Oklahoma is a state with self defeating beliefs and practices.

It will cut corporate taxes, give subsidies to fossil fuel companies, and make all kinds of concessions to companies to come to the state without requiring they hire locally and keep their money in the state, and then establish ways to cover the losses to state revenue by taxing the people who have been living there.

Everything you buy in Oklahoma is taxed including necessities like food and clothing, and the money raised that way is used to improve infrastructure which on its face sounds good, but in reality those improvements are mostly beneficial to the subsidized companies with the citizens benefiting on an overflow, “trickle down” basis.

When the idea of a state lottery and tribal casinos was proposed in the most conservative state in the country which does more to please the Southern Baptist Convention than what is best for the citizens, the promise was that the money from both would go to public education.

At the time public education in Oklahoma was hurting, and the teachers speaking up about that were ignored.

As the money began coming in, rather than add it to school funding, the amount from the lottery and tribal casinos was used to substitute for school funding instead of being added, so the funding remained flat.

And in a state that values the oil and gas industry over education, this meant that as corporations and shareholders gained, the education of the children of the state was swept aside.

Teacher pay remained the second lowest in the country while teacher pay in surrounding states rose realistically. A person wanting to teach may have a commitment to the students, but that person also had a commitment to their own family and could not meet that at the wages the state offered.

Teachers went elsewhere.

School buildings aged, and without the funds that should have been available to maintain buildings and keep educational materials current, building spiraled past normal maintenance into the duct tape and Bondo condition, textbooks became old, dated, and too expensive to replace, desks became threats to student safety, classrooms became overcrowded with not enough desks or supplies, and conditions became so bad that teachers left and students stopped getting the individualized attention so necessary for effective learning.

It was as if the states intention was to guarantee that students learned little, questioned not at all, and accepted the mismanagement of the state by the legislature as if that was just the way it was.

The decline should not have come as a surprise.

Teachers had been pointing this out for years, but they were not corporation, and somehow teachers speaking in a unified voice was anti-American, was a betrayal of the Oklahoma Spirit”, some undefined and amorphous thing that could be invoked to shame people into blind obedience an acceptance, and a move against Jesus.
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Hours, wages, and conditions of employment, with the latter dealing with good working environment, classroom conditions, class size, educational materials, and what would make the schools good learning environments for students, were things controlled in collective bargaining agreements, so the state demonized unions as collections of self serving thugs who hated children, somehow brought in religion, and lied to the people about the true nature of right to work laws.

Conditioned not to accept reality or question the people who had made the promises about lottery and casino money, most voters believed what they were told and voted against their own self interest.

Even in those work places that were not unionized, management would watch union contracts and stay close to them so their workers would not unionize. With right to work they no longer had to be wary of that and the hours, wage, and conditions of employment of the workers in the state became worse. Getting workers to hate unions because their members had good hours, wages, and conditions of employment somehow was effective because hatred came from jealousy and a blindness to their being able to get the same if they organized.

Rather than do what was necessary to get what was best for them, the easily led citizenry got angry at those who had.

Yet even as wages went down taxes went up to subsidize the losses created by corporate subsidies and tax breaks.

This last is now being used to turn the public against teachers as the legislators and governor continue the abuse of their citizens as they claim teachers want more money and are selfish that way.

The governor, Mary Fallin, has equated the teachers’ converging on the capitol to rally for better school funding to teenagers wanting a better car. Equating professionals to teenagers reveals a lot about her attitude toward teachers. Just because an adult has chosen to be in the classroom all day teaching students does not make them their peers.

In a state with a self created, but avoidable teacher shortage, some legislators have even suggested that if teachers did not like their low wages or the conditions at their schools, they should perhaps think of going elsewhere. Too many obviously have, and too few have seen any benefits in applying to teach in a state that notoriously disrespects its teachers and does not understand that to hire people, they should make it worth their while to teach there when respect and a decent wage can be had as close as the state across the line.

Once, when extolling the value of a good education to a class of seniors, I was asked by a student that if an education was the opening to a good paying job, why was I being paid the little I was.

And if it wasn’t bad enough and sadly so transparent when the legislators who treat education like a bastard child hidden in the attic attempt to claim that teachers do not like children, many have decided another way to vilify teachers is to claim that during the last few days with the teachers along with children and their parents converging on the capitol, they have been receiving death threats and threats of physical violence while to date no neutral observer, legal or media, has witnessed any threats or attacks, and the Oklahoma Highway Patrol and the Oklahoma Bureau of investigation have stated that no one as presented them with any proof of this.

What the teachers want is that the politicians stop pleasing their corporate overlords and do what they were elected to do.

They need to realistically fund education, pay attention to maintaining acceptable learning environments, allow for productive class size, make sure classrooms have the supplies and textbooks that are needed without having teachers use their money to buy them, and keep the teachers they have and attract the next wave of teachers by offering decent hours, wages, and conditions of employment that are competitive with other states.

That is why the Oklahoma teachers have gone to the state capitol.