The Militant Moderate

While it might be easy to condemn the Oklahoma Education Association for suing the state for not maintaining an adequately financed educational system, the Militant Moderate has mixed feelings about this whole idea.  Like most others, the MM has a certain repugnance to lawsuits to force the legislature to do what it ought to do even if it does not want to do it.  On the other hand, the MM shares the frustration of educators with the politicians’ perennial lack of attention and action to address the critical needs of schools and colleges.  

As a college president for 25 years and a teacher, professor, and administrator for another 15 years before, the Militant Moderate shares the frustration of all educators with the lack of concern exhibited in the political arena for the problems of educational finance.  Year after year, the OEA, representing educators, has tried to keep educational needs before the politicians, and most years these have received only token attention.  There have been a few good years, but mostly endless years of skimpy budgets.  

Faced with these years of frustration, what can an educational organization do?  During years of surplus, what do educators hear from the politicians?  It is tax cuts, tax cuts, and tax rebates.  This is not necessarily a partisan issue.  Although one party may be more tax cut oriented than the other, both are guilty of putting the wrong priorities first.  Oklahoma teachers have always been within one or two places of last in salaries, and Oklahoma schools have always been in the last few places in per pupil finance.  Now that there is money to remedy this, the politicians again speak of “tax cuts.”  It would certainly be tempting just to sue the rascals.  

Appropriately, people raise a concern over putting the courts in charge of school finance, and not the elected body.  But this need not be so.  Lawsuits are lodged about the quality of jails, hospitals, or mental institutions – not with the result of courts taking them over.  If the jail is judged substandard, it may be forced to improve or close.  The court does not take over and make the decisions on how to build or run a jail.  

The Militant Moderate is not sure what form the decision of the schools’ lawsuit against the state might take.  This makes everyone a bit uneasy.  It might be as simple as a finding that the state is inadequately funding its system of education, and some schedule of remediation suggested or possibly mandated.  The court would have to find that there is a compelling public interest in certain improvements in the schools in order to enter that arena with specific mandates.  While a general finding of funding inadequacy might be made, this should normally be followed by the enumeration of deleterious effects of that circumstance upon the public.  Inequity or discrimination in funding of different districts or units would be another case, of course.  

An unfortunate negative byproduct of this lawsuit for better financing of common schools may be the neglect of the needs of higher education, mental health, social services, corrections, and other state services, as common education funding is mandated.  That would not be a good thing.  The MM strongly believes that buildings, buses, equipment, and other capital expenses should remain strictly a local responsibility, except perhaps for a few instances of equalization when maximum mill-age votes will not suffice.  Since Oklahoma ranks 18th from the bottom in level of state tax burden, it should be clear that cutting taxes is a fiscally foolish action by politicians.  

While the Militant Moderate does not claim to have all the answers, this whole issue should be of considerable concern to Oklahoma citizens – a concern which should be reflected their voting choices and in the priorities of their elected representatives.  


Dr. Edwin E. Vineyard, AKA -- The Militant Moderate