Here are excerpts from recent editorials in Oklahoma newspapers:
The Lawton Constitution. May 27, 2018.
President Trump should take the time to read reports released last week by the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction and the Pentagon’s inspector general. The commander in chief should then re-direct U.S. efforts.
The Special Inspector General’s report, according to USA Today, said the $4.7 billion effort over the last 17 years to stabilize parts of war-torn Afghanistan has mostly failed. It says the funds spent on programs in areas cleared of insurgents was largely wasted. Some was siphoned by corrupt officials, while some of it paid for projects that did more harm than good.
Of the $4.7 billion spent, $2.4 billion went to programs administered by USAID, and $2.3 billion was spent by Pentagon’s Commander’s Emergency Response Program.
“All told, the U.S. government has appropriated about $126 billion to rebuild the country, most of it to train and equip security forces.”
The report indicates more than 2,200 U.S. forces have been killed and a dysfunctional country remains.
The Pentagon’s report, the newspaper said, found little progress in providing security for the Afghan people.
Mr. President, it is time to cut your losses just as you did in Atlantic City, New Jersey, when you closed an unprofitable hotel/casino. Rebuilding our nation’s crumbling infrastructure and job development here at home are more important than any continued efforts in Afghanistan.
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Tulsa World. May 29, 2018.
NFL football players must stand respectfully during pregame performances of the national anthem if they are on the playing field, a league rule announced last week says.
Players who don’t want to comply may stay in the locker room or elsewhere; but if they mount political on-field protest by kneeling or sitting during “The Star-Spangled Banner” their teams may face fines.
NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell says league owners approved the rule without any team voting against it, but the NFL Players Association says the rule wasn’t part of collective bargaining, and it will fight any attempt to penalize players.
We think everyone should respect the national anthem. It’s a uniting symbol of our nation and the wrong moment for individual political statements.
We also think that one of the things that makes America great is its ability to allow discontent, even when the means are distasteful to the majority. We should all wish for a nation that evokes genuine patriotic behavior, not one with rules to compel it.
We see grandstanding by people on both sides of this issue. Colin Kaepernick could have made his protests in a variety of ways. He chose “The Star-Spangled Banner” with an eye to the attention that would get him. President Donald Trump’s extreme reaction to player protests was demagogic and didn’t advance anything except, perhaps, his political popularity.
The NFL’s actions last week were at least as much about trying to repair its own public image as they were about patriotism; but they’re within the rights of the team owners. If they think the new rule will make the issue go away, they’re probably wrong.
As for us, when the national anthem is played before games, we’ll stand up straight, take off our hats, put our hands over our hearts and sing along. We’ll do it because we love our nation, flaws and all, not because someone is making us to do it. We wish everyone felt the same way.
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The Oklahoman. May 29, 2018.
For those starting at the lower rungs of the economic ladder, education is crucial to increasing one’s earnings. So it should concern policymakers that a report shows Oklahoma ranks at the bottom of the 50 states in the share of low-income students who go to college.
That study, by the Pell Institute for the Study of Opportunity in Higher Education, finds only a 21 percent college-participation rate for Oklahomans from low-income families. That was tied for the second-lowest in the nation, beating out only Alaska, whose rate was 10 percent. The national estimated college participation rate for low-income students was 34.2 percent in 2016.
Why is Oklahoma so much lower than the national average? Several explanations come to mind, but few explain the large gap between Oklahoma and most states.
One positive explanation offered by Pell is that in energy-producing states like Oklahoma, “higher paying jobs might be available without a college degree.” No doubt, that does account for some share of students who forgo college, but it’s hard to believe it accounts for a majority of the gap.
Some will blame Oklahoma’s low ranking on state per-pupil spending in K-12 schools. But Idaho, Arizona and Utah all spend even less per pupil than Oklahoma, and the college participation rate was 26 percent in Idaho and 27 percent in both Utah and Arizona. When other states spend less per pupil on K-12 education and still see a higher share of poor youth go to college, that suggests K-12 spending isn’t the primary cause of low college attendance.
While the report found the states with the highest college participation rates among poor students “tended to be located in the Northeast,” Oklahoma still stood apart from most states in the immediate region.
In neighboring Arkansas, 27 percent of poor students pursue college. That state is demographically similar to Oklahoma. The college-going rate of the poor was much higher in Kansas (32 percent) and Missouri (31 percent), while Texas was also higher at 26 percent.
What of college affordability? The Pell report finds just seven states have lower average four-year public college costs (including tuition, fees, and room and board) and Oklahoma ranked eighth-lowest in the share of college graduates with debt. But the report also found the average cost of attending a two-year public institution in Oklahoma is more expensive than in 19 other states.
Another explanation for Oklahoma’s low ranking is one that may be the most difficult to address: low expectations. For years, Oklahoma’s ranking on most measures of K-12 student learning have been among the lowest in the country, yet the response from many officials has been that other than funding, everything is just fine.
Resistance to raising standards and expectations, regardless of state funding or a child’s socio-economic status, has contributed greatly to Oklahoma’s low national rankings on education outcomes - and undoubtedly played a role in Oklahoma having fewer poor students who pursue college.
We’ve long stressed college isn’t for everyone, and that the state also needs more people with two-year degrees and vocational certificate programs. But this doesn’t mean Oklahoma officials shouldn’t try to do better, or that complacency is an acceptable response to the Pell report.
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