Vote No on 779 Because Dark Money Funders CCOSA/OEA Use Education/Teacher Funds For Politics Instead of Raises - PART 1

I spent my entire morning reading both the Affidavit for Search Warrant for Chad Alexander's cell phones (following his 2014 Controlled Dangerous Substance possession charge in May of 2014 - which led to the current charges against State Superintendent Joy Hofmeister and others) and all 32 pages of the Affidavit Of Probable Cause including the charges, the background, the investigation - all the way through to the summary.  I suggest you do as well.  It is very enlightening. 


After reading a number of news articles about the charges for Joy Hofmeister, Stephanie Milligan, Steven Crawford, Lela Odom and Fount Holland, I watched the press conference of Mrs. Hofmeister declaring herself innocent of all charges, and while I acknowledge Americans are innocent until proven guilty and that Mrs. Hofmeister has a right to trial on all five charges before her (including two charges of Conspiracy to Commit Felony), the taxpaying public has the direct right to as much information in this case as possible.

First and foremost, according to the Affidavit of charges, CCOSA (the Cooperative Council of Oklahoma School Administrators) and the OEA both gave Oklahomans for Public School Excellence (OSPE - the 'dark money' group which paid for attack ads against former state superintendent Janet Baressi) ONE HUNDRED THOUSAND ($100,000) dollars EACH.  Where does CCOSA get their money?  From membership dues and workshops paid for by Oklahoma school administrators (Superintendents).  Where do school administrators get their money?  FROM STATE TAXPAYERS.  OEA also gave ONE HUNDRED THOUSAND ($100,000) dollars to this fund.  From where does OEA get their money?  FROM OKLAHOMA TEACHERS WHO ARE PAID BY TAX DOLLARS.

Why - why in the world - should we give public education in this state ONE MORE DIME?  The organizations that run the education establishment (not parent or taxpayer friendly) in Oklahoma have great chunks of money to spend on POLITICS, why can they not find the money for pay raises for those on the ground floor of the institution they manage and direct?  The answer is - we SHOULDN'T.  VOTE NO on SQ779. 

It is important to remember that this is not the first time these organizations have spent huge sums of money derived from public money on politics.  Please see this blog from 2014 where CCOSA, OEA and others paid for numerous full page ads in the state's largest papers against the repeal of Common Core.  Why wasn't this money used for salaries?  Why use it to fight parents groups?  Why not put it back into the system to help parents and children?

In fact, as I detail the information inside this Affidavit, you will find that nearly EVERY player involved had some kind of role in fighting the Common Core repeal we fought so hard to obtain.

This is also the same group of people that fought to make ACT the state test AND to push through the clearly inferior State Standards adopted after the repeal of Common Core. 

Neither CCOSA nor OEA - not even the Oklahoma State Department of Education - are for parents or  kids - they are not even for teachers - they are for themselves.  Period.  There is no other way to arrive at this conclusion if you read the documents linked in this blog.

In order to prevent such a long blog post that no one could get through it, I'm going to break it into parts.  Consider this, part 1.

Jenni White - Education Director, ROPE2.0