School Funding Petition Drive Kicks Off

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A petition drive to force extra spending on public schools kicked off Thursday with rallies at schools in suburbs of Oklahoma City and Tulsa. The plan immediately drew criticism from Republican lawmakers.

The HOPE, or Helping Oklahoma Public Education, campaign seeks to amend the state Constitution and require the Legislature to fund public education to at least the per-pupil average of neighboring states.

"We have schools in desperate need of repair and too many classes don't have supplies for students," said Mike Reid, veteran math teacher in Yukon, who attended the rally at the East Side Elementary School in Midwest City.

"Why aren't we funding our schools as well as Arkansas and New Mexico?" Reid asked.

"Education has taken a back seat in Oklahoma for too long," said teacher Kelly Fry of the Mid-Del School District. Fry spoke of a chemistry class that did not have supplies for students to conduct experiments.

Teachers at the Charles Page High School in Sand Springs told similar stories.

The HOPE plan would cost $850 million, but the initial cost would be spread over three years, said Roy Bishop, president of the Oklahoma Education Association. He said petition idea originated with the OEA, but is backed by several education support groups, including the state Parent-Teacher Association.

Oklahoma provides per-pupil funding of $6,900, while the average investment of surrounding states is $8,300 per pupil, the OEA said. The other states are Missouri, Texas, Kansas, Arkansas, Colorado and New Mexico. Oklahoma ranks 48th among the 50 states in per-pupil expenditures.

GOP Raises Conerns Over Taxes

At the Capitol, GOP Reps. Tad Jones of Claremore, Jeff Hickman of Dacoma and Rex Duncan of Sand Springs warned the plan would have dire consequences on state government and taxpayers.

"If this passes, elected officials, Republicans and Democrats, will be forced to raise taxes on working families, or have massive reductions in state services, like roads, corrections or mental health," Jones said.

Hickman worried it would lead to consolidation of rural schools, saying 57 school districts were eliminated in Arkansas, where a court ordered the state to increase education funding.

"That's not going to happen," Bishop said. "The legislative leaders over the last couple of years have told every one of us that have gone up to lobby that the tax cuts were very important to grow the economy.

"We believe those people know what they are talking about and in two or three years we're going to have enough money to fund all our services. It's time education was a priority, and we're going to be first in line to do that when those tax cuts have created the economy that those legislative leaders talked about."

Petition supporters want to collect 200,000 signatures by the first week of November, well above the 138,970 need to place the question on the ballot.

At the Sand Springs rally, teachers from across the state told stories of doing more with less in Oklahoma's public schools. They talked of cutbacks in art classes and extracurricular activity travel and one school's track team running in a parking lot because it lacked the necessary facilities.

"Each year, it's a battle to get our kids what they deserve," said Mike Bynum, who teaches physics and chemistry at the high school and is the head boys basketball coach. "What we're asking is something that goes completely against our nature: we're asking to be average.

"Imagine what we can do if we were just average," he said.

Parent Shelley Ogan, who volunteers for Tulsa Public Schools, described the shortages of supplies most take for granted at any school: printer paper and ink cartridges.

Once the petitions are submitted in November, there is a period to challenge the signatures. After that, the governor can decide to set a special election for voters to decide the question, or the matter would automatically be put on the next general election ballot in 2010.

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