Tom Coburn has the money to bring a repeal of HB1010. I am just curious. How many of you will vote to reverse the taxes/teacher pay increase? Please defend your answer.
Teacher Pay increase referendum
- Thread starter brtinla
- Start date
Brtinla - The walkout was a disaster from the start that accomplished nothing except potentially harming the education of our young people.
But I am 100% against Oklahoma Taxpayer United trying to undo the mechanisms signed into law to increase the badly needed teacher pay.
But I am 100% against Oklahoma Taxpayer United trying to undo the mechanisms signed into law to increase the badly needed teacher pay.
Like cableok said, the walkout was a disaster and once the freakin OEA started dictating which taxes should be changed/abolished I was done defending the teachers.
Teachers want X, Y & Z, but offer no reciprocity as to what they are willing to do for common sense changes that save money nor what will change if X, Y & Z are enacted from a classroom performance standpoint, which is unacceptable to me. Most educators I know are very intelligent people and given the opportunity to get out from under the thumb of your parasitic unions, could come up with amazing and intuitive ideas to solve a number of problems now faced.
I’ll probably vote for the repeal simply because I don’t think it does enough for DESERVING teachers and the recently passed laws aren’t going to make a bit of difference if nothing else is done 2, 3 or 4 years down the road.
Said this before as well, you guys really want to get their attention do not renew your contracts next month. With 100% certainty I can say if 30, 40 or 50% of teachers do this you will have an incredible opportunity to change the trajectory of this whole discussion. Additionally I would muzzle the OEA spokesperson and I would put forth changes that teachers and administrations are willing to make for a maximum positive effect with new funding. I would start there by supporting any and all laws that bar kids of illegals from being educated in our oversized classrooms with under paid teachers. Obviously native born kiddos (even if parents are illegals) would/should be treated like ever other child.
Teachers want X, Y & Z, but offer no reciprocity as to what they are willing to do for common sense changes that save money nor what will change if X, Y & Z are enacted from a classroom performance standpoint, which is unacceptable to me. Most educators I know are very intelligent people and given the opportunity to get out from under the thumb of your parasitic unions, could come up with amazing and intuitive ideas to solve a number of problems now faced.
I’ll probably vote for the repeal simply because I don’t think it does enough for DESERVING teachers and the recently passed laws aren’t going to make a bit of difference if nothing else is done 2, 3 or 4 years down the road.
Said this before as well, you guys really want to get their attention do not renew your contracts next month. With 100% certainty I can say if 30, 40 or 50% of teachers do this you will have an incredible opportunity to change the trajectory of this whole discussion. Additionally I would muzzle the OEA spokesperson and I would put forth changes that teachers and administrations are willing to make for a maximum positive effect with new funding. I would start there by supporting any and all laws that bar kids of illegals from being educated in our oversized classrooms with under paid teachers. Obviously native born kiddos (even if parents are illegals) would/should be treated like ever other child.
I don't believe the teachers were ever tied to the OEA Union. I know a lot of teachers that participated in the walkout and all of them were pissed off at the OEA.
It is not fair to diss the teachers because of the OEA actions. Just saying
It is not fair to diss the teachers because of the OEA actions. Just saying
At this point they can't take away the money even if there is a referendum. They may repeal the tax increases. But they'll have a very difficult time taking the money out of the public school budget. It would come out of roads/bridges, or public health or corrections.
You take away the raise and classroom money now and you'll lose 30% of the public teachers. They'll just go do something else.
You take away the raise and classroom money now and you'll lose 30% of the public teachers. They'll just go do something else.
Pancreek good point, probably should have worded a bit different. I use to teach, mom retired from teaching have two cousins that taught. They have to be vocal about their lack of support for the OEA. Teachers, like any other group of professionals, are not some monolithic needs group. After all the union is there for the teachers and not the other way around.
They are going to have to hold the legislatures feet to the fire though or the improved pay and conditions will come very slowly, if at all.
They also need to drop all the subterfuge stuff....”it’s for the kids,” “we’re 30th in the country,” and so on. Almost every tax increase the legislature passed/passes will have a deleterious affect on the raises as well. There has to be a higher level of accountability on both sides of the issue. Teachers that aren’t teaching need to be gone. When I student taught, in Kingfisher, the us history teacher who’s class I was going to take over, threw me the roll book on my 10th day in class and said “I’ll see you in May.” The only time I saw the guy was when he needed advise on betting pro basketball games (why he came to me is still baffling). He was useless and his “teaching” consisted of do the vocabulary and questions st the end of the chapter, then have a test. Guess because he was a good coach they kept him around, but the guy should never have been in the classroom.
Will see what happens, but 40% of the teachers not signing new contracts would have an immediate affect.
Last edited:
I’m for teachers getting paid more and being properly funded. I’m also for taking a fresh look at how to maximize their performance and tie bonuses to that somehow.
I'll also say that for Bartlesville we didn't let the OEA take over the agenda. The movement started here, the teachers were reasonable in their expectations, realized this is a negotiation and you aren't getting everything on your list, realized they got enough to satisfy the walk out, and then came back to school over the request of the OEA.
Pretty proud of the way our teachers, administration, and board handled this situation despite 2 of our legislators voting against the increased school funding.
Pretty proud of the way our teachers, administration, and board handled this situation despite 2 of our legislators voting against the increased school funding.
IF you can figure out a fair, quantifiable, and objective way to do that - I'm all ears. I'd love to see that too.
Of course if you do it to public school teachers; you should also do it to all other publicly funded positions.
You may not have been but the majority of districts were all in on OEA. Stillwater for one was all in on OEA. This with the optics of brand new facilities and more on the way. All the other districts around here were back in School and Stillwater was out.
OEA packed it up when legislation was introduced that would help. I would have known teachers were serious if they doubled down at that point and helped drive it through but instead they packed in and went home with no change.
People aren’t hating on teachers. They are pointing out were they went wrong. Ditch the OEA and you will win converts. Come up with a plan to downsize administrators and put more money in the classroom and 90% of the state is behind you. Change will happen instead of no change. There is a lot of room for change that will correspond with OK values.
I can't speak for the other districts. That's on them. I can only influence my local people. And I did. We did.
I have no idea what you are talking about when you say the teachers packed it up and left when other legislation was pending. What would you have them do? Continue to walk out? Sounds like a damned if you do and damned if you don't scenario you are setting up.
All I know is that as recently as 2 days ago my wife, myself, BvillePoker, and others here in Bartlesville spoke with our state representative about our thoughts - including school district administration consolidation and also the state relaxing the funding constraints on local school districts.
Just saying that you seem to be painting with a pretty broad brush that isn't entirely accurate.
You were already dambed if you do and dambed if don’t by striking. Once you commit you have to be all in. I’m actually appriecaptive of your discussions with your state representative. I think your district is an example of things that need to happen. Unfortunately I don’t think a majority of districts are as engaged as yours or understand that there are problems that can be solved on that level as well. I think the funding constraints is the perfect discussion to have with your representatives.
OEA went home when a bill for consolidation was introduced. If I remember correctly there were 4 or 5 bills one tying superintendents to governors pay. When these were drafted OEA went home. There were some good starting points there.
