How to Stop Common Core in Oklahoma in TWO EASY STEPS!

Thank you to ALL those that participated in our final Common Core Interim Study under the very able guidance of House Administrative Rules Committee, Representative Gus Blackwell.  We had 12 superintendents, principals, professors, teachers and parents give their testimonies November 5, 2013.

Now, here's where the hard part begins!

First:  If you REALLY want to stop Common Core in Oklahoma and return public education to local control, RUN FOR SCHOOL BOARD IN YOUR AREA.

We recently had a WONDERFUL visit with a lovely group of PTO moms.  They are very active and very disappointed that their new Superintendent is pushing Common Core and all the other education 'reforms' promoted by our Governor and State Superintendent to the nth degree.  It's important to remember who hires district superintendents - THE SCHOOL BOARD.  So, what if you had a really great, conservative group of school board members 100% sold on the idea of local control?  You could legitimately make a stand against the state for control of your own district.  True, many 'reforms' are in state law, however, a few quotes come to mind:

• We ought to obey God rather than men. Acts 5.29
• "Rebellion to tyrants is obedience to God."  Thomas Jefferson
• "Men must be governed by God, or they will be ruled by tyrants." William Penn
• "Man will ultimately be governed by God or by tyrants." Benjamin Franklin

As I have begun to opine in nearly every forum into which I'm invited of late, it seems as though we have come to the crossroads of tyranny and freedom.  While I do not enjoy advocating breaking the law, I do not advocate bowing under unlawful oppression either - a situation in which I believe we surely find ourselves in many areas of our lives, to include public education.  There are few who could really study Common Core and not see a direct parallel with the Affordable Health Care Act - they are both laws that seek to oppress a majority of citizens in order to uplift a minority of citizens - NOT at all a legitimate form of governance.

Many school board elections are won on fewer than 1000 votes!  Most are won by an even smaller margin.  These elections happen in YOUR COMMUNITY. Voters are your friends and neighbors!  If you could win ANY election, this would be the election, therefore I submit that YOU SHOULD run.

Now don't say you don't have time or you don't have the money - these are ALL things that are transient and eminently solvable.  Politics at ANY level is won by THOSE THAT SHOW UP!  We can no longer rely on others to do our work for us (or trust me, I would have long ago!), we MUST be the ones to do what is right and to take back our public schools.

Here is the information you need to BEGIN THIS JOURNEY NOW!

Visit the Oklahoma Election Board and download the School Board FILING PACKET.

THE FILING PERIOD

Opens 8:00 A.M., December 2, 2013

Closes 5:00 P.M., December 4, 2013

THE ELECTIONS ARE HELD 

Annual School Election - February 11, 2014 

Annual School Runoff Election - April 1, 2014 

For FOUR YEARS I have cajoled and begged and pleaded for you to run.  For FOUR YEARS I have tried to explain the importance of these elections.

I am asking you to realize that God gave us our form of government through the Pilgrims (it's a great story, take time to read it to your family on Thanksgiving) and go to God NOW. Pray about it! Submit if you realize God is calling you to this high office.  We will do everything we can to find and/or nurture a support network for you to get your campaign off the ground.  It will be hard work to do it right, but YOU CAN DO IT. The election work is but a short time to put in for a seat at a table where you can exert a needed influence in your community.

Second: We have spent hours collecting, collating, editing and uploading video and written testimonies of the Common Core Interim participants.  I took my own video, ran out of space on my phone and battery in my camera and did not get video for ALL those that spoke.  I did, however, make sure ALL testimonies that came to me, were formatted and transferred to our Scribd account for legislators and others to read.  Here is a link to our website where all the videos, with their included testimonies, have been uploaded as a kind of a 'one stop shop'!

PLEASE, take the time to send your senator and representative links to the videos and the written testimonies found in the paragraph above.  If you don't want to send links to all, pick out a few that really speak to you and send those - but MAKE SURE YOUR REPRESENTATIVES and SENATORS see these!  Let them know that you are a SINGLE issue voter and this will be an issue come November.  Do not threaten or be ugly - THERE IS NO NEED FOR THAT!  Just be kind, but firm in your communications.  Here is an option,

Dear Representative (or Senator) ______,

 

I am writing to you today to express my concern regarding the Common Core State Standards written into law before they were even available for Governor Henry and the legislators to read.  Though Oklahoma law makers agreed to the standards in order to get Race to the Top funds, Oklahoma has never received a DIME of RTT money, making the Common Core an unfunded mandate in my district. (here's the time to tell them if your district has passed a school bond, raising your property taxes)

 

(if your children have been affected by standards, tell them how)

(if you're a teacher and you've been adversely affected by the standards, tell them here)

 

Please respond to this communication and tell me if you would be willing to either assist in writing a bill to stop the Common Core here in Oklahoma, or vote to stop Common Core in Oklahoma should one be written and voted on next session.  

 

While I very much appreciate your service to our district and to the state of Oklahoma, if you are unable to comply with my request, I will be unable to vote for you in the next election, this issue is of such great importance to me. 

 

Thank you again for your time and your service.  I look forward to hearing we can work together on this issue, soon. 

 

Sincerely

If you do not get a response from your legislator via email, call.  Do not get angry or irritated they are not responding - many have jobs and other responsibilities that take them away during their time off.  Continue to try - kindly, patiently - until you get a commitment from them one way or another and then hold them to it.

It will take all of us to turn this ship around and we must do that by GETTING INVOLVED and STAYING INVOLVED!  You can do it!

Deception, NOT Excellence in Oklahoma Education

Or…Short Memories Allow Business As Usual in Public School ‘Reform’

How would you feel if I told you that taxpayers are paying the salary for a man at the Department of Education who committed voter fraud in a school board election? 

Many conservatives were astounded when our new REPUBLICAN State Superintendent of Education, Janet Barresi hired the lobbyist for the OklahomaEducation Association (OEA – Oklahoma’s branch of national NEA) as her chief of staff.  In fact, while I have written many a blog detailing ROPE’s disagreements and frustrations with Dr. Barresi’spolicies from a Conservative perspective, even we Conservatives understand public education MUST be a particularly bi-partisan issue. The move to hire Mr. Robison, however, simply didn’t pass the smell test. 

What I found recently, is simply MIND BOGGLING, and explains why.

April 12^th, 1988 framed a particularly divisive school board election in Oklahoma City Public Schools.  Arthur Stellar, then-OKC Public Schools (OKCPS) Superintendent, had recently been given a $6,200 annual pay and benefits increase by existing school board members.

This did not sit well with the OCFT (Oklahoma City Federation of Teachers – local arm of the American Federation of Teachers) who vowed to defeat the three incumbent board members up for reelection that year.  In addition, the OKCPS teachers would be deciding their union of representation May 18. The OCFT had held bargaining rights for teachers since 1977, surviving four previous challenges from rival union OEA-OKC, and teachers would once again be deciding their fate in mere weeks.

Betty Hill, sitting President of the Board (general manager of Jim Hill Heating and Cooling Co. at the time), was the only one of the three who chose to run under these conditions. Her opponent was OCFT-endorsed, Jesse Isbell, a Firestone Tire and Rubber Co. Employee. 

Isbell received 437 district votes. Hill’s total was 305. This forced a runoff election which was to be held on May 3, 1988.

Elections for districts 4 and 5 resulted in elections for OCFT-endorsed candidates, indicating little more than a planned union takeover of the board.

BUT WAIT! Ted Metscher, president of the OCFT and Joel Robison, president of the state AFT (and a physical education teacher within the system) were BOTH found to have voted in the April election while LIVING OUTSIDE THE OKC public school district! Both men were listed on the polling record for Mark Twain Elementary School. Both men listed the business office of the OKFT as their addresses, though Metscher lived in Norman and Robison in Bethany. 

Oklahoma law requires that voters list their home addresses, and the Oklahoma County prosecutor at the time (), publically stated that using a business address to register a vote was a violation of both misdemeanor and felony laws.

Both men actually admitted to voting ILLEGALLY, citing their voter fraud as simple “mistake”.

Metscher was quoted as saying, “My statement is it is a mistake and it’s been corrected. I’m reregistered and I’m sorry.”

Robison said, “I’m not going to say I didn’t realize. It was just a mistake.”

Union members ALSO committing voter fraud in the election were Joel Robison’s wife, Donna (a special education teacher at Classen Fifth-Grade Center), and Georgia Ianello, the former head of the OCFT (who lived in the Putnam City School district).

Though the OCFT placed information in teachers’ school mailboxes BEFORE the election including individual district maps, 35 people who lived outside the boundary lines for District 3 voted in that election, including 8 Oklahoma City schoolteachers, and one principal.

As one commentary in the Oklahoman stated (April 28, 1988), “…it is incredible that people involved in educating children should demonstrate ignorance of, or perhaps disdain for, such a fundamental principle of the democratic process as the sanctity of the vote. With that caliber of union leadership, it is not hard to imagine the kind of school board Oklahoma City would have if it should come totally under union control.”

By April 30^th, Both Metscher and Robison had resigned their AFT posts and lost their union salaries as the OSBI began to investigate “voter registration fraud”. 

Betty Hill won re-election to her post in District 3, May 3 with 53% of the vote. 

May 18^th, OKCPS teachers elected OEA-OKC to represent them as their bargaining agent.

In early June, a more than 230-page OSBI report focused on the actions of Robison and his wife, Donna, Metscher and Ianello was delivered to the district attorney’s office allowing OK County DA Robert Macy to file criminal charges. Though all four were found to have fraudulently cast their votes in the April 12^th election, all were accused only of the misdemeanor charge of “willfully and knowingly” voting illegally in an OKCPS election. The maximum punishment was to be 30 days in jail and a $1,000 fine. Arthur Stellar, OKCPS then-Superintendent explained that OKCPS actions “could run the gamut from an oral reprimand to termination,” but also indicated that no action would be taken against the teachers until the outcome of the case had been determined.

Macy’s decision frustrated many, including Hill and then-OKCPS board President Kay Floyd who said, “I worry about the message that sends to kids, the public, everybody…I have a problem with them being in the classroom.”

The second week of July, Robison, his wife Donna, and Ianello faced their first court appearances on their misdemeanor charges.

In August, both Joel and Donna Robison had resigned their teaching positions and moved to Wichita, Kansas.

By October 18, 1988, the Robisons were given each a 30-day suspended sentence and fined $1,000 (the maximum fine allowed) after reaching an agreement with prosecutors. Each wrote in a court affidavit: “I voted in a school election in a district or precinct in which I did not reside.”

Today, after serving many years as the Chief Lobbyist for OEA, Joel Robison, a man convicted of voter fraud in a school board election tainted by overt union dealings, is the Chief of Staff for the Oklahoma State Superintendent.

Yes, all of us have made/will make mistakes in our lives. Yes, certainly as a Christian one should extend grace and forgiveness. Yes, those who make mistakes must go on to lead their lives in a fruitful, meaningful way and we must allow them to do so.

Mr. Robison could have continued anywhere as a physical education teacher, yet he came back to Oklahoma, switched union allegiance, continued on in union employ and was then put in a position to lobby on behalf of ALL Oklahoma taxpayers for issues affecting our children in public school. Mr. Robison broke the public trust and is now helping to oversee the agency charged with KEEPING the public trust.

We think THAT is stepping over the line.

Resources available from the NewsOk archives under the following titles:

Teachers’ Union Officials Crash School Election, Chris Brawley, April 27, 1988

Records Show 35 Crossed School Election Boundaries, Chris Brawley, Chip Minty, April 27, 1988

Bad Omen for School Board, Editorial, April 28, 1988

OSBI Opens City School Vote Probe, Chris Brawley, April 28, 1988

Oklahoma School Board Candidate Undaunted by Suspect Votes, Chris Casteel, April 29, 1988

More Ineligible School Voters Named, Chris Brawley, April 30, 1988

Runoff Vote to End Hot School Contest, Chris Brawley, May 2, 1988

Union Blameless, Leader Claims, Chris Brawley, May3, 1988

School Board President Re-Elected, Chris Brawley, May 4, 1988

State Official Urges Revision of School Election Laws, Chris Brawley, May 9, 1988

Unions Seeking Backers in City’s School System Teachers, Support Personnel to Choose, Chris Brawley, May 15, 1988

Teacher Union Presidents Quit After Probe Starts, Chris Brawley, April 30, 1988

OSBI Files Report on Possible Fraud, Chris Brawley, June 12, 1988

Criminal Charges Planned in School Election Fraud Probe, Nolan Clay, July 6, 1988

Illegal Voting Charge Filed on Teachers, Chris Brawley, Nolan Clay, July 8, 1988

3 Teachers in Court on Election Charges, Editorial, July 12, 1988

Vote Fraud Suspect Unaware of Restrictions, Attorney Says, July 16, 1988

Board Member Concerned Over Teachers’ Jobs, Chris Brawley, September 1, 1988

Jury to Hear Case Against City Teachers, Nolan Clay, September 23, 1988

Teachers Enter Pleas of Guilty in Voting Case, Nolan Clay, October 18, 1988

Ex-Teachers Fined for Illegal Voting, Nolan Clay, October 14, 1988

Teachers Should Accept Blame, Editorial, October 21, 1988

Teachers Disciplined Confidentially, Chris Brawley, November 1, 1988