Oklahoma & Kentucky: Teaching Democracy

Tulsa, Oklahoma elementary school teacher Janie
Mitchell at an April 2nd rally at the state capital 

On the 50th anniversary of his assassination, it's difficult to know exactly what Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. might think about the current state of America.

Particularly given the polarized nature of our politics, a two-tier justice system rife with racial and economic bias and the growing socioeconomic inequality between American citizens exacerbated by legislative policies passed by Republican-majority state legislatures and the GOP-majority House and Senate. 


But if Dr. King were still alive today (he'd have turned 88 in January), it's fair to speculate that he'd be among those fighting for the causes that he believed in and fought so hard to achieve in the 1950's and 60's - including the right to a good education and fair pay.

The essence of Dr. King's spirit, including his embrace of Mahatma Ghandi's belief in the power of peaceful non-violent resistance and civil disobedience, and the courage to speak truth to power, can  arguably be seen amongst the striking public school teachers across the nation.

Inspired by West Virginia teachers, whose nine-day walkout in early March captured global attention and forced state lawmakers to grant them a 5% pay increase, thousands of Oklahoma public school teachers, administrators and other supporters descended upon the state capital in Oklahoma City on Monday morning.

They rallied in front of the state capitol building, then broke into groups to confront state lawmakers in hallways and offices to demand significant increases to Oklahoma's education funding. 

Since the Oklahoma state legislature slashed public school spending by more than $200 million in the wake of the Great Recession in 2008, the number of students in Oklahoma public schools has increased by more than 40,000 - placing huge demands on public school administrators and teachers and forcing some schools to eliminate funding for programs like art, music and athletics.

Thousands of Kentucky public school teachers
packed the state capital in Frankfurt on Monday

As the sign (pictured above) held by Tulsa elementary school teacher Janie Mitchell demonstrates, Oklahoma public school teachers are fed up with being ranked 49th out of 50 states in terms of salary.

And at the same time, the draconian education cuts have led to some 1,500 teachers being removed from the ranks of Oklahoma public schools.

Those cost are impacting the lives and futures of both students and teachers.

Some public schools in Oklahoma have four day school weeks due to a lack of teachers and money - a situation that plays out in Kentucky as well where thousands of teachers closed schools to fill the halls of the state capitol building on Monday morning to protest under-funded public schools and a sneaky legislative maneuver by state lawmakers to pass cuts in teacher pension benefits on the sly.

Part of what would rankle Dr. King is that the reality is that there's money in the Oklahoma state budget to fully and properly fund public schools and pay teachers a competitive salary.

But as in other states controlled by Republican state legislatures (like Kansas), lawmakers have used anti-union rhetoric and irrational ALEC-driven vilification of public schools to justify shifting money from education in order to fund (drum roll please...) tax breaks for corporations and the 1%.

For example, consider the $300 million tax break for new oil and natural gas drilling Republican Oklahoma legislators and Republican Governor Mary Fallin tucked into the fiscal 2018 state budget.

Republican Oklahoma Gov. Mary Falin

Oklahoma is one of the biggest producers of oil and natural gas in the nation, and U.S. petroleum companies already benefit from a host of federal subsidies for oil and natural gas exploration and drilling.

Yet Oklahoma Republican lawmakers authorized moving $300 million in taxpayer funds to oil and gas companies as many public school classrooms go without sufficient teachers, books and other basic school supplies - it literally borders on criminal.

Conservative Republican Oklahoma Gov. Mary Fallin, who many already considered something of a ideologically right-wing nitwit, epitomized the simplistic, condescending, uninformed Republican contempt for public education on Tuesday when she told CBS News that:

"Teachers want more, but it's kind of like having a teenage kid that wants a better car."  

Now when you read a dismissive, idiotic, Trump-like statement like that, just remember that the public school teachers Fallin is talking about have gone without pay raises for a decade, rank 49th out of all 50 states in salary, and are teaching more students with less funding in an era when education is as critical for global competitiveness as it's ever been.

Who sounds more like the teenage kid?

Fallin and other state legislators moved to sign an education funding and teacher salary increase, but it's way below what teachers are looking for - and her Betsy DeVos-ish "teenage kid" statement only gives teachers more fuel to keep pressuring Republican lawmakers to cough up the money.

Dr. King with other leaders of the 1963 March
on Washington for Jobs and Freedom 

Unfortunately for Fallin, she's too politically one-dimensional to realize that her statement only validates the striking teacher's demands, and paints Republicans as even more tone deaf than most Americans already think they are.

And it only increases the chances of a Democratic Blue Wave this fall when these thousands of voters head for the polls in November for the mid-term elections.

These grassroots protests are demonstrating growing widespread support for public education.

Teachers, administrators, parents and educational professionals are building political momentum across the country - including way out in Arizona where teachers, fired up by the strikes in West Virginia, Oklahoma and Kentucky, are moving closer to a strike in one of the most reliably politically Red States in the nation - one with an open Senate seat in the fall too.

This despite years of Republican legislators working to curb collective bargaining rights for teachers and other public sector employees, and trying to shift public education funding to private and charter schools with the help of the American Legislative Exchange Council.

But thousands of teachers across the country (and thousands of students protesting gun violence) are showing that real voices matter - and that there is real power in numbers.

This is what Democracy looks like, and Dr. King would be proud to see civil disobedience and organized protest making a difference and moving the needle in the 21st century.