Do Oklahomans still want and believe in public education?
In Oklahoma, we’re facing a battle much bigger than when kids should start school or whether districts should move to four-day school weeks.
While other states are working on more equitable school funding formulas, providing universal free lunch and considering counsel for families who want to contest their schools’ decisions on suspension, in Oklahoma we’re battling for the very existence of public education.
In recent years, due to a convergence of the voucher fight (largely propelled by far-right political action committees, libertarian think tanks and financiers Thomas Klingenstein and the Koch Brothers), recession-driven lags in funding and a hemorrhage of good teachers, Oklahoma has arrived to question why even have public schools at all. Couldn’t all kids attend private schools or be home-schooled?
This debate is privileged and myopic and fails to consider our American principles of freedom and democracy.
Public schools are formative to the idea of America itself. They preserve our constitutional liberties and serve as a cornerstone of our democracy.
Perhaps the best explanation for free public schools for all comes from American revolutionary Benjamin Rush in a 1786 essay imploring Pennsylvania to establish a common system of education:
“It is favourable to liberty. Freedom can exist only in the society of knowledge. Without learning, men are incapable of knowing their rights, and where learning is confined to a few people, liberty can be neither equal nor universal.”
Breaking down the quote: Our Constitution promises equal treatment under the law in a government by the people, for the people.
If the government is by the people, it cannot be run by an uneducated populace. Whether it’s researching candidates, figuring out how and when to vote, or examining the behavior of elected officials and holding them accountable, none of these tasks can be accomplished without a fundamental education in reading, critical thinking and application, and an understanding of American government.
The reality of anti-public school movements arguing for private school vouchers and tax funding is that those would continue to fuel extreme inequity in Oklahoma.
Roughly three out of four Oklahoma children attend public schools — over 700,000 students. Rural public schools are the backbones of their communities, often providing emergency shelter, meeting places, social outlets and sports venues. If these schools disappeared, so would their surrounding communities.
In suburban areas, strong public schools are a major draw for families with children. In urban areas, neighborhood public schools offer a variety of services that expand opportunities for children and their families. They tend to maintain the fierce loyalty of their neighbors, even when facing a litany of challenges.
Importantly, the Oklahoma Constitution enshrines public education as a legal right (Article XIII, Section 1). Any efforts to eliminate it are anti-Oklahoman and anti-American.
The U.S. founders and constitutional framers agreed, as evidenced in their correspondence and writings. Thomas Jefferson wrote to P.S. du Pont on April 24, 1816, “Enlighten the people generally, and tyranny and oppressions of body and mind will vanish like evil spirits at the dawn of the day.”
John Adams believed that schools were “the only means of preserving our Constitution from its natural enemies.” Later, he wrote in a letter to British reformer John Jebb: “The Whole People must take upon themselv(e)s the Education of the Whole People and must be willing to bear the expences of it. There should not be a district of one Mile Square without a school in it, not founded by a Charitable individual but maintained at the expence of the People themselv(e)s…”
One path exists in Oklahoma education policy that satisfies the will of the country’s founders and delivers on our state’s constitutional promise: fully fund and resource our state’s public school system so all children can succeed.
The truth is that Oklahoma’s public schools have been woefully underfunded since the 2008 economic crash, and it wasn’t well-funded even before that time. It took a teacher walk out in 2018 to force the Legislature to raise pay to a livable wage. In 2020, schools faced unprecedented interruption due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
All these affected the performance of students. It was not until this year that the Legislature made a historic investment in public education, but it came with a catch.
The measure passed only due to enacting a private school tax credit ($5,000 to $7,500 per child) that will funnel hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars to schools that are exempt from the standards and accountability we demand of our public schools.
How can we expect the most of Oklahoma’s public schools while simultaneously draining them of resources and exhausting their teachers and staff?
As Oklahomans, we cannot lose sight of how vital public schools are to our societal well-being. They directly affect our economy in innumerable ways. They play a large part in whether companies will relocate or open additional facilities, something our leaders spend millions in economic incentives on every year.
Robbing ourselves of the right to public schools — or letting today’s robber barons steal it from us — is the epitome of biting our nose to spite our face. America without public education is no America at all.
Written by Colleen McCarty, Esq.
