The Tulsa Forum by TulsaNow

Got this from a friend on Facebook:

Oklahomies!

I'm with the Save Our State Coalition. We are under a month away from the end of the State of Oklahoma legislative session. As you know, we are in a budget crisis in the state. Did you know: Oklahoma has been the last in the nation in education funding but at the same time we've given over a BILLION dollars away to oil and gas companies! We need oil & gas to pay their pay share and we need to raise the gross production tax.

Would you please take 30 seconds and call your state legislators by leaving a message at 405-309-3909 and say this simple script:
Hi, this is (name), and I live in your district at (address) in (City) (Zip Code).
I’m calling to ask you to take the necessary steps to Save Our State and fix our budget. I support education, public safety, good roads and access to health care – and I am calling to ask you to do the same. We need oil & gas to pay their fair share, which is at least the national average. I understand your job is hard, but it is not impossible. If you need help, please visit SaveOurStateOK.org and read the budget blueprint, which I support.
Thank you, my phone number is __________ if you have any questions. Goodbye.[Note: Leaving your phone number is optional, but many legislators prefer you do so they can follow up.]

Thanks!

EDUCATION IS A PRIORITY!

Legislature cuts education spending by 25% since 2010.

WHY CANT WE GET GOOD JOBS TO MOVE TO OKLAHOMA.

Oklahoma leads the nation in education cuts.

THE STATE IS BROKE

Legislature votes to cut income tax rate.

WHY IS THE TEEN PREGNANCY RATE AMONG THE HIGHEST IN THE NATION!!!

Continue repression of sex education and insistence on absence only efforts.

WE ARE HAVING ANOTHER FUNDING EMERGENCY

Legislature votes to cut oil and gas severance tax.

WE CANT AFFORD TO BUILD NEW PRISONS

Legislature enacts more tough on crime measures.

STUPID COURTS INSIST ON UPHOLDING THE OKLAHOMA CONSTITUTION

Legislature repeatedly passes more unconstitutional laws.

ITS A DISGRACE THAT CHILDREN UNDER STATE CUSTODY DONT GET THE CARE THEY NEED

Legislature further reduces DHS funding.
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Sadly, the spiral will be hard to break. Paying for education helps solve many of the problems we have in the long term.  But cutting taxes gets me reelected next year - who cares if it is likely to exacerbate the underlying problems?

If we just keep cutting taxes, eventually something something blah blah blah and then we are all rich and there's plenty of money!  Eventually. 

Taxes suck.  But someone has to pay them or we end up with an uneducated mass of cheap labor, failing infrastructure, social services that can't keep up and basic governmental services that can't really do their job. 

Lol....!!!

(https://i.giphy.com/l0MYIv8kMQna584CI.gif)

Is that I-44 on the west side of the river?

Stop all non essential spending on roads, and divert to education. Increase taxes on those living in poorly funded school districts--progressive consistent with federal tax code.

 Also, crank up the bake sales and get the kids out at Walmart with coupon books and 50-50 raffles.

Interesting. And very relevant. This is article about how the US is become more like a developing nation than a first world country.

Education funding has a lot to do with it too, as does infrastructure spending. In fact this state is a prime example of how it's happening:
https://www.ineteconomics.org/perspectives/blog/america-is-regressing-into-a-developing-nation-for-most-people

What if we start tracting students like they do in most other countries?

Let's be honest, some students aren't cut out for college.

Some might not be cut out for college, but not getting a decent elementary/secondary education certainly hurts their ability to cut it at life. Other than public safety, the state should direct its tax dollar focus on education and child protection. Or get kids vouchers so they can go elsewhere.  Everything else can wait. I am looking at you roads.

I don't know how teaching history, diagramming sentences, or trig helps people perform in real life....

A system that teaches how to balance a checkbook, learn a trade, how APR and credit cards work, how to cook a meal at home would better serve most students.

Hey now, I got a degree in history. It comes in handy every day...okay. no it doesn't. Schools teach a lot of essentially worthless crap. But I have always believed anything that triggers an interest or a thought is good.

And you are right, there should be a semester called "Fundamentals of Daily Living" or something that teaches young people the basics of survival-because we know they are not getting that at home where they should.

If we lived in the Kingdom of [insert benevolent dictator here] I might agree with you.  But we live in a 21st Century Republic.  The "uneducated masses" get to vote.  I kind of want the people who vote to understand history - to learn the lesson of the worlds failure to work together after WWI or of Britain's appeasement of Hitler and of the failures of intervention in Vietnam and Iraq.  Draw from those lessons what you will, but if you are ignorant of history you lack life lessons from thousands of years.

Diagramming sentences is a tool for advanced literacy.  Not just being able to read and write, but to be able to read and write well.  In a manner that follows grammatical rules and norms.  Even if the result is simply that my employees don't say "Client Smith stopped by, I told him I done seen you goin' out for a while."  Hopefully, the result is upward mobility as the perception of ignorance can be as fatal to employment growth as actual ignorance, but if the only result is that employers can find literate employees... its still a worthy endeavor.

Trigonometry is essential in geography, physicist, astronomy, engineering and any field heavy in math.  True, many students won't enter those fields. But how are they supposed to know if they want to be an engineer or have what it takes to be an advanced physicist if at the age of 13 we tell them it isn't for them?  I think its better for the country to leave options open for as many young people as possible - it seems to give us the best shot of having not only the most scientists and engineers, but of finding the best. 

Yes, independent living ("Home ec") is a vital skill too.  It should be a required part of high school education, but don't slam the door on core education because you assume Johnny won't ever be an engineer.  There's a reason China has 3-4x the population and we have clung to advantages in high end fields. Having among the best public education on the planet served us well for about 100 years, it isn't too expensive now.

Thank you.  Thank you.

Of course we are taught things in school that we don't absolutely need to know later in life.  That is what general education is for.  To expose the students to different things and "see what sticks".   College and trade schools can then later allow those students to hone in on specific areas.

And regarding history in particular,  I hate to be trite but "those who do not study history are doomed to repeat it".  We do a terrible job of teaching history in schools.   We teach dates and events and encourage wrote learning because it is far easier to do that than to teach causality.  

One fundamental thing that is not taught, at least not as a specific topic, is logic and critical thought.  Whether it is history, physics, sociology, or whatever, being able to figure out "why things are" logically (and not fall back on opinion or dogma) is a skill sorely lacking in a lot of the populace today.

I hated history.  I discovered much later I actually hated the way it was being taught, and knowing history gives you a leg up on understanding the future.

Knowing history also keeps you from looking like an idiot.  https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2017/05/01/trumps-totally-bizarre-claim-about-avoiding-the-civil-war/

Until I had met some really good history teachers, I hadnt had a comparrison to make.  Those are teachers motivated far beyond their pay scale in Oklahoma.

Dead right about history. Without it, You might forget that America never added 7 more states after Hawaii or that you could not be named after a mountaineer if you were born several years before that person's accomplishment.

Or that Andrew Jackson, who died a full 15 years before the Civil War got started, could have stopped it.

http://www.cnn.com/2017/05/01/politics/donald-trump-civil-war-comments-sirius-interview/index.html

^^^maybe reading comprehension should be taught more. Or a class on original thinking. Right patric?

Ahhh...yes!!   RWRE approach to the world - when the point is about the ignorance of Trump, attempt an attack - regardless of how feeble - on the one mentioning it. 



For people with actual thought processes out there;

This is what I go on about relentlessly, here and elsewhere - NO knowledge, sense, or understanding, of history!!  It has brought us to where we are now, with RWRE and the Hijacked Republican Party.

This is a good place to pose another question about the state of our state.

Out from under what rock did Frank Keating crawl to start meddling in Oklahoma's business!  Not even born here, he managed to send us spiraling down a dark path, then when he and his cronies had 'milked' that cow as hard as he could, he bales out and moves east to be closer to his swamp buddies in McLean, VA.  He has been part of that 'disconnected from reality' group in the Washington area for so long, he wouldn't even know what waving wheat looks like at this point!

But since his oil buddies need a mouthpiece, he is yapping about how we should attack the wind energy business - one of the truly bright spots in Oklahoma going forward to the future in terms of good paying jobs, technology advancement, creator of demand for better education/training.  ALL the things Failin' and the Clown Show talk about but never actually do anything about.  Well, except for make the state less educated...there is that...!  Oh, yeah...and keep all the tax breaks/perks for their oil buddies...that too!


Quick Reference;
Wind generation in OK is a little over 3,000 Megawatts.  Compare to TX, which so many of the RWRE in-state tout as example that has over 17,000 Megawatts generation capacity.  Why don't we have 17,000??   Or 50,000 ??

Also note that the greatest engines of the knowledge economy - NYC, Boston, the Bay Area, Seattle, etc - are very high tax jurisdictions.  The tax regime doesn't seem to have slowed down growth.

Why?  Because companies move there for the highly educated workforce.  It's why 4 day a week school is mortgaging the future.  Its why the rule preventing a four year public university in Tulsa to protect a community college's turf is just about the most self-defeating law imaginable. 

Even in Oklahoma. Jenks is the fastest growing city, and has the highest taxes and the best school system.

We have always known that the higher tax rate locations outperform - at every level.  And they don't have to be the highest - just higher than what Failin' and her Clown Show want us to understand.  There is NO budget problem in Oklahoma, there is ONLY a lack of will to do what needs to be done!

As much as one might dislike taxes, they ARE what make the entire "society/culture" of an area possible.