The Norman Transcript

Opinion

Discussion

January 24, 2013

OAC funding important

The Norman Transcript

NORMAN — Editor, The Transcript:

What is it about the leadership of our state that causes the quality of our children’s education always to come in last? In the state legislature, a member of the House leadership team has introduced a bill to phase out all funding for the Oklahoma Arts Council (OAC), saying art is not a responsibility of state government.

The author of HB 1895 is Rep. Josh Cockroft, assistant majority whip for the House of Representatives. Arguably, there is no state agency more involved, directly and indirectly, in arts education in our public school systems than the OAC. The executive director of the Norman Arts Council has estimated that defunding the OAC would impact art education programs for 195,000 students at 750 school sites.

Let’s face it: Oklahoma currently ranks 49th in student spending on a per capita basis and is in the bottom 25 percent of the nation in high school graduation rates. When it comes to our children, our leadership seems always to choose its two favorite priorities — business recruitment and lower taxes — over education.

Such tunnel vision ignores the reality that no major corporation wants to move its employees to a state that received a 2012 grade of D+ in education funding by Education Week, that faces the certainty of even more disappearing education dollars for its school children in 2013 and that places so little value on the arts that it wants to eliminate a state agency, created by statute, that is responsible for bringing arts education to its students.

HB 1895’s author was elected on a platform that included the protection of “traditional family values.” Many of us say it’s time to turn this code phrase into real traditional family values, ones which include placing high priority on our children’s education.

DON HOLLADAY

Norman

For local news and more, subscribe to The Norman Transcript Smart Edition, or our print edition.

Text Only | Photo Reprints
Opinion
  • Diana Frost letter correction

    Letter correction: A letter to the editor from Diana Frost, originally published in March 2012, was inadvertently published again in Sunday’s paper. The Transcript apologizes for the error....

    May 23, 2013

  • Teachers should be proud

    Editor, The Transcript: He walked by the camera in his red OU T-shirt, splattered with dirt, hair disheveled, and cuts on his face. He told the reporter about helping rescue people from the rubble of the tornado. He spoke of his experience ...

    May 23, 2013

  • Misinformation clouds global warming

    Next spring I will again have to update my lecture on global warming. Atmospheric carbon dioxide is now rising above the 400 ppm level for the first time in perhaps 5 million years — a scenario humans have never experienced. In my Geology ...

    May 23, 2013

  • The Oklahoma standard

    The sight of hundreds of young student volunteers walking across Moore’s Fourth Street interstate overpass had to be uplifting to the city’s tornado victims. They carried rakes, brooms and trash bags. A few had children’s red wagons. There ...

    May 23, 2013

  • Roman Catholic Church too busy to respond with hate

    Editor, The Transcript: Diana Frost’s letter of May 19 concerning the Roman Catholic Church was so unreasonable that it almost defies response. Still, one of her many accusations must be addressed....

    May 22, 2013

  • There’s no answer for ‘Why?’

    Just hours before, there was breakfast and laughter. Pictures were on the walls and memories were in every room. But in seconds, those joys of life were reduced to a concrete slab by a rage of nature that man will never fully understand....

    May 22, 2013

  • Moore’s amazing resilience

    Our hearts, already heavy from Sunday’s deadly tornado in far eastern Cleveland County, sunk even further Monday afternoon as we watched the tornado rip through Moore. The monster storm that hit Monday followed nearly the same path as the ...

    May 22, 2013

  • Crazy Kim and the Tippy Twos

    Kim Jong Un certainly seems crazy. But sound mind isn’t a requirement for predictable action. Tyrants often mask steady goals with wild behavior. One need only think of world pests like Fidel Castro and Saddam Hussein to realize entire ...

    May 21, 2013

  • Relying on private prisons

    Oklahoma began contracting to place inmates in private prisons during Gov. Frank Keating’s administration in 1995. Today, more than 5,000, or 23 percent, of our inmates are in the custody of three private prisons....

    May 21, 2013

  • Thanks for warnings

    We can’t say there wasn’t enough warning this time around....

    May 21, 2013