Moving from a small redneck town in Texas to the relatively bigger and far more diverse town of Oklahoma City, it was not so much a rude awakening as it was one of those confused rousings where you accidentally go to sleep in the late afternoon and when you wake up, you think it’s early next morning but it’s really just 9:17 p.m. and your whole internal clock is psychologically screwed up for the next couple days.
It was late March 1990 and there I was, a small-town boy ready to become a big-city man, thrown into the freezing deep-end of the Classen Fifth Year Center, the school district’s bizarre experiment in lumping all of the city’s fifth graders into one building. Within an eight-hour period on my first day, I met a Vietnamese person for the first time, heard N.W.A.’s “Fuck the Police” for the first time, witnessed a gang-related plastic-knifing in the lunchroom for the first time and was called a “faggot” for having a Spider-Man backpack for the first-time.
And while I considered all that just part of a painful new adventure being forced upon me, what really sucked, however, was that I happened to be coming into the curriculum at the end of the third semester, far too late to really participate in anything, be it plucking strings in orchestra or joining up with any sports. All my friendships were tenuous, at best and, as I would soon learn, so was my education, as within mere weeks of barely learning the blood in, blood outs of a stereotypical inner city public school, I was already being sent home on a politically-based four-day vacation as my angry teachers took to the streets.
“Could teachers even do that?” I wondered aloud to no one in particular.
As both the mildly scary and visibly turgid looming threat of the upcoming teacher’s walkout is upon us, I remember we’ve all been here before, some eighteen years ago when a the long-forgotten House Bill 1017, I believe it was—an education funding bill meant to mandate smaller class sizes, kick-start the state’s pre-kindergarten program and provide first year educators with a slight raise, among numerous other promises—was kicked around the floor of the Oklahoma legislature, no one wanting to be responsible for laying a ½ penny sales tax on the people.
At least that’s how I remember it, for the most part. It has been 18 years. Feel free to correct me.
What I still remember clearly though was the absolute confusion the day the strike started. In a time before emails and internets, many people had no clear idea about what was going on about anything, including my family, still settling into our rented house down in the Mayfair area. Then Governor Bellmon was saying one thing on television, while my teachers were saying another in The Oklahoman, most notably, to skip school and come out to the Capitol and march alongside them. If the march even happens, that is. Who knew?
That being said, looking back, they had a pretty good reason: in 1990, Oklahoma teachers ranked 48th in pay among the states, making an average of $22,000 a year, with the minimum salary for a beginning teacher with a bachelor’s degree $15,060. Teachers were still buying all their own supplies, including transparencies and those mimeograph copies with the purple ink that would smudge and get all over your new Bart Simpson tee. Adjust for inflation on your own time.
But back to that first day of the strike, in particular, that morning, when the bus never came. Angry and red, my father drove me to Classen Fifth Year, dumped me off and I was subsequently sent to the auditorium where other similarly ditched kids, mostly non-English speaking, were treated to screenings of Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure and Stand and Deliver, two very different films about education that actually managed to fulfill my history and math requirements for the first time since I started attending there.
When our parents were called to come pick us up early and without lunch, we were given notes telling them, for the love of God, to keep us at home because the strike was on and the school was all out of movies to show. I volunteered my copies of Weird Science and Born in East L.A., both recorded off HBO and both ready to teach science and social studies, but it was shot down with a snarky laugh and a glare from the long-forgotten administrator.
Once home, the strike seemingly went on and on forever—many of praying it really would never end. In that time period, I managed to visit Penn Square Mall for the first time to catch a screening of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and try the brand-new Batman Returns breakfast cereal. Who says heaven isn’t a place on Earth?
Four days later, however, the legislature caved and signed an emergency clause that passed the $230 million dollar bill and, just like that my big city vacation was over. Kind of. School was let out for the summer a few weeks later anyway. But still.
Looking back, however, sure, the teachers supposedly got what they wanted, but if I’m being honest, I saw nothing change, per se. Well on into that sixth grade at Harding Middle School, our books were still old and raggedy, the classrooms more cramped than ever and, to rub salt in the wound, school started in the middle of an absolutely blistering heat wave and air conditioners were nil; teachers had to supply their own box-fans and kids were told to bring water-bottles to school after multiple kids suffered heat-stroke, filling them from the warm water fountain to no working effect.
But hey, at least the teachers got their raises, right? Right? See you in another eighteen years, kids.
_
It’s my dream to one day make $15K a year. Follow Louis on Twitter at @LouisFowler.
1990 was 28 years ago
That quality education led to a great high paying gig writing for an obscure local blog. Not math skills.
Oklahoma City Public Schools FTW, holmes.
In fairness to Louis, his FULL statement was:
“It has been 18 years. Feel free to correct me.”
And that’s all that Sam did.
Epilogue:
In angry reaction to the tax increase that funded the 1017 reforms, Oklahoma anti-tax zealots organized (and funded) a petition drive known as SQ 640.
The goal of 640 was realized, and we still live with its results today: a requirement that any and all future state tax increases be passed by either:
1) a 75% super-majority of BOTH houses of the state legislature, or
2) a vote of the people.
Tax CUTS? No problem. Same procedure as before.
Never again would we see another tax increase in the State of Oklahoma.
Until now. Maybe.
Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose.
How long before we see a movement for a new state question that requires 90% of the vote from both houses (or just takes the Legislature out of it all together and requires new state questions)?
Tom Coburn still won’t go away, and is promising an initiative petition to repeal the bill just passed by the State House and Senate.
So… probably not long at all.
Who told Coburn we needed his services? Sounds like a full blown narcissist.
How long before we view people before cash?
Teachers should be satisfied with what legislators did yesterday. If teachers walk out there will be a backlash from parents of school children and teachers will lose whatever goodwill they might have.
More and more parents will choose to home school or put kids in charter schools
Let us all make a point to only let the poor have a bad education.
In the real world, effective employees increase profits. In this case the profits would be a well educated future work force. Employers reward these effective employees with increased wages. Only in government do employees demand and receive increased wages for poor outcomes. We have a failing education system, so hey, let’s give the educators a raise and make the taxpayers cover it. Bureaucratic logic at its best. Meanwhile the unions refuse to compromise on consolidating our over 500 districts, or allowing merit pay. Why can’t we pay effective teachers more than slouches? The taxpayers are the employers after all, not the unions. Not to mention, across the board pay hardly encourages hard work.
Wish I could like this…
Nice try, Screwball, but there have been no increased wages. Period. And your attitude is, I want a Cadillac, so I ought to get one for the money of a Yugo. The car doesn’t need more money to be better, it should just try harder.
Yeesh.
Louis, pray tell what redneck small town in Texas? Perryton, TX here.
Blooming Grove, TX. Population 821.
Want to cut taxes and reduce government spending? Reduce population growth to zero. The nonsense about eliminating waste, fraud and abuse are red herrings…sound bites that play well but do not reflect reality.
I hope in these trying times we can all come together and remember to have a prayer breakfast for the oil and gas companies. They need our support now more than ever.
If anyone needs to walk out, it should be state employees! They only got a $2,000 raise, some even less than that, after 12 YEARS of waiting for a raise. Bull!
I’m happy for teachers, but I know many state employees who are hurting and need a “true” cost of living raise. $2,000 just isn’t going to cut it after all this time.
I’ve heard it scales down according to current salary: some get $1000, some get $750. As a state employee, I’d rather not get a face full of tobacco-laced warm spit, but a true cost of living adjustment
I worked for the Legislature during this. The teachers were the rudest bunch of people that were ever at the Capitol. And they trashed the building, deliberately overflowed toilets, and blocked staff from using the restroom. It was a nightmare. I hope these teachers are more polite and well behaved.
By walking out on Monday, teachers won’t be paid… stay out as long as they want.. districts will save money by not having to pay them
I spotted a new silver Infiniti QX 85 that had a message on the back window in Purcell,Ok that read follow me to the State Capital on Monday April 2 nd. I’m sure there’s a story to be told from this woman.
So you spotted something that doesn’t exist?
While I am not super impressed with our legislature I don’t think this problem is their doing (at least in the way it is being portrayed). Education spending is over 40% of total state expenditures and as a percentage of total spending has never been cut (we do not spend more money on anything). The current list of demands would put that spending over 60% of all expenditures. Where the failure has occurred is in the lack of accountability for the individual districts. Until all the waste and mismanagement is removed from the system no amount of money will ever be enough. While I do believe teachers are grossly underpaid I also believe that education is excessively over funded. If we really want to resolve this issue then we need to look at consolidating the more than 200 school districts that have less than 400 students k-12 ( http://sde.ok.gov/sde/documents/2017-12-12/2017-2018-district-enrollment-sorted-size ), we need to drastically cut non-teaching administrators who in most districts reach parity or exceed in numbers teaching staff (these numbers exclude cooks and janitors), and we need all districts to have a full public third party audit of their books every year. Teachers could have their raises with zero increases in funding if non-teaching administrators were reduced to their traditional levels (about .5:1 until the 2000s), and districts can have all the other things on the teachers wish list if they consolidated all the tiny districts again with no funding increases.