Well, remember the voters of Oklahoma set themselves up for this with a ballot initiative.
But I’ll certainly agree with you that what’s wrong with Oklahoma is the same thing that’s been wrong with the Republican party since the 1970s. This is where Randian ideals lead, regardless of partisan posturing.
And according to wikipedia, Oklahoma was fairly evenly balanced politically in 1992 if not rather more Democratic than Republican (assuming I’ve read the (to me) rather confusing table correctly).
Maybe I’m confused too, but the color coding in that ugly boxy chart helps. It seems like the state stays pretty solidly Dem even after the Dems stop being the proud party of hatred and racism, but then later on when the GOP picks up that fallen mantle, the tides turn… presumably from gerrymandering?
I don’t know. There is a long period where it looks as though federal votes go solidly Rep. while local stuff is still firmly Democratic.
I don’t know how these things work in the US but in the UK, you tend to have a lot of people who only turn out for the national elections and ignore the local stuff and a lot of people who are prepared to vote on local stuff on the basis of specific issues or personalities rather than parties but vote partisan politics all the way nationally.
Seems to me there’s a gradual build-up of support for the Republicans that starts to build up in the Eisenhower/Nixon years and just keeps growing.
The chart’s pretty solidly blue up to that point and then the red spreads out to the left of the chart slowly until 2010 when it turns solid red.
If I were to be even more of a cynic than I am, I’d wonder what major event happened in US politics between 2006 and 2010…
This is exactly how it works in my part of the USA, the mid-atlantic coast.
Hmm… I dunno. Maybe the US government successfully mounted a thoroughly bipartisan effort to economically destroy the middle class in order to prevent rich bankers from having to suffer the just consequences of their own incompetence and greed? Nah, that’s just crazy talk.
Agreed. I’m sure it sounded like a reasonable idea back in 1992, but it’s Republican/Randian/Libertarian opposition to taxation as a concept that has kept that initiative in effect, despite the clearly destructive path it has placed the state on.
19%
I know that stands for Oklahoma City, but its also a common acronym for a place maybe best described as the Island of Misfit Toys, where I never even once met an ok person.
What does one do in OKC?
Now they raise the sales taxes IIRC just after I left there. It mostly hits the poor as you expect. The rich don’t care if the sales tax is higher but a poor person who has to buy bread will feel it (note: Kansas is one of the few states where food is given a sales tax unless it’s bought through SNAP or WIC).
I would imagine the same thing you do any place - eat, sleep, work, have sex, drink, all that.
Go to Tulsa is what you do. Seems that’s where most of the fun is at in the state (being so close to the Ozarks also helps).
This is the second US state I’ve read about that had to start doing abbreviated school weeks to deal with budget woes. Public education has got to be in the top five best investments you can possibly make. One (maybe apocryphal, I’ll admit) study estimated basic literacy/mathematics education at being akin to investing at 70%.
When a corporation sells off their credit card division to pay the bills, they are going to go bankrupt. When a state starts cutting back money for public education to pay the bills, people really need to start asking what is next. States can’t just die and be replaced the way corporations can when they go bankrupt. Vulture capitalists enforcing austerity has been looking pretty bad everywhere it’s happened. Maybe there is some other route that Oklahoma could take.
I dunno; war? Educated soldiers do ask too many questions.
Because once that’s happened there’s no going back
Once you start to see what is really happening
Who the enemy you should be attackin’ is
So READ, READ, READ!
Stuck on the block, READ, READ!
Sittin’ in the box, READ, READ!
Don’t let them say what you can achieve
Cos when people are enslaved
One of the first things they do is stop them reading
Cos’ it is well understood that intelligent people will take their freedom
I don’t see how the schools can cut the number of days, and still keep their state accreditation.
According to their own standards published for 2011-2012 here under section 210:35-3-46, which states:
(h) The local board shall adopt a school calendar and school day consistent with statutory requirements in Oklahoma.
(1) The standard school year shall consist of not less than 180 days; or,
(2) For not less than one thousand eighty (1080) hours each school year, if a district board of education adopts a school-hours policy and notifies the State Board of Education prior to September 15 of the applicable school year.
Unless the remaining school day is greatly increased, I don’t see how grade completions or a High School Diploma can be legally issued under these circumstances. Perhaps the state is ducking this responsibility by quietly encouraging their students to pursue GED certificates instead.
1080 hours is not a lot of hours, and I’m pretty confident they can obtain State Board of Ed approval.
If they can count from start of the day to end of the day (i.e. include recess/lunch), a 7.5 hour day will make 144 days (0.8 times 180).
This topic was automatically closed after 5 days. New replies are no longer allowed.
