April 2022 Archives

SB962, which would move school board general elections to November, has cleared the Oklahoma House of Representatives Rules Committee and is awaiting action by the whole house.

The bill does not alter terms of office and does not make the elections partisan. The bill does not change the date for school millage elections, which will still fall on the 2nd Tuesday in February, but these elections are rare (if not non-existent) as legislation has made most mill levies permanent.

Currently, the school board filing period begins on the 1st Monday in December, with a primary election on the 2nd Tuesday in February and a general election on the 1st Tuesday in April. As I have often written, the filing period, falling right after Thanksgiving at the beginning of the run-up to Christmas, is easy to overlook, there is worse weather and less daylight available for door-to-door campaigning in the winter months, and it's easy for voters to forget the dates of the school board election when their district only has a chance to vote once every five years (in all but a few school districts). The situation is well-suited for incumbent board members to minimize turnout to those voters likely to vote their way.

Here is the schedule of school board elections proposed by SB962, as approved by the Senate and the House Rules Committee:

In odd-numbered years:

• Three-day filing period begins: April, 2nd Wednesday
• Primary election: September, 2nd Tuesday
• General election: November, 2nd Tuesday

In even-numbered years:

• Three-day filing period begins: April, 2nd Wednesday
• Primary election: August, 4th Tuesday (state/federal runoff)
• General election: November, Tuesday after 1st Monday (state/federal general)

Ray Carter's OCPA story on the bill links to an Annenberg Institute analysis of the demographics of voters in school board elections in Oklahoma, California, Illinois, and Ohio. From the study's conclusion:

America's system of deference to local school boards in making essential educational governance decisions is premised on the assumption that the objectives of voters who elect these boards will be aligned with the educational interests of public school students. Our analysis points to several reasons for doubting the validity of this assumption in many contexts. As we show, most of those who cast ballots in school board elections do not have children enrolled in local schools and these voters do not resemble the students who attend the public schools. The disconnect is especially pronounced on the dimension of race, and the gap is particularly large in majority-nonwhite districts and in places with the most worrying racial achievement gaps.

While it is beyond the scope of our research to identify the root causes of these disparities in political participation,16 we should note there is evidence suggesting that institutional reforms have the potential to narrow them considerably. For example, moving school board elections on-cycle, to coincide with higher-turnout national elections, is likely to significantly boost the political representation of households with children and increase the racial diversity of the electorate (Kogan, Lavertu and Peskowitz 2018).

The bill is on the House floor agenda for today with an amendment from Speaker McCall which would shift the filing period to the 1st Monday in April for odd-numbered years, but leave even-numbered year filing period to line up with filing period for federal and state offices. The effective date is also changed -- November 1, 2022, rather than January 1, 2023, which would bring it into effect for the next school board cycle. This also means if the bill passes the House, it will have to go back to the Senate for final approval.

This bill is a step in the right direction, but it is not the ideal end state. At the very least we ought to harmonize election dates between odd- and even-numbered years. Better yet, move all school (and municipal) elections to the fall of odd-numbered years, so that voters are in the habit of going to the polls every year in November. Odd-numbered year elections could be reserved for local offices and issues (municipal and school board), to insure that they aren't overshadowed by who's running for president or governor. Change school board terms to two years (everyone on the ballot every odd-numbered year) or four (roughly half of the members up for election every odd-numbered year). Require school and municipal ballot propositions to be held only on the November election in odd years. It may be, however, if this SB962 goes through, the value of these other reforms will be more apparent and easier for the legislature to contemplate.

This morning I spoke to the weekly meeting of City Elders about the recent school board elections, the Democratic candidates who won despite higher Republican turnout, and the connections of the donors who made their campaigns possible. Here are some links to further reading on the ideas and people I mentioned in my talk, plus some related information worth your time.

Elsewhere:

• The Kaiser System, by Michael Mason: If you read nothing else, read this. Mason approaches the topic with empathy and care as he exposes the groupthink, fear, and divisiveness created as a small group of people use immense wealth as leverage to control our community's civic direction.
• Election results from the April 5, 2022, school elections
• Tulsa Public Schools academic achievement indicator (school report card) from the Oklahoma State Department of Education. I showed the data from 2018-2019, pre-pandemic.
• Tulsa Public Schools: Oklahoma State Testing Report, October 2018. Shows significant decline in proficiency from 2017 to 2018 results.
• Controversial Owasso teacher 'is no longer in the classroom'
• George Krumme OpenSecrets.org donor report
• Burt Holmes OpenSecrets.org donor report
• George Kaiser OpenSecrets.org donor report
• Stacy Schusterman OpenSecrets.org donor report
• George Kaiser's Giving Pledge
• Lynn Schusterman's Giving Pledge
• George Kaiser 2005 Chicago speech on early childhood education
• GKFF Board of Directors
• Schusterman Family Philanthropies statement on "gender and reproductive equity"

At BatesLine:

• Tulsa's Yacht-Guest Subculture: The sycophants who keep the billionaires' boats afloat
• The Anthropomorphization of the GOP: Why it's a mistake to think of the Republican Party as having volition and direction. As Rand Paul has said, "The Republican Party is an empty vessel unless we embue it with values.
• Chambers of Horrors: If you're a conservative, the Chamber of Commerce is not your friend
• "Down with the gummint!" Tulsa's bullies and their willing toadies
• Clueless SOTs and their enablers: Tulsa's insiders refuse to criticize the bad ideas of their peers
• "Any society has to privilege some ethical viewpoint": Why conservatives shouldn't be shy about working to recapture the culture for the worldview and values that built a peaceful and prosperous civilzation
• 2022 Tulsa School Board campaign contributions: Keller, Lamkin backed by leftist establishment donors
• 2022 Union School Board campaign contributions: Democrat donors back McNeil
• The Usual Suspects: Tulsa Economic Recovery Advisory Committee
• Even billionaires deserve scrutiny and skepticism from the media
• Introducing the Tulsa Complacent Council
• Tulsa Election 2011: Pre-general ethics filings; Kaiser, Schusterman lead funders of "Working Tulsans"
• George Kaiser, GKFF, and Solyndra
• Council-suer, SOT member announce picks for City Council (UPDATED)
• Who convinced Tom Coburn to back the bank bailout?
• Great Plains Airlines article archive
• The Build PAC Boys: Post-election City Council contribution reports

Here's the recording of my City Elders talk. There is a bit missing from when the memory card filled up and had to be switched, about the time I was talking about the disappearance of local talk radio, which was a crucial element of media bypass and the modest success we had electing grassroots outsiders to city office in the decade of the 2000s.

Campaign contribution and expenditure reports from the recent school board election in Union, the school district that straddles the Tulsa-Broken Arrow boundary, include some names of prominent Democratic donors familiar from campaign filings in the two 2022 school board races in the Tulsa district.

As reported on his pre-primary campaign contributions and expenditures report, incumbent Democrat Christopher McNeil received maximum $2,900 contributions from Democrat megadonors George Krumme and Burt Holmes. Krumme, a retired oil man, was also a maximum donor to Susan Lamkin in Tulsa District 7 and Shawna Keller in Tulsa District 4. Krumme gave a further $2,900 to McNeil for the general election campaign. (Campaign contribution limits reset after the primary.) Holmes, notorious for suing Tulsa City Councilors for representing their constituents and for working to dilute geographical representation on the council, gave a $2,900 contribution to Lamkin. Home Builders Association of Greater Tulsa contributed $750 to McNeil's campaign. Former Tulsa County Democratic Party chairman Elaine Dodd and Heart of the Party, the local chapter of the Oklahoma Federation of Democratic Women, were among the $100 donors to the McNeil campaign.

Gwartney received a total of $1,500 from the Oklahoma Conservative Political Action Committee and $335.70 from Oklahomans for Health and Parental Rights (OKHPR), Her largest aggregate personal donation came from Robin LaButti of Tulsa, $885.70 in the primary and general election combined.

As of the primary election, Democrat McNeil had raised $9,895.00. By contrast, Republican challenger Shelley Gwartney had raised $3,043.66. As of the pre-general-election filing (through March 31), McNeil had raised $14,650 and spent $6,016, while Gwartney raised $8,766.15 and spent $6,484.16. Keep in mind that this is not the final report of contributions and expenditures; a great deal of spending can occur in the final week of the campaign and billing may be deferred until after the election.

Here are the complete campaign contribution and expenditure filings for the candidates for Union Public Schools Office No. 2:

Shelley Gwartney, Union Public Schools District 2, 2022 campaign contribution and ethics reports
Christopher McNeil, Union Public Schools District 2, 2022 campaign contribution and ethics reports

Notwithstanding the gap in spending, Gwartney managed to force McNeil into a runoff, finishing just 11 votes behind the incumbent and just 53 votes shy of an absolute majority. But McNeil prevailed in the low-turnout general election, 687-566.

There were 10,081 active registered voters in Union's Election District 2 as of February 28, 2022, of which 5,723 were registered Republicans, 2,588 Democrats, 1,701 Independents, and 69 Libertarians. The partisan breakdown of primary voters was 677 Republicans, 267 Democrats, and 109 Independents. (There was apparently one ballot left blank.)

In the April general election, ballots were cast by 764 Republicans, 342 Democrats, 145 Independents, and 3 Libertarians. (Again, one ballot seems to have been submitted without a detectable mark.)

Published April 3, 2022, postdated to remain at the top of the page until the polls close on Tuesday, April 5, 2022.

Tuesday, April 5, 2022, is general election day for K-12 school board seats in Oklahoma. Polls are open from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. Seats on technology center boards (what we used to call vocational-technical, or vo-tech, schools) are also on the ballot. Some cities (Sand Springs and Sapulpa among them) have city council runoffs, and there are some municipal and school district propositions up for a vote as well. The Oklahoma State Election Board's online voter tool will let you know where to vote and will show you a sample of the ballot you'll see. Not everyone will have a reason to go to the polls, but the Tulsa Tech district covers a large area , so double-check, just to be sure.

As of a recent change to election law (HB 2082 in 2018), any contested school board seat will be settled on the first Tuesday in April, except that an election with three or more candidates can be won outright in the February primary if a candidate receives more than 50% of the vote. This happened this year in Broken Arrow Office No. 2: Conservative candidate Debbie Taylor received 51% of the vote in a three-way race for an open seat. While this was a happy result, because a smaller electorate turns out for a primary than for the general, it would be good to change the law so that every contested race has a two-candidate election on the April general election date. Some voters prefer not to turn up to vote until more informed voters have narrowed the choices for them.

While school elections in Oklahoma appear without party labels on the ballot, political parties and partisan political figures are free to support and endorse candidates. But schools have drifted from their original purpose of educating students according to their own community's values and priorities. Leftist ideologues have successfully gained a foothold through school boards and college-level schools of education to use public schools as part of a strategy of cultural transformation, the Gramscian "Long March through the Institutions." Pedagogy based on Critical Race Theory and Queer Theory (even if it doesn't use those names) has found its way even into rural public schools, as teachers and administrators come under the influence of organizations like leftist national teacher's unions and their state affiliates (the Oklahoma Education Association).

A second dimension driving the politicization of school elections centers on accountability: School boards are too often filled with rubber stamps who blindly approve whatever the superintendent puts in front of them. The result is administrative bloat, feather-bedding, insider deals, and, worst of all, educational failure. Taxpayer money doesn't find its way into the classroom to serve the needs of students. In the Tulsa Public Schools, this situation is exacerbated by the board and administration's entanglement with foundations which use their "grants" as chains to drag the district in the foundations' desired ideological direction. Parents, students, and taxpayers need board members who will operate the district in accordance with their needs, values, and priorities, rather than turning over these public institutions to the whims of private philanthropists.

State proficiency tests show Tulsa Public Schools performance lagging well behind the rest of the state in every subject at every grade level, by anywhere from 8 to 21 percentage points. 10% of TPS 7th graders were proficient in math, the district's best grade-level math score, but only 3% of TPS 8th graders were. Meanwhile, the majority on the TPS board keep voting early contract extensions for Superintendent Deborah "Cruella" Gist so that board members newly elected by the voters will not have the option of replacing here. This level of failure cannot be fixed by more funds; regime change is essential. At the moment, TPS has two board members who are not rubber stamps -- Jeannettie Marshall and Jerry Griffin. Electing E'Lena Ashley and Tim Harris would result in a majority of the 7 TPS board members committed to accountability.

The third political dimension affecting schools is the response to the COVID-19 pandemic. On the one hand, you have parents and taxpayers who supported prudent precautions when the pandemic was new and its severity was unknown. The early response was driven by the since-disproven fear that the virus could be spread easily by people who showed no symptoms of illness. Now that the virus has become endemic, now that early variants have been supplanted by more infectious but far less severe variants, now that we know that children are at low risk of acquiring or transmitting the virus, now that we see the educational, developmental, and emotional damage that schoolchildren have suffered from mandatory mask-wearing and school closures, parents and taxpayers want to see schools back to their pre-pandemic practices, with in-person instruction, student athletics, music, and activities as before, and no mask or vaccine mandates.

The Democrat Party (but by no means all Democratic voters) has aligned itself with the agendas of cultural transformation, unaccountable insider dealing, irrational risk-aversion, and authoritarian health mandates. Although voters across the political spectrum oppose the Democrat Party's positions on these issues, the Republican Party and conservative organizations have emerged as a resource for Oklahomans of all political affiliations who wish to take the schools back from the Leftist ideologues and grifters and to restore the original purpose of the schools -- to teach children the knowledge and skills they need to be independent, free Americans, participating knowledgeably as in free citizens in a free republic, living effectively as free economic agents in a free market, and exercising personal freedom as they weigh risks and benefits.

Independent advocacy groups like Tulsa Parents Voice and Oklahomans for Health and Parental Rights and local Republican organizations are making endorsements and rallying volunteer support for candidates who will work for accountability, parental involvement, and parental rights.

Here in the Tulsa metro area, pro-parent and pro-accountability forces are supporting the following school board candidates. Footnotes indicate which groups have endorsed each. Links are to each candidate's primary web presence.

Tulsa Public Schools, Office No. 4: E'Lena Ashley ^{1 2 3}
Tulsa Public Schools, Office No. 7: Tim Harris ^{1 2 3}
Jenks Public Schools, Office No. 2: Ashley Cross ^{1 2 3}
Sand Springs Public Schools, Office No. 2: MaRanda Trimble-Kerley ^{1 2 3}
Union Public Schools, Office No. 2: Shelley Gwartney ^{1 2 3}
Tulsa Technology District, Office No. 3: Mark Griffin ^{2 3}
Owasso Public Schools, Office No. 2: Joshua Stanton ¹
Bixby Public Schools, Office No. 2: Jake Rowland
Bartlesville Public Schools, Office No. 2: Jonathan Bolding ^{1 2}
Olive Public Schools, Office No. 2: Lori Bates ¹

¹ Endorsed by Oklahomans for Health and Parental Rights
² Supported by Tulsa Parents Voice
³ Supported by Tulsa County Republican Party

All of the above candidates are registered Republican voters. All of the K-12 board candidates listed received an "A" survey rating and an endorsement from Oklahomans for Health and Parental Rights, except for Bixby candidate Jake Rowland, who was given a "B" grade for his survey responses, and OKHPR did not make an endorsement in that race, nor has OKHPR weighed in on the Tulsa Tech board race. Note that since Bartlesville and Olive are in other counties, the Tulsa County GOP would not be involved in those races. While Bixby Parents Voice has not endorsed Rowland, they have expressed alarm at incumbent candidate Amanda Stephens's vote to keep sexually explicit books in the high school library.

MORE:

• Editorial commentary from the Tulsa Beacon.
• iVoterGuide for Tulsa County school board races

May 17, 2021 TPS board meeting: Starting about 19:30, TPS Board Member Jeannettie Marshall protests the payment of a check to the Tulsa Community Foundation for a contract made with a non-existent organization called "The Opportunity Project" and the fact that two TCF-affiliated board members (Schrieber and Barba Perez) voted on the matter without recusing themselves. Only Marshall and Griffin expressed concern about the lack of transparency; Office 4 incumbent Shawna Keller remained silent and voted to write a check to an organization which had not been awarded a contract. The board rubber stamps tried to slide this through on the "consent agenda." (Note that IT Director Joe Jennings and Chief Equity Officer Devin Fletcher have "their pronouns" listed on their Zoom IDs.)

Tulsa Classroom Teachers Association TPS District 4 candidate forum: Note that incumbent Shawna Keller (D) is still wearing a mask; challenger E'Lena Ashley (R) is not.

Tulsa Classroom Teachers Association TPS District 7 candidate forum: Tim Harris voices his priorities for parent involvement, teaching basic skills (a task which TPS is failing to perform), a forensic, line-by-line audit of TPS finances, and protecting children from inappropriate classroom content.

TYPROS TPS District 7 candidate forum: Former District Attorney Tim Harris (R) is running against Susan Lamkin (D). Lamkin is backed by the same donors and leaders who back the other rubber stamps on the board. Harris's experience managing the personnel, mission, and budget of a large government department -- the Tulsa County District Attorney's office -- will be a great asset to the board, as he will know from experience where to look for wasted money and mission creep.

Tulsa Tech Candidate Forum: Mark Griffin, the incumbent Republican, is being challenged by Democrat Jim Provenzano, husband of leftist Democrat State Rep. Melissa Provenzano.

Union Public Schools candidate forum: Incumbent Chris McNeil (D) vs. challenger and PTA leader Shelley Gwartney (R).

Campaign contribution reports show that the two registered Democrats running for Tulsa school board, District 4 incumbent Shawna Keller and Susan Lamkin, running for the open District 7 seat, are heavily backed by Tulsa's leftist establishment -- the band of philanthropists, politicians, and their hangers-on who hate Oklahoma's conservative values and seek to use their financial power to make Oklahoma "progressive."

Here are the complete campaign reports for the two candidates, as provided in response to an Open Records Act request to the Tulsa Public School district clerk. These PDFs have been run through OCR and renamed for improved search results.

Shawna Keller, Tulsa Public Schools District 4, 2022 campaign contribution and ethics reports
Susan Lamkin, Tulsa Public Schools District 7, 2022 campaign contribution and ethics reports

As of the March 21, 2022, pre-election reporting period deadline, Keller, running for re-election, had raised $14,130.20 in cash contributions, but had only spent $2,125.42 at that point, two weeks before election day. Lamkin, running in an open seat against a well-known opponent, had raised $35,805.00 and spent $16,523.28.

Familiar names connected with Democrat Party politics and influential local philanthropies appear on both candidates' donor lists. Many of the same names were donors to the effort to unseat Pastor Jennettie Marshall in her 2021 race for re-election to the school board. (But she persisted.) In general, these campaign donors have opposed grassroots candidates and supported current members of the rubber-stamp school board, which is failing to educate Tulsa children effectively.

Stacy Schusterman ($1,000 to Keller, $1,500 to Lamkin): Chairman of Samson Energy and Schusterman Family Philanthropies, whose agenda includes "gender and reproductive equity:

We support our partners in building an equitable world in which all women-including Black women, women of color, indigenous women, cisgender and transgender women-and non-binary people have access to reproductive health knowledge and care, to greater political and economic power and leadership, and to safety in all aspects of their lives.

George Krumme (max donations of $2,900 each to Keller and Lamkin): Retired head of Krumme Oil and major donor to Democratic candidates and causes.

Kathy Taylor ($2,000 to Keller, $500 to Lamkin): Democrat former mayor of Tulsa.

Philip Kaiser ($250 each to Keller and Lamkin): Son of George Kaiser, member of the George Kaiser Family Foundation (GKFF) board of directors, owner of Laffa restaurant and defunct Cosmo Cafe.

Nancy McDonald ($100 to Keller, $500 to Lamkin): Founder of Tulsa chapter of Parents and Friends of Lesbians and Gays.

Tim Gilpin ($250 to Keller, $750 to Lamkin): Former Tulsa County Democrat Party chairman, Democrat nominee for Congress in 2018.

James Frasier and Sally Frasier ($200 combined to Keller, $300 combined to Lamkin): Husband and wife influential in national, state, and local Democrat Party politics. Jim Frasier has served as a member of the Democratic National Committee and as a superdelegate to the Democratic National Convention. Sally Frasier has been honored as Democratic Woman of the Year and has served on the board of the local Planned Parenthood chapter.

Dennis Neill ($125 to Keller, $75 to Lamkin): Gay rights activist, Namesake of the Dennis R. Neill "Equality" Center, and connected with the Schusterman family as an executive at Samson and the Schusterman foundation.

Cynthia (Cindy) Decker ($100 to Keller, $150 to Lamkin): Former TPS board member and Executive Director of Tulsa Educare, a major initiative of GKFF.

Annie Van Hanken ($100 to Keller, $250 to Lamkin): Program Officer, GKFF, "oversees GKFF's early childhood education and common education initiatives."

Heart of the Party ($100 each to Keller and Lamkin): "As the 1st Congressional District chapter of the Oklahoma Federation of Democratic Women we promotes [sic] progressive political activism and the election of Democrats through local, statewide and federal elections."

Kara Gae Neal ($100 each to Keller and Lamkin): Former Tulsa County Superintendent of Schools (as Kara Gae Wilson), wife of former Tulsa World editorial hack Ken Neal.

While departing TPS Office No. 7 board member Suzanne Schreiber has not personally contributed to any campaigns, her husband, Tony Rittenberry, gave $1,250 to Lamkin, and her sister Sara Schreiber, executive director of America Votes (which calls itself the "coordination hub of the progressive community"), gave $250 to Lamkin. Her father, New Mexico rancher and anti-natural-gas activist Don Schreiber, gave $100 to Lamkin; his wife, Jane Schreiber, gave $200 to Keller. Schreiber is running as a Democrat for the House District 70 seat being vacated by Carol Bush. (Schreiber's mother is Democratic former New Mexico Lt. Gov. Diane Denish; Suzanne Schreiber worked on her mother's unsuccessful 2010 campaign for governor. Both of Suzanne Schreiber's parents signed a 2021 letter urging the University of New Mexico to divest from fossil-fuel energy investments.)

Other notable donors to Susan Lamkin's campaign:

Attorney Fred Dorwart, $2,000: The Frederic Dorwart Law Firm provides legal services to the network that Michael Mason has labeled "the Kaiser System."

Steve Mitchell, $1000: CEO of Argonaut, George Kaiser's private equity firm.

Ken Levit, GKFF executive director, $250. (Oddly, Levit is listed merely as "attorney" with no mention of his employer.)

Burt Holmes, $2,900: Maximum donor to Barack Obama, Great Plains Airlines board member, and litigant against city councilors who dared to represent their constituents. Holmes was at the forefront of "Save Our Tulsa", a partially successful effort to change the city charter. He sought to add three at-large members to the city council, to move city elections to Federal election dates, and to make city elections non-partisan, all of which give the advantage to the best funded campaign and make it harder for grassroots-supported candidates to win and have influence at city all. He also spearheaded a 2011 effort to replace independent-minded city councilors with rubber stamps.