. A justification for the SBOE and State Superintendent unanimous vote may have been - Since Seminole Public Schools had two school bond issues fail over the past two years, the citizens of Seminole do not support their traditional public school. However, the justification for taking authority away from the Seminole School Board may have been identical to the reasons provided for forced consolidation of schools - When a traditional public school is determined to be in need of improvement, etc, the State Board shall trump the local board. The only problem for our traditional public schools is that it's the SBOE and the State Superintendent making the arbitrary decisions concerning "needs improvement", etc. and NOT our local boards.
Although many teachers and school officials believe Joy Hofmeister has done a good job of replacing Janet Barresi since 2014, many others cite examples such as her support of 1) corporate reform of traditional public schools, 2) school privatization (vouchers), 3) state and federal control of our local schools, and 4) school consolidation efforts - as proof of her non-support of our traditional public schools. Still others cite anecdotal examples of Joy's "you may stand-up for me, but don't expect me to stand-up for you" philosophy of leadership:
On August 2, 2013, my friend Lloyd Snow - Superintendent of Sand Springs Public Schools and long-time supporter of all Oklahoma public schools, teachers, and students, was inducted into the Oklahoma Education Hall of Fame. (The Education Hall of Fame is located in the hallway leading to the State Superintendent of Schools offices.) During his induction speech, Mr. Snow stated I think Diane Ravitch gets it right in her latest book, Reign of Error: The Hoax of the Privatization Movement and the Danger to America's Public Schools. She says, and I paraphrase, the only crisis in public education is the one ginned up by government bureaucrats, major foundations, odd coalitions of elitists and government hustlers who make inflated claims about the virtues of vouchers, charter schools, virtual schools, standardized testing... They insist... that overhauling our entire (public school) system along business lines is the way to go. Mr. Snow also enumerated his top 10 Reasons to be concerned about the corporate reform fix for our traditional public schools. Among his concerns was Number 5 - Local Boards of Education losing the ability to govern. When did we lose our kids-- our schools-- our community--?; Number 4 - Public education being hijacked by private businesses concerned mostly about profits, not pupils.; Number 3 - Dealing with leadership at the SDE is put kindly-- challenging and frustrating. (At the time of my friend's induction, Janet Barresi was the Oklahoma State Superintendent of Schools and Joy Hofmeister was a member of the State Board of Education.)
Since 2010, many teachers and other public school officials believed that our public schools and students were being short-changed by the Oklahoma State Department of Education and specific legislators. Mr. Snow had been present at many State Board of Education meetings from 2010 thru 2014, and had witnessed what many believed was the beginning of the dismantling of our traditional public schools. He was a continual "thorn in the side" and irritant for Superintendent Barresi and several State Board members during this time, questioning their actions on a number of public school issues - which prompted one board member to say "You (superintendents) should be back at your schools taking care of business there, instead of worrying what we are doing here...". Mr. Snow is a firm believer that actions speak louder than words and that one should stand-up for what he believes in. He refused to leave the meeting that day, and all other meetings after. Needless to say at this point that Lloyd Snow supported Joy Hofmeister in her 2014 State Superintendent race against Janet Barresi. He personally supported Joy Hofmeister - by donating $Thousands to her campaign and publicly endorsing her for State Superintendent (Mr. Snow wholeheartedly supports his friends and traditional public schools, and defends both, no matter the risk). He was overjoyed when Hofmeister won the State Superintendent seat in 2014 along with many teachers and other public school officials. Although a democrat, Snow worked long and hard in helping get Hofmeister (R) elected, because he believed she was right for Oklahoma public schools. He also believed, as many did, that helping getting Joy elected was not enough to stem the corporate reform tide - so retired, and ran for a state senate seat in 2016.
Lloyd Snow was running for office in support of our public schools, teachers, and students, plain and simple. He wasn't looking for a "gravy train", as many of our career politicians and party elitists do today. Prior to 2016, Mr. Snow had appeared at a few Joy Hofmeister fundraisers (in support of her candidacy) and allowed his photo to be taken with her. The photo would be used to help Joy garner public school and teacher support for the State Superintendency, which was OK with Lloyd, since he believed she was best for our schools. When Lloyd Snow began his campaign for the Senate seat in 2016, he sent the same photo to district voters with the caption Republicans working with SNOW (He had already asked Joy Hofmeister for support during his campaign and she said "NO".) Lloyd reasoned that since he and Joy had the same goals for our public schools, and since he had so wholeheartedly sacrificed financially and campaigned for her to become the next state superintendent - she would do the same for him. What he did not count on was that many politicians don't share his philosophy of friendship and loyalty. Loyd did not count Hofmeister as an endorsement, but simply implied that he and Joy had worked together for the betterment of our public schools. While Joy Hofmeister did not publicly comment on the photo (taken by her consultant for her campaign use) sent to voters, her consultant said "The mail piece was sent without Superintendent Hofmeister's knowledge or permission. It's disappointing that someone would attempt to mislead voters with such a tactic."
In addition to perceived and factual non-support of public school candidates in the 2016 state elections, many teachers and public school administrators believe Joy Hofmeister openly supported candidates which were opposed to appropriate teacher pay and public education. They point to examples such as the House District 42 candidate, Tim Downing, who voted "NO" on every single teacher pay raise bill during his only term in office. Mr. Downing also openly supported "school vouchers", as a way for the legislature to spend public tax dollars for private services. Joy Hofmeister endorsed Mr. Downing on his campaign website (2015) in stating Tim Downing supports teachers and students, unlike other candidates... Many public school supporters now believe that with friends like Joy Hofmeister, who needs enemies?
Will Farrell - Will Farrell is much like Linda Murphy in his public school philosophy. The only differences are in school consolidation - Linda says "no school consolidation" while Will stated "I am of the opinion that school consolidation could be implemented effectively in Oklahoma; however..."and the fact that Linda Murphy has been a public school teacher, while Will and Joy have never been public school teachers.
Our three choices for the republican nomination for state superintendent have been examined above. Two claim to be conservative, while one does not. While Hofmeister doesn't claim to be conservative or liberal, it's a safe bet that she's neither. Republicans should vote for the right person for the job (in the primary on June 26), not the most popular...
Oklahoma Governor - For the analysis of the Governor's Race please click here.
District 42 State Representative - Since my home House District is in McClain and Garvin County (42), I'll only review selected candidate positions for our public schools here:
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