Oklahoma public schools’ poor standing in national rankings, typically in the bottom five states, has generated concern for decades now.
While several factors are at play, one of the most obvious is this: Kids in Oklahoma spend far less time in an actual classroom than their counterparts in many other states.
Editor’s Note: Jared Buswell is active statewide on education issues independent of the traditional Oklahoma education industrial complex. He is active as a Tulsa Republican. With his permission, we run his recent newsletter explaining his support for the Democrat Candidate, Oklahoma Education Superintendent.
Opinion: If you have read some of the news headlines gathered in this newsletter over the years, you would easily see too many of our public school districts are led by runaway leaders focusing on everything but the good of the students and families they are paid to serve.
The State Superintendent race in Oklahoma features a far-left educrat recruited to protect the status quo cartel control of the public school system (Republican primary winner Robert Franklin) and a moderate independent citizen who funded her own statewide race with friends and family (Democrat primary winner Jennettie Marshall).
State University is establishing two new academic schools, building on rapid enrollment growth and growing workforce demand in two of Oklahoma’s most critical industries. OSU’s College of Education and Human Sciences will launch the School of Aviation and Space and the School of Nursing on July 1, 2027.
Analysis: In Hans Christian Andersen’s famous tale, an emperor parades through town wearing magnificent clothes that do not exist. Everyone can see the truth, but nobody wants to say it. Finally, a child announces the obvious: the emperor has no clothes.
I thought about that story while listening to Tulsa Public Schools explain why it must close 17 schools, displace nearly 5,000 students, and reorganize much of the district.
Analysis: Seventeen Tulsa Public Schools. That’s how many schools the Tulsa Public Schools Board voted to close Monday night. Nearly one-quarter of the district’s schools. One out of every four. That’s not a minor administrative adjustment. That’s an institutional earthquake.
I spoke at Monday night’s Board meeting and asked a question that every Tulsa taxpayer, parent, and homeowner ought to be asking: How did this district get into such a colossal mess?
