SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 8, 2024 |
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Don't miss your chance to help shape Oklahoma's future Share your thoughts on the issues and policies that matter most to you and that impact your community. Input from the survey will shape OK Policy's work during next year's legislative session to advance policies that help establish safe communities, keep Oklahomans healthy, and ensure our families and neighbors can thrive. |
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| Policy Matters: Expertise should not be just another opinion These past few years have been tough for the people we once counted on as the ultimate experts. Scientists, doctors, engineers are finding their knowledge questioned, their contributions undervalued, and their voices drowned out by a rising tide of misinformation and skepticism. This troubling shift is especially disheartening in a country that once celebrated science as a beacon of progress. [Shiloh Kantz / Journal Record] |
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110 - Estimated number of hours per week a minimum wage worker has to work in order to afford a two-bedroom rental in Oklahoma. [National Low Income Housing Coalition]
27% - Percentage of Oklahoma families who had children under age 18 and a household income less than 200% of the federal poverty level (family of two adults and two children was $29,678) and at least one parent worked 50 or more weeks during the previous year. [KIDS COUNT]
20% - Percentage of Oklahoma children living in poverty, which for a family of two adults and two children was below $29,678 in 2022. Oklahoma ranked as having the nation's 7th highest rate for child poverty. [KIDS COUNT]
14,000 - In Oklahoma, a review of criminal charges filed in district courts found that more than 14,000 truancy charges were filed against parents and guardians from 2012-2022, according to data analyzed by Oklahoma Policy Institute for Oklahoma Appleseed. Truancy ranked as the 8th most frequently charged misdemeanor offense in the state, according to a previous analysis by OK Policy. [Oklahoma Appleseed Center for Law and Justice] |
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"My plea is, we can't let young people get to their absolute worst and commit a crime before we do anything. I'm asking that we not turn our backs on our young people, especially teenagers, because they're crying out for help, and the help is coming entirely too late, and at what cost?" - Wyjuana Montgomery, a family member of a justice-involved juvenile, in her emotional testimony shared with lawmakers at a recent interim study on the need for preventive services and family support programs to get help for kids before their behavior spirals out of control. [Tulsa World] |
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What's That? Term Limits Oklahoma voters in 1990 approved State Question 632, which limited any member of the Legislature elected after the measure's effective date to a maximum of 12 years of legislative service. The 12-year term limit applies to service in either legislative chamber and is a lifetime limit. SQ 632 was a citizen-led initiative petition that passed with 67.3 percent of the vote. The 12-year maximum term took effect with the election of 1992, which meant that the first legislators subject to term limits reached their limits in 2004 (Senators elected in 1990 were able to serve until 2006). Oklahoma was the first state in the nation to approve legislative term limits. Currently 16 states have term limits ranging from six to 16 years, although some states only limit years of consecutive service and some impose limits on time served in each chamber. An additional six states have had term limits struck down by the Courts or repealed by the legislature. In 2010, Oklahoma voters overwhelmingly approved State Question 747 that imposed eight-year lifetime term limits on statewide elected officials – for the governor, lieutenant governor, state auditor and inspector, attorney general, state treasurer, labor commissioner, state schools superintendent and insurance commissioner. Previously, governors could not serve more than eight consecutive years but were not subject to an eight-year lifetime limit. SQ 747 also subjected corporation commissioners to a 12-year lifetime limit. These term limits only on statewide offices applied prospectively as of 2012, which meant that current officeholders could serve an additional eight or twelve years. Corporation Commissioner Bob Anthony, first elected in 1988, will be the last person in office at the time of SQ 747's passage to hit his term limit when his 12-year limit takes effect in 2024. Look up more key terms to understand Oklahoma politics and government here. |
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Editorial, Enid News & Eagle: Who's looking out for rural schools? Oklahoma's school choice program is off to a great start, for private schools.
Our newspaper has been running articles breaking down how school choice works for different states and the myriad issues with public funding for private institutions. It's interesting to see the different perspectives. Oklahoma has been in the school choice spotlight for a couple of years now.
When the private/charter lobbyists first pushed the original voucher plans, it would have meant just about anybody who wanted one could get government money to pay for private school. That was shot down for something called an education savings account, which never really took off. Then, for some reason, Oklahoma lawmakers — even those in rural areas — signed off on tax rebates for private school/charter school/home school. It never really made much sense. A year before that, lawmakers in the House were really fighting it, refusing to even address those Senate bills and in the next session, just gave up that fight. There was no visible incentive to cave the way they did. Before any of it really kicked in, people were pointing out obvious issues: - Private schools could just raise tuition.
- Private schools don't have to take anybody they don't want to.
- Private schools don't have many of the government regulations attached to public schools.
- The money all comes from the same general education fund.
A few years later, those same issues remain. Some schools raised tuition to match the amount of new money coming in. While a few more parents have decided to send their kids to private or charter schools, the money from the tax rebates has overwhelmingly just gone into pockets of people who were already sending kids to private schools. Oklahoma created a welfare program for the well-to-do. Right now, because state revenue has been pretty solid, the money needed to support both private and public schools has been sufficient. What happens if oil bottoms out again? Our state will still be on the hook to fund private schools while the overall pool of money decreases. Maybe it won't come out of the education fund, but you can bet that's going to mean cuts to other services. We can only hope rural lawmakers will continue to advocate for rural Oklahomans and not get swept into lobbyists' schemes to pump money into programs that do nothing for rural public schools. [Editorial / Enid News & Eagle] |
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Diversion from justice system stressed as option for troubled youths: The Aug. 27 study was proposed by Rep. Jason Lowe, D-Oklahoma City, a lawyer and member of the House Criminal Judiciary Committee. Jill Mencke, a youth justice analyst at the Oklahoma Policy Institute, said early judgments made about children who cross paths with the police or others in the justice system can negatively affect them for the rest of their lives. All too often, she said, young first-time offenders may be referred for court involvement when diversion would be a better option. [Tulsa World] |
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How Better Health Strategies Could Reduce Juvenile Crime: Many states and cities have passed or are considering laws aimed at deterring delinquency, such as curfews and stiffer penalties. But punitive approaches often ignore the relationship between psychological trauma and adolescent brain development, and how such trauma can increase the probability of criminal behavior as well as depression and other mental health conditions. [Journal of American Medical Association]
Project 2025 Would Increase Poverty and Hardship, Drive Up the Uninsured Rate, and Disinvest From People, Communities, and the Economy: Over the last several months, groups of House Republicans and the Heritage Foundation have released policy agendas that, taken together, would create a harsher country with higher poverty and less opportunity, where millions of people would face higher costs for health care, child care, and housing, and millions more would lose health coverage — all while wealthy households and corporations benefit from an unfair tax code that provides them with outsized tax breaks. These skewed priorities would exacerbate inequities in income, wealth, health, and hardship across lines of race and ethnicity, widening already glaring differences that have their roots in racism and other forms of discrimination. [Center on Budget and Policy Priorities]
How Do Children and Society Benefit from Public Investments in Children?: Research shows investments in child well-being can have significant short- and long-term payoffs for the children receiving the benefits as well as for society at large. Investments in children are often used to combat the negative effects of growing up in poverty. These supports are a necessity to help children thrive and reach their full potential. [Urban Institute]
Make Court a Last Resort: Truancy and Chronic Absenteeism in Oklahoma: Oklahoma Appleseed presents a broad overview of Oklahoma's approach to absenteeism and truancy. Among their key findings is that there is tremendous inconsistency in how the state truancy law and municipal ordinances are applied in practice across the state of Oklahoma. In particular, truancy enforcement is impacted most greatly by the approach taken by district attorneys, and that Oklahoma DAs vary quite substantially in their willingness and eagerness to pursue truancy charges against children or their parents. This inconsistency means that in some jurisdictions and at some times, a student reaching a certain threshold of unexcused absences will be charged immediately with a truancy violation, while in other jurisdictions and at other times, truancy charges are filed very rarely or never. [Oklahoma Appleseed Center for Law and Justice] |
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What's up this week at Oklahoma Policy Institute? The Weekly Wonk shares our most recent publications and other resources to help you stay informed about Oklahoma. Numbers of the Day and Policy Notes are from our daily news briefing, In The Know. Click here to subscribe to In The Know. |
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Contact Oklahoma Policy Institute
907 S. Detroit Ave #1005
Tulsa, OK 74120
United States 918-794-3944 | info@okpolicy.org |
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