Issue Position: Education

Issue Position

On March 24, 2016, I sat across from my principal and witnessed a heartbroken man tell me I was one of the 208 teachers across OKCPS who will not be asked back due to the disastrous budget cuts levied by our state legislature.

The news crushed me. My students and I have established a strong relationship over the course of this year. Despite their tough backgrounds, they are still willing to put forth great effort in their classwork. They share amazing stories and spend hours creating beautiful artwork for me. Some even bring homemade tamales that their grandmothers made. We've become a family.

My despair isn't for myself. My despair rests with my students and the hundreds of other qualified educators who will lose their jobs because of our State Legislature's unwillingness to properly fund public education.

When I am elected to House District 93, I will fight to ensure that teachers are not forced to leave the profession they love because of the Legislature's inability to manage state revenue. When I am elected, I will fight to ensure that every child in Oklahoma receives a quality public education they need and deserve.

What are your positions on school vouchers/ESA and deregulation of districts.
I am against school vouchers/ESA. If a parent or guardian wants their child to go to private school, they should have that option, but not at the public's expense. More than 90% of Oklahoma's youth attend public schools. If we want the state of Oklahoma and its people to thrive we must have a unified commitment to public education. Quality public education is an investment, not a cost.

How would you return funding to school classrooms?
Here's a good place to start. Eliminate new tax cuts, stop wasting tax dollars on prison cells packed full of non-violent offenders, improve our state's revenue by diversifying our economy, and delegate highly qualified CPA's to budget our state's revenue.

What would you do to reverse the teacher shortage?
Almost every teacher will tell you they enter the profession for the outcome, not for the income. However, many teachers in Oklahoma, especially single parents, cannot afford to raise a family on the salary they're given. It makes more sense for many teachers to move a few hours south into Texas and easily make $10,000 more per year. Also, I feel like a lot of great teachers are encouraged to become principals. Many educators would rather stay in the classroom and teach but the salary of a principal makes it much easier to raise a family. As a result, a large number of great teachers are either relocating to another state, leaving the profession, or seeking an administration job which will inevitably leave a huge teacher shortage with overcrowded classrooms. Inevitably, students aren't receiving the high standard of education they need and deserve, test scores drop, and then private investors propose a strong initiative to create private charters to make up for the failing public schools in which our elected officials could have prevented in the first place. Again, quality public education is an investment, not an expense.

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