Remembering Oklahoma Labor Commissioner Mark Costello

During the 2010 Oklahoma elections, ROPE supported Mark Costello for Labor Commissioner because Mark was a small business entrepreneur, having founded American Computer and Telephone (AMCAT) in 1991, which he sold in 2007, after which he started USA Digital Communications. Mark knew business and understood labor issues. Who else better to run the Department of Labor?

Following the election, Julia, Lynn and I would often run into Mark while at the Capitol lobbying or at a Republican event and we grew to know him personally. I laugh because, for probably the first year we knew him, he knew me as 'Janet'. He'd come across the room sometimes with a big smile on his face, hand extended, to say, "Hello Janet!" I'll never forget that. I'd correct him with a laugh, he'd laugh with me, and we'd assure one another that one day he'd get it right'. I loved that about him - he was just a regular guy - a regular guy who seemed happy to see you and enjoy the company of others.

Often, we'd see Mark someplace we were speaking about Common Core and eventually we began to have conversations about the issue. Not only as Labor Commissioner, but as an employer, Mark had become genuinely concerned that Common Core was not 'OK' for the future of Oklahoma businesses. As an entrepreneur himself, I believe he really understood the necessity for students to get an education well-rounded enough to allow them to develop their creativity - creativity which can easily become initiative; a foundation of entrepreneurial spirit. An education not dictated by a 'common' set of educational standards, but one that would help foster the individuality of all kids.

Last year, as the fight against Common Core was coming to a crescendo, Mark penned an op-ed against Common Core read by many thousands of people, that we all believe helped turn the tide in our favor. In it, he penned the following paragraph

Common Core is to education what Obamacare is to health, a centralized government process that strips local control away from parents, teachers, and school boards. Why the push by large non-profits to establish national education standards? Some have asserted the concept of “mass production” will lower per unit costs. In other words, the God given individual qualities and talents of each child will be restructured by a nationalized production process guided from a top down political structure.

He didn't write these words because we asked him to, he wrote them because he believed them. 

After having had the sheer pleasure of knowing Mark socially for the past five years, I can attest that he was not only a true conservative - one who didn't simply spout the dictionary definition, but possessed a real working understanding of the concept - but an unapologetic Christian as well. When he spoke out for school choice and against Common Core, it wasn't simply out of a concern that Oklahoma would squelch the entrepreneurial spirit in our youngest citizens, but that students would not be allowed to follow their God-given talents and abilities to the best degree without the broadest form of educational possibility. 

Words cannot possibly give due the sadness we all feel at Mark's passing. He was a wonderful man of whom we have many fond memories, but he was also a boundless force for good in this state. He will be missed many times over throughout many circles, countless groups and among many individuals all across Oklahoma.

Our continued and constant thoughts and prayers go out to his wife Cathy and all their children for peace at this tragic time. 

Thank you Mark Costello for your life, your service, your leadership, your tireless fight for right and your friendship to so many. From what I knew of Mark, the words of Shakespeare (Hamlet, Act 5, Scene 2) would be appreciated here and so I will close:

We defy augury. There’s a special providence in the fall of a sparrow. If it be now, ’tis not to come. If it be not to come, it will be now. If it be not now, yet it will come—the readiness is all. Since no man of aught he leaves knows, what is ’t to leave betimes? Let be.

BREAKING! Labor Commissioner Mark Costello "Condemns Nationalized Common Core Takeover of Education"!

The following is the information delivered to me via email from Josh Harlow in Commissioner Costello's office:

Commissioner Mark Costello Condemns Nationalized 

Common Core Takeover of Education

Carl Albert, Oklahoma’s Little Giant, credits much of his success to a schoolteacher from Bugtussle, Oklahoma. Albert was a National debate champion, Rhodes Scholar and Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives. His uncommon success is hard to imagine coming from today’s latest educational fad, Common Core. Excellence may be achieved from the factory floor; however, classrooms are not factories and children are not economic units.

Common Core is to education what Obamacare is to health, a centralized government process that strips local control away from parents, teachers, and school boards. Why the push by large non-profits to establish national education standards? Some have asserted the concept of “mass production” will lower per unit costs. In other words, the God given individual qualities and talents of each child will be restructured by a nationalized production process guided from a top down political structure.

George Will writes, the

“timeline for adoption and implementation has been driven by the Obama administration’s Race to the Top program and its approach to No Child Left Behind waivers.”

Common Core is an assault on local control of education. In any of the fifty states and 19,429 local communities I would rather defer to a parent, who loves their child, to protect the interests of their child than to an elitist bureaucrat.

The large non-profit organizations pushing Common Core are reminiscent of the manufacture of the first mass produced automobile. Henry Ford said, “You can have any color of car that you want as long as it’s black.” Parental choice is eliminated as schools are pushed to have the same curriculum and textbooks.

Some have argued Common Core resembles the failed “No Child Left Behind” initiative that incentivizes teachers to teach to the test. In other words, students are taught to memorize rather than learn and develop critical thinking skills. As a founder of Oklahoma companies, I was most interested in those prospective employees who displayed critical thinking skills, not necessarily the ability to pass a test.

In Common Core the progress of the classroom teacher is measured by student performance on national standardized tests. Worst yet, Sandra Stotsky, a professor at the University of Arkansas, who served on the committee to validate Common Core standards said, “The standards dumb American education down by about two grades worth.”

William F. Buckley, Jr. once stated that he would rather entrust the government of the United States to the first 400 people listed in the Boston telephone directory than the faculty of Harvard University. I have full trust and confidence in the parents of Oklahoman that they will exercise better judgment than the large non-profits and the elites of Washington.

Oklahoma’s elected officials have no greater duty than protect the next generation of Oklahomans from this sweeping top-down federally centered power grab over local control of education. Eliminate Common Core lock, stock, and barrel. Eliminate Common Core under any name. Eliminate Common Core now.