This story by an Oklahoma television station caught my eye on Twitter, where Jennifer Berkshire, a podcaster writing about education and politics had posted a link with this quote and comment,
*If it’s not any better than this year, I think our rural schools will cave,” she said. “I think that’s probably the purpose—that if we have less schools, then the monies can go to privates and charters.* Incredible reporting from Oklahoma.
Interestingly, Heather Cox Richardson, the historian, had retweeted the Tweet (which is how this matter actually caught my eye), with this comment:
This is an astonishing story, illustrating what happens to a political system when one party can rule without oversight.
Berkshire also observed that this had happened quickly in Oklahoma, given that just six years ago the state had "booted GOP incumbents who were seen as insufficiently pro public education."
The story at the link introduces readers to Pamela Smith-Gordon, who had been superintendent for Caney Public Schools in Bryan County, population 46,000 on the Texas state line.
She spent most of her career as an educator working in rural, public schools, where she became intimately familiar with a unique role those schools play for their communities.
“That’s where people meet people,” Smith-Gordon said. “That’s where people get to know each other’s kids. That’s where community members get together to commune. Oftentimes in small communities, especially those little communities that don’t even have a stoplight, those communities, they keep each other in check because everyone knows everyone. It’s really unique. And we are blessed in Oklahoma to have those types of communities throughout the state.”
For her, every dollar the Oklahoma State Department of Education (OSDE) allocated to her district mattered immensely.
“There’s not a tax base,” she said. “When you don’t have a stoplight in your town, you might have one gas station. That doesn’t provide you a lot of tax money from your communities.”
If there’s a second thing to know about Pamela Smith-Gordon, it’s that — like many Oklahomans — she describes herself as a Christian, conservative Republican.
“I am a God lover,” Smith-Gordon said. “I’m not crazy about liberal agendas.”* * *
From time to time, she thinks about what she would do if she could wave a magic wand and find herself calling the shots from the big office down that secured hallway on the first floor of the Hodge building.
“First of all, I would be there, definitely be there, but I would hire Oklahomans,” Smith-Gordon said. “I wouldn’t go out of state to hire people… I would utilize those people who have been in these schools, in these rural schools, the administrators that have been in these rural schools, teachers that have been in these schools that have faced these obstacles, that know what works and what doesn’t…they have a huge array of value to set initiatives and policy. I would hire Oklahomans to take care of Oklahoma. I also would offer help before humiliation.”
But magic wands don’t exist. And the fact is: Walters is only a little more than a year into his four-year term. That scares Smith-Gordon.
“Our schools did not receive allocations, some of them, not until January,” she said. “If we do this for the next three years, our schools will cave. Department heads have left and there are departments that are being closed down… all of those departments were utilized to answer questions for our schools. If we don’t have people in those departments that can answer questions, how are schools supposed to know?”
The more she thinks and reflects, the more she wonders: maybe this was the plan all along?
“If it’s not any better than this year, I think our rural schools will cave,” she said. “I think that’s probably the purpose—that if we have less schools, then the monies can go to privates and charters.”
That may concern her more than anything else.
“Parents need to realize that when we fund the private and charter schools, they have a different set of rules that they go by,” she said.
Other posts about rural schools in relation to vouchers, aka "school choice", are here. And here's a piece on the last Democratic candidate for governor of Oklahoma, who made saving rural schools a centerpiece of her campaign.
Here, George Will, the conservative columnist, writes in favor of school choice, asserting that it is working well in Arizona. I see no mention of rural schools in his column.
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