A New Day (poem for #oklaed)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DFuzic841mU&feature=youtu.be Do you want to know what it’s like to be a teacher? It's like any other desk job really, minus the actual sitting at a desk. Seven hours of daily meetings arranged the previous evening You want to know what it’s like to be a teacher in Oklahoma? It’s the hardest job with (almost) …

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“We Can’t Vote, But You Can!”

Reflections on a Middle School Voter Registration Drive “Hello, ma’am! Are you registered to vote? Yes? Any recent changes? Address? Name? You can also change your political party.” This became the unofficial script for my 8th grade civics students spending September afternoons in front of a Save-A-Lot grocery store in Del City, Oklahoma. But the …

The Movement to End American Football Begins in Schools

The dangers of playing American football are increasingly becoming common knowledge. Further scientific evidence emerges almost on a daily basis relative to a condition in former players known as Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy or C.T.E. There are currently only two kinds of football fans. There are those football fans who know the danger and are interested …

Public Schools Are Not ‘Government Schools,’ Not Yet

A favorite talking point of school privatizers and education reformers is to refer to public schools as “government schools.” When free market ideologues and politicians do this, they are primarily appealing to the libertarian tendencies of middle and upper class white evangelicals and Catholics. Right wing politicians rarely use the word “government” positively as an …

Five Reasons the Success of State Question 799 Referendum Petition Is Not a Foregone Conclusion

On Tuesday, May 1, 2018, two women walked into the Secretary of State’s office in Oklahoma City and filed the necessary paperwork to begin collecting signatures in an effort to place HB 1010xx on the ballot in November. HB 1010xx is the revenue bill, signed into law by Gov. Mary Fallin on March 29, which …