TULSA, Okla. (AP) - Superintendents who have seen teachers leave for greener pastures, teachers laid off from their jobs and parents worried about the quality of an Oklahoma public school education see Tuesday’s vote on a penny sales tax increase as a means to address years of chronic underfunding.
Backers of Question 779 say the proposal would generate $550 million annually for schools, enough to fund at least a $5,000 across-the-board pay increase for teachers who are among the lowest-paid in the nation. Some are backing both the ballot issue and nearly three dozen members of a “teachers’ caucus” running for legislative seats.
“I don’t think people understand that we are not heading to a crisis; we are in one now,” said Angela Clark Little, the mother of twin fifth-grade boys. “(State Question 779) is letting education breathe a little bit. We’re tired.”
Fed up with what she said was a lack of action in the Legislature, Little took matters into her own hands and founded the Oklahoma Parents and Educators for Public Education. It started as an informal Facebook group and has since grown to 25,000 members. The network has been instrumental in supporting dozens of pro-education candidates on this year’s ballot.
“I’ve spent 20 years watching the progress of education in Oklahoma and decided the state of education as it exists is intolerable,” said Democratic candidate Kevin McDonald, an Edmond high school teacher. “We see more decisions made based on what’s cheap or what you have to do to get by.”
In the past five months, Superintendent Jeremy Hogan has seen 17 teachers and staff leave for better-paying jobs in Arkansas, Missouri and Kansas, and amid the state’s $1.3 billion budget shortfall, ninth-grade English teacher Mickey Dollens was laid off this spring, along with more than 200 fellow employees in the Oklahoma City school district.
“All of the teachers who have run this year have really brought into the limelight how important education is,” Dollens said. “We haven’t had a voice until now.”
Support for the sales tax isn’t universal. Opponents include mayors of more than three-dozen cities, including Tulsa and Oklahoma City, who contend the tax would be too burdensome on residents and might jeopardize efforts to pass future bond packages to pay for things like road repairs and public safety.
Oklahoma City Mayor Mick Cornett said last month that legislators need to address shortcomings in a way that prevents cities and towns from being “stepped on.”
“You don’t just throw money irrationally at a problem, and this is what that seems to be,” Cornett said.
Oklahoma’s average public school teacher pay, for grades K-12, was $45,317 - ranking 48th out of 50 states and the District of Columbia - last year.
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