A shocking GOP collapse brewing in Oklahoma
A shocking GOP collapse brewing in Oklahoma
Republican overreach on education may backfire
Welcome to a Sunday edition of Progress Report.
We’re now officially less than one month away from the midterm elections, and for the most part, polls and pundits are frozen in uncertainty. It is still entirely unclear which party will win more critical races, in large part because it remains to be seen which issues voters will drive the most voters to the polls.
Any sense of shared reality has been shattered by far-right extremism, which is why instead debating one set of issues, both parties are still fighting to frame the stakes and ensure that their priorities drive the national conversation. If Democrats have their way, the election will wind up being about abortion and Republican extremism, while the GOP wants inflation and a perceived rise in crime the top issues on the ballot.
These issues will undoubtedly weigh on the minds of voters nationwide, but in many places, the old axiom that “all politics is local” still applies. Provincial matters will always continue to influence electoral outcomes, and when politicians ignore local context in an effort to appeal to fringe followers and earn national headlines, it can often backfire. In today’s newsletter, we’re looking at an ultra-red state where GOP treachery may well lad to some improbable upsets.
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by Natalie Meltzer
In Oklahoma, the right’s aggressive efforts to undermine public schools, control their curriculum, and further marginalize LGBTQ students have thus far been tremendously successful.
But the state’s ultra-conservative Governor Kevin Stitt and his hand-picked Secretary of Education Ryan Walters may have gone too far — even in a state where Republicans outnumber Democrats by nearly 2-to-1.
According to polls released this past week, Stitt and Walters both now trail the Democrats seeking to unseat them in next month’s election.
A Vicious Culture War in the Classroom
In 2021, the state passed House Bill 1775, which bars educators from requiring courses or teaching concepts that cause any individual to “feel discomfort, guilt, anguish or any other form of psychological distress” due to their race or gender identity.
The bill establishes unclear standards and encourages students and educators to rat on one another for perceived violations, harkening back to the McCarthy era in which many people’s livelihoods were destroyed by accusations of “subversive” leftist activity. It codifies white fragility into law.
“HB 1775 is so poorly drafted — in places it is literally indecipherable — that districts and teachers have no way of knowing what concepts and ideas are prohibited,” Emerson Sykes, an attorney with the ACLU, told The Journal Record. “The bill was intended to inflame a political reaction, not further a legitimate educational interest.”
The vague language paired with harsh consequences for violations has spurred teachers to self-censor out of fear that a single complaint could result in losing their jobs or their district’s accreditation.
School districts in Oklahoma have banned classic books including Bridge to Terabithia, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglas, A Raisin in the Sun, The Outsiders, and To Kill a Mockingbird. Each of them middle school and high school staples long before the term “Critical Race Theory” ever appeared.
In a highly publicized incident, Norman high school English teacher Summer Boismier was removed from her classroom the first week of school after she tried to evade the censorship by covering the books in her classroom’s library with butcher paper and posting a QR to the Brooklyn Public Library’s Books Unbanned program, which gives young people free access to books that may be banned in their schools.
“I saw this as an opportunity for my kids who were seeing their stories hidden to skirt that directive,” Boisimer told Gothamist. “Nowhere in my directives did it say we can’t put a QR code on a wall.”
After a parent complained, Boisimer was put on administrative leave and summoned to a disciplinary meeting with school administrators. She told the New York Times that she resigned a few hours after the meeting “because it had become pretty clear to me that there was absolutely zero way that I was going to be able to do my job with HB 1775 hanging over my head.”
Despite Boisimer’s resignation, Walters felt it was necessary to weigh in and call for the State Board of Education board to immediately revoke her teaching license.
“There is no place for a teacher with a liberal political agenda in the classroom,” he wrote. “Ms. Boismier’s providing access to banned and pornographic material to students is unacceptable and we must ensure she doesn’t go to another district and do the same thing.”
To be clear, no pornographic material was provided to students, and critical race theory is not taught in any primary or secondary school.
“The legislation has done exactly what it intended, which is to stifle any discussions around systemic inequality, specifically related to race and gender. All it takes is one person, one complaint, to put an entire district at risk,” Boisimer said. “It’s put Oklahoma education in a vice.”
Walters repeatedly spews generic accusations that Oklahoma classrooms are bastions of pornography, “state-sponsored racism,” and “woke indoctrination” in car-selfie diatribes he posts on Twitter. He has even gone so far as to call teacher’s unions “mandatory enslavement” of educators.
Crossing the Rural School Red Line
Governor Stitt, Walters, and their allies in the state legislature are further stoking divisions and assaulting public education through the litany of tactics used by the so-called “school choice” and “anti-CRT” movement.
They are promoting a voucher system that would siphon money from public to private schools; enacting laws that require students to participate on sports teams and use restrooms and locker rooms designated for the sex listed on their original birth certificate; and auditing school districts based on weak allegations that they mishandled public funds and teach critical race theory.
Walter and Stitt are both banking on a majority of Oklahomans sharing their disdain for the public school system and their desire to “continue to fight for Oklahoma conservative values.”
But evidence suggests that their strategy may backfire.
After Walters won the primary election for the elected role of State Superintendent of Public Instruction, teachers of all political persuasions expressed an outpouring of distress, according to Shawna Mott-Wright, president of the Tulsa Classroom Teachers Association.
“They all pretty much say verbatim, ‘If Walters and Stitt win, I’m done with education. I’m not gonna teach anymore, and I might even quit on the spot,’” she told FOX23. “We cannot have someone at the helm who is basically going to murder public education.”
Alienating teachers is never a great strategy, and it’s especially foolish in a school system that has long struggled with a teacher shortage and has already issued more than 2,500 emergency-certifications to teachers this school year.
“If you’re calling out ‘the union’… who do you think joins teachers’ unions,” Mott-Wright said. “Our association membership is half Democrat, half Republican. All we care about is our kids in public education. We don’t care about party.”
Since the Republican primary, teachers have rallied around Democratic candidate for Secretary of Education Jena Nelson, a sixth-grade English teacher named Oklahoma’s 2020 State Teacher of the Year.
Nelson says she will bring an “educator’s voice” to the State Department of Education.
“My promise to my kids and my promise to all Oklahomans is that I will do everything in my power to keep Oklahoma’s public dollars in its public schools,” Nelson said. “Our kids are not for sale.”
It looks like parents are siding with their kids’ teachers, with Nelson now five points ahead of Walters in recent polls.
Nelson told The Oklahoman that since Walters’ primary win, she’s received "more donations, more people volunteering, more people reaching out and just saying we have really got to focus on the truth and the power of public education."
“Oklahoma voters are stepping up to help support the mission to save public education," Nelson said. “Across the state, we are seeing the momentum behind our campaign. Our students, our teachers and our communities need and deserve a strong education system.”
Along with over 90% support among Democratic voters, nearly 20% of Republicans report that they support Nelson over Walters, including voters in conservative rural areas of west and southwest Oklahoma, according to SoonerPoll.com.
Public schools are central to communities everywhere, but nowhere more so than in rural communities, where they provide resources to families and a bulk of the good local jobs. With most other public infrastructure long since privatized or abandoned, they often stand as the last bastion of opportunity and community instead of exploitation.
Moreover, there are very few private and charter schools in rural Oklahoma, rendering “school choice” moot for those who might otherwise be supportive.
The superintendent of rural Sulphur (population 5,000) estimates that the school choice bill Walters and Stitt are pushing will cost his district roughly $350,000 in funding. “Real quick math, that’s six to seven teacher salaries,” Holder told NPR. “That is what we’re looking at.”
Meanwhile, a federal audit found that Walters facilitated an $18 million, no-bid contract to a Florida tech company to administer COVID education relief money with little oversight. There were nearly half a million dollars in purchases of non-educational items like Christmas trees, gaming consoles, televisions, car stereo equipment, and outdoor grills with the grant money, which stands as an affront in particular to the communities that the Republicans want to strip of funding.
A Nelson win would be massive: no Democrat has won statewide office in Oklahoma since 2006, in large part because of that 2-to-1 advantage for Republicans.
With several weeks until election day, Walters is still ahead in terms of fundraising and name recognition.
But as we have seen in primary elections, the right’s efforts to work their base into a frenzy over the handling of race, sex, and gender in the classroom have not neccessarily translated into a sweep of school board elections.
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