Citizens in Charge

Last month, several organizations sponsored a meeting in Oklahoma City focused on the initiative process in Oklahoma and the nation. Panelists focused on technical issues such as signature-gathering requirements, judicial review of ballot initiatives (pre- and post-election), “time and place” restrictions on the petitions, and other important issues.

The OEA is at it again, asking taxpayers to fund its gluttonous appetite for more than the average helping.

This time, it’s an $850 million ballot initiative to raise our average per pupil spending to compete with neighboring states. This comes on top of the $450 million the school board asked for on Friday as reported in the Oklahoman on Halloween. That totals a 1.3 billion dollar increase in one year from an Oklahoma budget of just 7 billion.

They used to call him “the man with the golden arm.”

Nick Caputo was the Essex County clerk for 29 years. Among the clerk’s duties was the task of putting capsules representing the political parties into a drum and then giving it a good spin. Apparently Caputo had calculated that centrifugal force would keep the capsules in place. And the Democrats got Row A for all but one year of his tenure.

WHEN it comes to creativity, the Oklahoma Education Association deserves a failing grade. Time and again, the state’s largest teachers union has made clear that it cares more about teachers’ paychecks, money grabs and the status quo than taxpayers and the state’s overall well-being.

The latest evidence is an effort to amend the Oklahoma Constitution and force taxpayers to spend millions of dollars more per year on common education. The union has started an initiative petition drive to get the proposed amendment on a 2010 statewide ballot.

The education lobby will soon ask Oklahoma voters to sign a petition requiring that our state per-pupil school spending must always equal the regional average. There are at least four reasons why this is a bad and dangerous idea.

Leading public education support groups including the Oklahoma Education Association filed a petition Wednesday with the state to put to a vote of the people a requirement that Oklahoma’s students are funded at the average of the seven-state regional level.

Chuck Pack, a teacher at Tahlequah High School, said he is spending about $600 a school year so that his math students have adequate supplies.

Don’t go into a gun fight with knives is an old piece of wisdom. Perhaps it was invented in the old West or even Oklahoma.