Coburn Blasts NEA, State Question 744
In a statement today about emergency school aid to Oklahoma and other states, Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Muskogee, blasted the National Education Association and State Question 744, which will be on the ballot in Oklahoma in November and would require a guaranteed level of funding for education in the state.
“Nowhere does the U.S. Constitution give Congress the authority to be responsible for teacher pay in Oklahoma. Teacher pay is a state and local function that should be performed at the state and local level,” Coburn said.
“During this debate I was also reminded why I believe organizations like the NEA are responsible for creating this crisis. President Dennis Van Roekel claimed that my ‘vote reflected a troubling lack of understanding about the impact of this crisis on our students, our communities, and our nation.’ Yet, it is the NEA itself that helped create this crisis by protecting a monopoly of mediocrity in our public education system that is threatening the ability of our workforce to compete in a global economy.
“The union’s critique is especially troubling given the fiscal damage the union is actively working to inflict on the State of Oklahoma. The NEA plans to spend up to $3 million on an Oklahoma School Funding Initiative slated to be on the ballot this November (State Question 744) which would require the legislature to raise school per-pupil spending to the regional average. This is a wrong-headed proposal. Studies show it is the quality of the teacher – not class size or pay level – that determines outcomes for students.
“Plus, this proposal would cost taxpayers in Oklahoma $1.7 billion in its three-year phase-in period alone. The Oklahoma Policy Institute says this initiative ‘would create real and serious damage to the state of Oklahoma.
“If anyone has demonstrated a ‘lack of understanding,’ it is organizations like the NEA who block real reform while spending millions on initiatives that will create a severe funding shortage for all other functions of our state government.”
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Comments
Studies show it is the quality of the teacher – not class size or pay level – that determines outcomes for students.
So Tom Coburn wants volunteer teachers who do not need money. Those quality teachers who have families and need money will move to a higher paying job in another state. You will pay for the teacher training, then they will move to a higher paying state.
What is the Tom Coburn plan to retain these quality teachers with low pay???
What is your plan Tom???????????
Easy to be a critic with no solutions.
Typical joiurnalism, politics, polstered by public uneducated response. The facts are; 1, teachers are under paid and the NEA is trying to relieve this economic strain on educators in order to keep teachers in the state. 2, there are too many educators out there that have no business teaching children. Teachers that can’t educate a child has no business teaching in this state. As far as the school systems that keep these teachers employed, you are as much to blame for the increasing number of kids leaving high school uneducated. In addition, public school systems must move away from providing a high school education and move to preparing students for college. We are dooming our own country to ignorance!
Go Tom! this is why I voted for you. I agree that the NEA has stifled our education system, and allowed our great nation to fall severely behind.
Show me a school district in money trouble, I’ll show you one that is administration heavy. When any, ANY, business is financially burdened, they look where there is fat to cut. That is very often middle management, i.e. principals, asst superintendants, etc. When they start running the state like a business, create competition for compensation, you will see teachers and administratorsget serious. The really dedicated ones will be rewarded, the ones on cruise til retirement will fall away or pick up their game, just like in business. Listen, its basically the same job managing 50 teachers or 150. Quit breeding medeocrity and expecting excellence.
[...] U.S. Senator Tom Coburn states that Teacher pay should be a state and local function rather than a C… [...]
I moved from the upper midwest to here and have to say the school system here is lacking, not in qualified teachers, but in the buildings they teach in, the equipment they have to teach with etc. The teaqchers truly care and try, it’s not their fault they don’t have what they need. Cut the administration level!!! You want teachers to each-then give them what they need to do their job! You’ve already got good teachers but they can’t teach properly without the proper equipment! Common sense people!
One point that is overlooked and/or not mentioned is the parent’s role in education. As a school teacher for the past twelve (12) years, a number of parents send their children to school with what at least appears to be no genuine interest in what their child does at school academically. E.D. Hill, in her book, “I’m Not Your Friend, I’m Your Parent” basically says that the problem we have in society is permissive parenting. I can vouch for that. I see parents who are more concerned about their child getting a grade they don’t deserve and fighting to get it when they don’t get their way; believing a child’s side of a story before they ask the teacher for their side of the story and coming in angry at the teacher because they already passed judgment on them. True, there are teachers who don’t care (and I would say they are in the minority) and those who have simply given up the fight and have become apathetic due to all the finger pointing when I think honestly the demise of the home (family, faith, etc.) are the basis for a lot of the educational issues we deal with as well as other societal issues. Hope this sheds some light on this complex topic.
This is to Ed which posted a comment on Aug 7th. What about all the state workers that will loose their jobs because of this, education will take money from our budgets to fund this!!! WHAT ABOUT OUR FAMILIES!!! We already make less than teachers, we’ve already been cut and forloughed, if you ask me this is a selfish move! I work for the department of human services my job requires me to have a college degree just like teachers have to, they make more money plus they are off 2 months out of the year. Heck the superintendent at the small 2a school in the town I live in makes more than the DA of 3 counties!!! This is crazy! And another thing what are the people supporting this thing going to say when one of their children or themselves has a wreck on the roads that we can’t fix because we gave them the states money or worse what if harm comes to one of them because we had to close prisons and let violent offenders out on the streets!!! This is something everyone needs to think about!, a drug driver runs hits them because over 100 state troopers loose their jobs because the state can’t afford their salaries. And taxes will raise, their are programs DHS by law has to fund we have no choice, where the heck do you think that money will come from YOU!!! Taxes!
This is why I like Tom Coburn. He is always honest and fair. He’s not a politician that is out to just get re-elected, He’s truly there to do what he (and most of America) believes is the right thing for America now and future generations.I’ve worked for a union shop before. It’s true the union, including NEA is out for themselves, not for customers, students, etc. There is no solidarity in a union any longer, just greed at the top.
Iwill vote no for this funding.