Perspective - July 2016

JULY 2016

OKLAHOMA COUNCIL OF PUBLIC AFFAIRS

FOR THE CHILDREN Innovative policy reforms and vibrant institutions of civil society—families, churches, and nonprofit organizations— are helping Oklahoma’s most vulnerable

In Case You Missed It The Oklahoma Education Association experienced a membership decline of 36 percent over the past 20 years.

The Burlington (Okla.) school district spent $30,152 per student in 2015, according to data compiled from the Oklahoma Cost Accounting System.

ocpa.us/1ZrATTU

Fully 90 percent of Native Americans say they are not offended by the Washington Redskins name, according to a recent Washington Post poll.

ocpa.us/25ILd14

ocpa.us/OCPAdata

A one-minute video about Positive Tomorrows, an Oklahoma school dedicated to helping homeless families, highlights why enacting schoolchoice policies is so important.

A new website— UniversityTitleGenerator.com— pokes fun at administrative bloat in higher education.

ocpa.us/1WBYOSA

ocpa.us/25IKGfq

ocpa.us/1OktFec

Writing in The Wall Street Journal, OCPA distinguished fellow Jayson Lusk says a new GMO labeling law will burden industry and encourage baseless fears about scientific progress.

In a conversation with OCPA’s Trent England, Greg Forster says parents—not government officials—are the proper repository of power over education.

ocpa.us/1X6Zmja

PERSPECTIVE

More than 100,000 students in Oklahoma’s public school system are eligible for a private school voucher.

At a summit on early childhood education in Oklahoma City, Nobel Prize-winning economist James Heckman endorsed the idea of educational choice, saying it demonstrates “respect for cultural diversity.”

ocpa.us/1TWjIvg

Brandon Dutcher, Editor Alex Jones , Art Director

OCPA Trustees

OCPA Researchers

Blake Arnold • Oklahoma City

David Madigan • Lawton

Perspective is published monthly by the

Glenn Ashmore • Oklahoma City

Tom H. McCasland III • Duncan

Oklahoma Council of Public Affairs,

Robert D. Avery • Pawhuska

David McLaughlin • Enid

Inc., an independent public policy

Lee J. Baxter • Lawton

Lew Meibergen • Enid

Douglas Beall, M.D. • Oklahoma City

Ronald L. Mercer • Bethany

Steve W. Beebe • Duncan

Lloyd Noble II • Tulsa

John A. Brock • Tulsa

Mike O’Neal • Edmond

organization. OCPA formulates and promotes public policy research and analysis consistent with the principles

David R. Brown, M.D. • Oklahoma City

Larry Parman • Oklahoma City

of free enterprise and limited

David Burrage • Atoka

Bill Price • Oklahoma City

government. The views expressed

Michael Carnuccio • Yukon

Patrick T. Rooney • Oklahoma City

in Perspective are those of the author,

Tom Coburn, M.D. • Tulsa

Melissa Sandefer • Norman

and should not be construed as

Paul A. Cox • Oklahoma City

Thomas Schroedter • Tulsa

representing any official position of

William Flanagan • Claremore

Greg Slavonic • Oklahoma City

Josephine Freede • Oklahoma City

Charles M. Sublett • Tulsa

Ann Felton Gilliland • Oklahoma City

Robert Sullivan • Tulsa

John T. Hanes • Oklahoma City

William E. Warnock, Jr. • Tulsa

John A. Henry III • Oklahoma City

Dana Weber • Tulsa

Henry F. Kane • Bartlesville

Daryl Woodard • Tulsa

Robert Kane • Tulsa

Daniel J. Zaloudek • Tulsa

OCPA or its trustees, researchers, or employees.

ocpa.us/1r9QZWw

Gene Love • Lawton

Steven J. Anderson, MBA, CPA Research Fellow Tina Dzurisin Research Associate Trent England, J.D. Dr. David and Ann Brown Distinguished Fellow for the Advancement of Liberty Jayson Lusk, Ph.D. Samuel Roberts Noble Distinguished Fellow J. Scott Moody, M.A. Research Fellow Andrew C. Spiropoulos, J.D. Milton Friedman Distinguished Fellow Wendy P. Warcholik, Ph.D. Research Fellow

FROM THE PRESIDENT

Compassionate, Effective Solutions ‌ For the Children

By Jonathan Small

Conservatives, as the readers of this magazine well know, emphasize the principles of individual liberty and personal responsibility over those of collective well-being and communal responsibility. Where there is a problem or a societal ill, we do not reflexively look first to government agencies for a solution.

Similarly, where there are unequal or even tragic outcomes, we do not necessarily believe an injustice has been committed.

Rather, we believe some outcomes are consequences of individual choices. Both good and bad consequences are inevitable in a free society.

Unfortunately, this core set of beliefs has led some conservative thinkers to vacate the ideological playing field on issues of great importance, chief among them the welfare of our least-advantaged and most vulnerable children.

Currently, there are 96,000 children in Oklahoma with parents who are now or have been incarcerated. There are more than 10,000 children in state custody on any given day, searching for loving homes in our state’s foster care and adoption programs.

It is easy to understand why some conservatives might struggle to engage on these issues. After all, the best and most conservative solution to broken families and children born out of wedlock is for people to find loving spouses and to stay married.

The best and most conservative solution to over-incarceration is for individuals not to commit crimes.

How, then, can conservatives meaningfully engage on the criminal justice and child welfare issues that affect everything from our economic well-being to our moral identity?

In this issue of Perspective, we explore that question and find an impressive variety of answers, suggestions, and solutions. In the pages that follow, conservatives wishing to engage on the issues of child welfare and criminal justice will find footholds of

all sorts.

First, right-leaning thinkers should be offended by how poorly our criminal justice system serves us and how wasteful it is.

Oklahomans are spending an outrageous amount of money on imprisoning drug addicts, and then releasing them onto the streets without supervision. All the while we are leaving their children in poor, one-parent households or making virtual orphans of them. It is a cycle of failure that is dangerous, expensive, and unnecessary.

Second, for the faithful, it is clear these are pro-family issues that should not be shoved aside. The faith-based community should play an outsized role in offering help to children who would otherwise be helpless.

Finally, if there was ever an issue that struck directly at the matter of personal responsibility, it is this one. The government cannot raise our children. The Department of Human Services cannot take the place of a loving family. If we want the thousands of children in our foster care system to grow up to be healthy and productive members of society, we have to raise them as such. That means that more men and women with the means and will to do so will need to come forward and serve as foster parents.

As American Enterprise Institute president Arthur Brooks reminded an OCPA audience in Tulsa last year, conservatives have the policy solutions that offer a vision of true hope for the most vulnerable among us. It’s time to put those ideas into practice.

Jonathan Small is president of the Oklahoma Council of Public Affairs.

3

EDUCATION

POSITIVE TOMORROWS IS CHANGING LIVES Photo provided

By Kevin Calvey

At a private school in a secluded, somewhat upscale backstreet in northwest Oklahoma City, children are arriving to begin their day.

Class sizes are small; there are about 16 children in each class. This school is exclusive; its daily capacity is 58 students.

It has turned away hundreds more in the last few years.

As kids arrive, they see souvenirs left by various celebrities who have passed through. A Kevin Durant poster hangs in the cafeteria. His Oklahoma City Thunder teammate, Enes Kanter, visited recently, leaving his height marked on a giant poster. A signed picture from a former Miss America hangs on the wall. There aren’t any photos yet, but Governor Mary Fallin came through earlier this year as well.

When students settle into class, they are well behaved and—to the extent

4

PERSPECTIVE // July 2016

any 10-year-old is excited to be in a classroom—appear to be engaged and interested in their coursework.

Like teachers in many of Oklahoma’s private schools, those recruited to work here are the best in the business—they take calls after hours, put in extra time, and are passionate about their jobs.

But unlike students in other private schools, all those at this school are homeless, and no child pays tuition.

Positive Tomorrows is a private school that caters exclusively to homeless children. The work being done here can best be described as the daily performance of miracles.

The school offers free transportation to every student, recognizing that many of their parents do not have access to vehicles. Every student gets free, nutritious meals. If a child doesn’t have gym shoes, or clean clothes, or toiletries at

home, Positive Tomorrows supplies them.

The services the school offers aren’t limited to children. Case managers connect parents to resources like food, clothing, and temporary shelter. They also help families increase employment and income levels and eventually achieve stable, independent housing.

“Our students and their families often have chaotic, stressful lives,” says Positive Tomorrows president Susan Agel. “We are providing the basic necessities so these children have a calm, safe environment to learn. We deal with a tremendous amount of social and emotional issues as well as academic issues. It requires a lot of work and a lot of resources.”

Funding the Miracles

All of the services offered by Positive Tomorrows are paid for by private donations. The major donor list includes

Without a significant change, it is inevitable that Positive Tomorrows continues to turn away applicants. a who’s-who of the Oklahoma City nonprofit and business communities, including 7-Eleven, Kevin Durant, the late Aubrey McClendon, the Mustard Seed Family Foundation, the Tom Russell Charitable Foundation, United Way of Central Oklahoma, and Vince and Marti White.

A significant amount of support also comes from the general public. More than 700 supporters attended the school’s most recent fundraiser, Cork & Canvas, at Science Museum Oklahoma.

Helping significantly to boost all of these donations is the Oklahoma Equal Opportunity Education Scholarship program, created by the Legislature and signed into law in 2011. The program gives individuals and businesses a 50 percent tax credit for contributions to nonprofit organizations that provide school scholarships to low- and middleincome students. In 2015, Governor Fallin signed a measure increasing the credit to 75 percent for those who contribute the same amount in two consecutive years.

Rob Sellers, executive director of the Opportunity Scholarship Fund, says those donations are changing lives. In a tough budget climate, he wants my fellow lawmakers and me to know that the tax-credit scholarship program is the wrong place for appropriators to try to pinch pennies.

“In the 18 months that we have been operating, we already have more than 250 students receiving these scholarships and going to schools that meet their individual needs,” said Sellers. “Many of them would be in pretty distressed circumstances—both financially and academically—if it wasn’t for this program. Approximately 55 percent of the program’s recipients come from families eligible for free or reduced-price lunches.

Some of them, like the children at Positive Tomorrows, are actually getting food

and clothing through their schools as well as an education. I just can’t imagine doing anything to diminish a program that is having such an obvious, and positive, impact in these students’ lives and strengthening the overall quality of education in Oklahoma.”

Opportunities for Growth

To be sure, Positive Tomorrows is “exclusive”—but not by choice. The school’s current capacity is capped by its finances. It receives no direct funding from the State of Oklahoma and is wholly reliant on donations. Without a significant change, it is inevitable that Positive Tomorrows continues to turn away applicants.

Every applicant turned away, says Agel, is a child in distress.

“When we turn away a child, we are turning them away from an education, food, and shelter,” she said. “We are turning their parents away from the help they need to find a job and a stable home.

Every homeless child who can’t make it to our classroom is a child that may fall through the cracks.”

To help schools like Positive Tomorrows, and to expand education options for all children, a growing coalition of parents, state leaders, and education reformers is pushing for Education Savings Accounts, or ESAs. ESAs offer a reimagining of public education funding, giving parents several thousand dollars per year in a government-authorized account to spend on tuition or other educational expenses, rather than simply funneling that money to local public schools.

ESA legislation was proposed in both the state House and Senate this year, and while it failed to advance, it sparked a lively dialogue and began the process of winning hearts and minds. It also won the support of high-profile backers, including

Archbishop Paul Coakley, Oklahoma Speaker of the House Jeff Hickman, and Governor Mary Fallin, who offered her explicit support in her annual State of the State address.

Renee Porter, director of the pro-ESA parent group ChoiceMatters for Kids, says ESAs would be a “game changer” for Oklahoma children.

“Parents and children need options,” said Porter. “Right now, if parents don’t like their local public school, the choice available to them is to move. Obviously, that isn’t financially possible for a lot of parents. The result is that we are sorting our children by ZIP code. One neighborhood will get a great education, and another will be trapped in a failing school.

“ESAs change that dynamic by giving every parent at every income level a choice,” she said. “If your child has special needs, or isn’t safe at school, or just isn’t learning, ESAs allow you to seek alternatives. For schools like Positive Tomorrows and many faithbased schools, ESAs will also help to dramatically increase capacity and their footprint in the communities they serve.”

Agel agrees and says she hopes legislative leaders will continue to push school-choice measures next year.

“Positive Tomorrows is changing lives, and it’s incredibly rewarding to be a part of that,” said Agel. “If there’s a downside to this job, it’s knowing that we had to say ‘no’ to children and families that need help. If the legislature were to enact ESAs, we’ll be able to say ‘yes’ a lot more.”

Kevin Calvey (R-Edmond) represents District 82 in the Oklahoma House of Representatives.

He introduced tax-credit scholarship legislation in 2002, nine years before similar legislation was finally enacted.

5

PROFILE

Adam Luck

Oklahoma’s Accidental Criminal Justice Czar

By Alex Weintz

Luck joined Fallin’s staff in 2013 as part of the Michael S. Dukakis Governors‘ Summer Fellowship program at Harvard University’s graduate school of government. He was not necessarily looking for a career in public policy, or even a career in Oklahoma.

6

PERSPECTIVE // July 2016

overnor Mary Fallin signed HB 3052 at a public ceremony in 2012 with a great deal of fanfare. The bill created the Justice Reinvestment Initiative, or JRI. The event was supposed to signal the end of one era—a “lock ‘em up and throw away the key” philosophy on criminal justice—and the beginning of a smarter approach that emphasized rehabilitation for nonviolent offenders, especially those with mental health or addiction issues.

The reforms were not just aimed at helping adults. As data recently released from the Annie E. Casey Foundation shows, about one in 10 Oklahoma children have parents who have been or are currently imprisoned. Those children are more likely to go to prison themselves and more likely to live in poverty. JRI was about breaking a cycle of incarceration, poverty, and misery for adults and children.

Unfortunately, it did not work out that way. How and why is a matter of dispute, but two things are clear: first, a massive overhaul of our justice system did not occur; and second, there was never the money for the up-front costs the most ambitious aspects of JRI called for, such as the creation of new “intermediate” detention facilities focusing on rehabilitation and reintegration.

By 2013, the shift to “smart on crime” seemed to many to be a failure, with both

journalists and JRI supporters accusing Governor Fallin of never being committed to the plan in the first place (an unfair accusation in the minds of those of us who worked closely with Fallin).

Three years later, the state has reversed course a second time, with Fallin and legislative leaders in both parties again offering support for reforms that offer alternatives to long prison sentences.

In late April, Fallin signed (again to considerable fanfare) legislation that reduces or eliminates mandatory minimum sentences for some drug possession charges, raises the felony threshold for property crimes from $500 to $1,000, and expands community sentencing (local alternatives to state prisons that emphasize reintegration).

Oklahoma’s criminal justice reform efforts now seem to be back on track, with significant inroads being made with bipartisan support. So what changed?

There are many factors, of course, but one difference-maker is clear: the emergence of a Harvard fellow named Adam Luck as a leading public policy voice.

Luck joined Fallin’s staff in 2013 as part of the Michael S. Dukakis Governors’ Summer Fellowship Program at Harvard University’s graduate school of government. He was not necessarily looking for a career in public policy, or even a career in Oklahoma. Although

he is a Broken Arrow native, at 26, Luck returned to Oklahoma as an Air Force veteran with a young family and a great deal of uncertainty about what the future held.

When he arrived at the Capitol, Fallin’s legal team had asked for a research assistant to help outline a path forward for justice reform on a shoestring budget.

The job could have turned into a post as a glorified intern, but Luck didn’t treat it that way and neither did his colleagues.

The report he issued was substantial and, even more importantly, the process of drafting it had brought together a collection of interests in the business, faith-based, and political communities and opened up lines of communication.

A year after finishing his fellowship he found himself acting as Oklahoma’s de facto criminal justice czar—becoming the state director of the Right on Crime Initiative, backed by the Texas Public Policy Foundation, where he was offered resources by everyone from OCPA to George Kaiser.

In his new role, Luck continued to act as a liaison to the governor and was a major player in Fallin’s Oklahoma Justice Reform Steering Committee and its various subcommittees.

Those task forces—which encompass areas such as policing, treatment, reentry, and sentencing—are widely credited with reenergizing justice reform in Oklahoma.

In fact, their members have helped produce and draft all of the relevant criminal justice legislation that was passed and signed into law in 2016. At the

center of those committees is Luck—the only member to attend meetings and participate in all four subcommittees.

Former Fallin general counsel Steve Mullins said Luck’s work has made all the difference. “There has always been a large group of people who wanted to do something about over-incarceration rates in Oklahoma,” said Mullins. “The problem was, the DA’s had one solution; the faith-based community had another; the governor and the Legislature had their

Oklahoma, a nonprofit organization chaired by Lieutenant Governor Todd Lamb.

Should Lamb run for governor, as is widely expected, it is fair to assume that Luck will play a key role in drafting policy positions and initiatives—among them, criminal justice. It’s also fair to assume that Luck’s work, potentially straddling two administrations, will help lend continuity to the ongoing effort to improve the way Oklahoma’s criminal

“What Adam has been able to help put together is a real coalition of people who work together, who communicate, and who are now familiar with how the relevant agencies— including Corrections, Mental Health, and the governor’s office—all actually function. “ own ideas, and no one was on the same page. What Adam has been able to help put together is a real coalition of people who work together, who communicate, and who are now familiar with how the relevant agencies—including Corrections, Mental Health, and the governor’s office—all actually function. He’s helped to take this from a philosophical exercise into the realm of the practical.”

Fallin seems to have agreed with this assessment; in January of this year she appointed Luck to the governing board of the Oklahoma Department of Corrections, where his reform efforts can be directly integrated into agency policy.

Now, Luck is changing roles again, this time moving to the position of policy director for the E Foundation for

justice system works.

All of this happened largely by accident. Adam Luck never expected to devote his career to reforming Oklahoma’s justice system. Mary Fallin never expected to create a new policy czar when she hired a research assistant.

Luckily, that accident seems to have salvaged the wreckage of the “smart on crime” agenda and once again put Oklahoma on a better path forward.

Alex Weintz leads the communications division within FKG Consulting, an Oklahoma City-based public affairs and government relations firm.

Prior to joining FKG, he served as Mary Fallin’s press secretary in Congress before becoming communications director in her gubernatorial campaign and then in her administration.

7

CRIMINAL JUSTICE

2016 Was a Great Year for Criminal Justice Reform, But There’s More to Be Done

By Adam Luck

This was a great year in Oklahoma for criminal justice reforms.

Not since the passage of Justice Reinvestment legislation in 2012 have we seen such significant measures make it through the legislative process.

In 2016, the legislature and governor eliminated mandatory minimum sentences for first and second felony drug possession charges; they increased the felony property crime threshold from $500 to $1000; they expanded the availability of our community sentencing and drug court options; and they gave district attorneys the authority to file any felony as a misdemeanor.

What do these reforms mean for Oklahoma children? Under these new laws, teenagers who steal a $600 iPhone will no longer have a felony on their records that prevents them from getting a job as adults. Parents with drug problems are more likely to get treatment they need and get sober. And fewer families will be torn apart by laws that emphasize long prison terms for nonviolent offenses rather than rehabilitation and treatment.

All of these reforms are significant, but what should be truly heartening for justice reform advocates was the emergence of a policy-crafting process that has finally broken a legislative logjam that had, in the past, derailed similar legislation. The Oklahoma Justice Reform Steering Committee, as well as its four subcommittees, has become a successful incubator of justice reform initiatives, allowing proposals to be vetted by DAs, law enforcement agents, reform advocates, and legislators. All of the significant criminal justice legislation in 2016 was crafted within the Steering Committee. The process was so successful that several of the reform items mentioned above passed and were signed into law without a single vote being cast against them.

The Steering Committee has worked hard to include voices from across the state and from both sides of the political aisle, all with a focus on improving Oklahoma’s criminal justice system. There was a concerted effort to include perspectives that opposed reform in the past with the aim of producing consensus recommendations that had a shot at making it through the legislative process. The result was a series of longterm negotiations that enabled legislators, law enforcement professionals, and other stakeholders to come together and agree upon the best next steps for Oklahoma.

While the process resulting in the passage of these bills was certainly a success, we are still in dire need of additional reform to address the issue of over-incarceration. We are a long way from declaring “mission accomplished.” These measures are just starting points from which we must move if we are to address the issue of incarceration in Oklahoma. Our prisons are well above capacity at 122 percent, which in practice translates

8

PERSPECTIVE // July 2016

to bunk beds in dayrooms, storage closets, and programming rooms that were used for rehabilitative courses. In the last two years alone we added more than 1,400 new beds to our prison system without building a single new facility.

Additionally, our prisons are dangerously understaffed, giving us the distinction of the highest inmate-to-staff ratio in the nation. We currently have units in our prisons holding upwards of 270 inmates and only one correctional officer assigned to the unit.

Logistical dangers aside, the impact of how we incarcerate reverberates throughout our communities and families in ways seen and unseen. Just over 10 years ago it was estimated that one in 12 Oklahomans has been on probation or in prison for a felony conviction. Considering the impact a felony conviction has on employment prospects as well as access to transportation and affordable housing, that number should be startling. Studies also suggest the children of incarcerated parents are significantly more likely to be incarcerated themselves.

Moving forward, we should reconvene the Oklahoma Justice Reform Steering Committee and subcommittees to assess what to target next. There is also discussion of engaging with the Pew Research Center to start another round of the Justice Reinvestment Initiative, which would bring their researchers here for close to six months and produce an objective, evidencebased set of recommendations for the 2017 legislative session.

We should continue focusing on sentencing statute changes and begin looking at our juvenile justice system as well as our adult system. Again, we can look to states like Texas for proof that better outcomes can be achieved outside of incarceration.

Since 2007, Texas has closed eight juvenile centers and cut their juvenile-incarcerated population by 52 percent. Combined with the reforms to their adult system, Texas has saved an estimated $3 billion, all while maintaining the lowest violent and property crime rates the state has seen since 1973.

Oklahoma took important steps in the right direction this session, but we must continue. Future reforms should follow the successful model established over the last year and continue focusing on sentencing statute changes, as well as begin looking at our juvenile justice system.

Adam Luck serves as policy director for the E Foundation for Oklahoma, a nonprofit organization focusing on six pillars of opportunity for strategic innovation in public policy design: education, energy, exporting, efficiency in government, entrepreneurship, and enduring freedom.

FAMILY

Walking the Talk Loving Foster Families Can Stand in the Gap

By Matt Pinnell

It started with a tug on our heartstrings.

A few years ago, my wife and I began to feel called to foster after being challenged by our pastor, Craig Groeschel, and his wife, Amy. Life.Church consistently reminds its members that we’re called not to be spiritual consumers, but spiritual contributors. Stings a little, doesn’t it? Good.

We saw a need, the tug was there, and it was time to act. The way to get started is to quit talking and start doing. So (after a lot of talking) that’s what we did.

We fostered two infants over the course of the last two years, and I’m thankful to report that both are now in loving adoptive homes. It doesn’t always work out that way, but I firmly believe that as more and more families stop talking and start doing, loving foster families can stand in the gap until a family can be reconciled or adoptions can be finalized.

Adoption must be at the center of the pro-life movement and, I would argue, the conservative movement. “Compassionate” should always precede the word “conservative.” If we’re going to be against a particular policy, we have to advance

solutions and alternatives to that policy.

As adoption champion (and member of Congress) Diane Black puts it: “It is not enough to be ‘pro-birth,’ we must demonstrate that we are pro-life and pro-quality of life after a child comes into this world.” If we value every human life, we have a responsibility to engage in this cause … to stop talking and start doing.

I’m proud to serve on the board of the 111 Project in Oklahoma (111project.org), an organization that exists to mobilize churches to see to it that no child who needs a home is without one. We now have a tool that is helping our cause: the “Care Portal.”

This technology allows the Oklahoma Department of Human Services (DHS) to upload needs of children to a central database that are then sent directly to churches (and even better, actual Sunday School classes within those churches) across the state. Leveraging technology such as this in partnership with state organizations is a conservative solution that is working. With OKDHS facing possible layoffs and service reductions, there has never been a more critical time for local churches to step up and join in this cause.

My kids still talk about our foster children practically every day. It changed our lives as much or more than the precious children in our care. And now with four children of our own, we still get excited about welcoming another foster child in the future. Because—let me warn you—once you foster, you morph from a tug-of-the-heart follower to a worldchanging warrior … and it’s awesome.

Matt Pinnell served as chairman of the Oklahoma Republican Party during the 2010 and 2012 election cycles. He now serves as the national state party director for the Republican National Committee, overseeing all 50 GOP state parties and territories. He lives in Tulsa with his wife, Lisa, and their four children.

9

By Timothy Tardibono

10

PERSPECTIVE // July 2016

M E M B E R S O F O K L A H O M A’ S FA I T H C O M M U N I T Y A R E D E M O N S T R AT I NG T H E I R H E A R T F O R C H I L D R E N A N D FA M I L I E S A N D

M E M B E R S O F O K L A H O M A’ S FA I T H C O M M U N I T Y A R E D E M O N S T R AT I NG T H E I R TA KRI NG IC L ASN TD E PFA SM T IOL I T UR NDCTA OK MIPA O NT IICNATLOS TAC HEA T F OPRRCAC H IT LD RA EN ES AN NGSPSRI AC EPT S ITO ON. TURN C O M PA S S I O N I N T O AC T I O N. erriam-Webster’s dictionary defines “pinnacle” as the point of greatest success or achievement.

Pinnacle is the word used to describe the aspirations of Oklahoma’s child welfare system as published in the “Pinnacle Plan” by the Oklahoma Department of Human Services (OKDHS). The Pinnacle Plan is the response to a federal lawsuit against the State of Oklahoma alleging chronic maltreatment of the more than 10,000 children in state custody in the child welfare system. The settlement agreement to end the lawsuit required the state to undertake extensive reforms to improve the child welfare system.

The Pinnacle Plan purposely sets the bar high; but with serious planning and great effort, OKDHS is making positive strides towards meeting its ambitious goals. That progress would not have been possible without an expanding network of partnerships between OKDHS and the faith-based community.

This article highlights three of the most important and successful programs that have been driven by people of faith who want to serve and share their lives with vulnerable families and children. Safe Families, the CarePortal, and Oklahoma Fosters provide tangible, heart-warming examples of how Oklahomans of faith can succeed where government alone would have fallen short.

S A F E FA M I L I E S

Safe Families was brought to Oklahoma in 2014 by Count Me In 4 Kids, a community-led collaborative with the goal of engaging central Oklahoma in meeting the needs of children at risk for and in foster care. Safe Families Oklahoma (SFOK) is modeled after the Chicago-based Safe Families program that partnered with the local faith community to grow a network of 11,000 volunteers, including 2,100 host families over the last 14 years. Safe Families is in 25 other states and even has international sites in Canada and the UK. Safe Families aims to help a parent or parents that are experiencing crisis situations, including financial problems, unemployment, homelessness, physical or emotional treatment, or drug or alcohol addiction. These situations put them at risk of losing their children into an already stressed and overcrowded state foster care system. The hope is that these parents can first get the help and support of a Safe Family before abuse or neglect takes place and hopefully avoid the need for state custody. The goal is for these at-risk children to be placed into a safe, positive environment that also keeps the children connected to and in contact with their current family while the family gets help for their crisis. SFOK can provide host families for ages from newborn to 18, but currently the concentration is for Oklahoma’s vulnerable children ages 0-6.

Once a referral is made for a biological parent in need of a temporary placement for a child or sibling group, SFOK turns to its trained host families to get involved and accept the child or sibling group into their home. The host families are recruited mainly through a “safe families church” that has caught the vision of returning the faith community “to the forefront of caring for the most vulnerable people group in society, at-risk children and their struggling parents.” During the placement, the safe families church continues to support their host family by recruiting others in the church to support the host family as family coaches, family friends, and resource friends. The collaborative effort gives a church the opportunity to grow together through shared service and carrying others’ burdens.

Once the host family is caring for the child or sibling group, the host family is encouraged to develop a relationship with the parents and become a kind of “extended family” for the parents in crisis. The new relationship between the family in crisis and the host family can continue to grow even after the children have returned to their biological family.

One couple that recently completed hosting a child and successfully reuniting that child with his family said the experience was spiritually fulfilling but also eye-opening, as they learned how great the need was for more Oklahomans to get involved in Safe Families as well as traditional foster care.

They explain, “Gaining Josh (not his real name), his mom, and big brother in our lives certainly has blessed our family but also our hearts have grown for the plight of Oklahoma kids stuck in the foster care system.” Someday they hope to host another Safe Families child, but currently they are still heavily involved with Josh and his family and want to keep their attention focused on continuing that relationship.

C A R E P O R TA L

The CarePortal is a technology platform which connects churches with the needs of at-risk children and families. This connection occurs through a geographically based email communication system that addresses child welfare needs, including foster care, adoption, teens aging out of the foster care system, and helping prevent families from entering state care.

When an OKDHS caseworker becomes aware of a need, the caseworker sends an email to active CarePortal churches within the closest ZIP codes to the need. Churches will then forward the email to their congregations, small groups, or other ministries.

The members interested in helping will contact the caseworker and arrange to fill the need.

The CarePortal was piloted in Stephens County in late 2015 and launched for Tulsa and Oklahoma counties in 2016. The response has been rapid and robust, with more than 135 active

11

OKL AHOM A FOSTERS

churches and another 144 churches going through the activation process. As of May 2016, the active churches have already impacted more than 375 children with all types of needs.

One CarePortal example was a foster mom that needed a weighted blanket to help her 3-year-old foster daughter better cope with her autism. The OKDHS caseworker knew how important weighted blankets can be as a sensory soothing tool in helping autistic children regulate themselves, but had no idea where to find one. After doing some research she discovered that funding had been cut to provide the blanket, and the blankets were expensive beyond the means of the foster mother.

But the CarePortal request was filled within one week and the caseworker expressed relief: “Thank you’s, tears, and hugs were shared and a much more peaceful home for the foster family.”

Another caseworker wanted to surprise a 15-year-old boy with new clothes for his birthday. She discovered he had not had new clothes since he was eight. When he found out the new clothes would be from an actual store through a CarePortal gift from a church and not used clothes from a charity, as he expected, “he was like ‘Wow, really?’” the caseworker said. “He was so appreciative and was all smiles today! Pretty amazing what one awesome person can do to help restore a human. Thank you!

And they all want to go to church next Sunday. The mom said they have never gone to church as a family.”

These stories have served to forge new partnerships between the faith community and OKDHS, creating an unexpected narrative for successful public-private partnerships. One supervisor put it this way: “My team is so very passionate about the CarePortal and the collaboration between church and state to assist the children and families in need. We are excited to put each request on [the CarePortal] to see the responses that we get back. The CarePortal collaboration has been one of the most exciting collaborations that I’ve been involved in in my nine-year career with OKDHS.” Because the response has been so positive in Stephens, Oklahoma, and Tulsa counties, the CarePortal will continue to expand statewide.

12

PERSPECTIVE // July 2016

One of the significant criticisms of the Oklahoma child welfare system has been that too many young children are placed in shelters because options for placement in family settings are not adequate. To address this major concern, Governor Mary Fallin, in conjunction with OKDHS leaders, crafted an aggressive initiative—Oklahoma Fosters—to create significantly more family setting options. The Governor’s ultimate goal for Oklahoma Fosters is to “usher in a new day in our state: one where no child is ever waiting on a family, but rather a long line of families is waiting to take care of our children.”

In order to make that goal a reality, in November 2015 Governor Fallin and OKDHS officially launched Oklahoma Fosters with the measurable benchmark to recruit 1,000 new, safe, loving foster families statewide by June 2016. Even supporters were surprised by the bold goal, but the response from caring Oklahomans has been amazing and the goal is on track for successful completion and beyond. A key component of Oklahoma Fosters’ rapid success has been the way the faith community has eagerly answered the call.

In the first few months after the Oklahoma Fosters launch, Oklahoma’s major religious leaders, representing more than 2,500 churches, activated various efforts to engage families to learn how to become a new foster family or help support new foster families. One such effort came through Life.Church on Mother’s Day. As part of their “How to Neighbor” series, Life.Church encouraged families to embrace fostering either directly as foster families or indirectly as support families. The week following Mother’s Day, many of the 18 Life.Church statewide network locations hosted orientation meetings where many interested families expressed their desire to get started.

The church’s push is delivering results: more than 330 people contacted DHS to begin the process of becoming a foster parent in the two-week period surrounding the Mother’s Day initiative.

But reaching and surpassing 1,000 new families is not the ultimate goal. Ashley Hahn, executive director of Okalhoma Fosters, makes it clear that the truly groundbreaking accomplishment would be to have so many trained and ready foster families so that a placement can be made after considering all the needs of the child or sibling group: ethnic background, cultural heritage, personal disabilities, developmental needs, familiar settings, and more.

In sum, through Safe Families Oklahoma, the CarePortal, and Oklahoma Fosters, members of Oklahoma’s faith community are demonstrating their heart for children and families and taking practical steps to turn compassion into action. Because of that action, Oklahoma is well on its way to reaching the “pinnacle” for child welfare.

Timothy Tardibono (M.A., J.D., Regent University) is president of the Family Policy Institute of Oklahoma (okfamily.org), a nonpartisan, nonprofit research and education organization focused on protecting families and strengthening communities to improve the well-being of Oklahoma’s children and families.

CRIMINAL JUSTICE

Bipartisan Consensus Emerges Around Broken Criminal Justice System

By Greg Treat

In an age of increasing political polarization, consensus is hard to come by. But sometimes when a problem is so glaring and so damaging on multiple fronts, all of us see the same thing no matter what ideological lens we are peering through. In Oklahoma, criminal justice is one of those issues.

The numbers speak for themselves: First in the nation in female incarceration rates. Second in male incarceration.

One in 10 Oklahoma children has a parent who has been or is currently in prison. That’s 96,000 kids.

Oklahoma prisons are at 123 percent capacity, rendering them unsanitary and unsafe for both guards and inmates. The national ratio of inmates to prison guards is 5 to 1; in Oklahoma it’s 11 to 1, the highest in the country.

If that’s the birds-eye view, the streetlevel view is even more disturbing, and the damage being done to both children and adults is heartbreaking.

At a recent press conference hosted by the Oklahoma Institute for Child Advocacy and the Annie E. Casey Foundation, former director of the Oklahoma Bureau of Narcotics Daryl Weaver described an all-too-common drug bust where terrified children looked on as law enforcement agents arrested their parents and accidentally overturned a fishbowl, sending the family goldfish flying across the room.

Weaver says he still thinks about the kids and the look on their faces, and how that trauma may have affected the rest of their lives. “There has got to be a better way,” he told the audience.

Adam Luck, former director of Oklahoma’s Right on Crime project and current Department of Corrections board member, says the situation inside of most Oklahoma prison facilities is far worse than most people realize. He describes

visiting a facility meant for 50 occupants that houses 200. “Imagine what that does, just to their plumbing,” he says. “It backs up every day and floods the building with raw sewage.”

It is said that politics makes strange bedfellows, and the crisis of over-incarceration in Oklahoma is no exception. In fact, an almost unprecedented coalition of interests has come together in an effort to push reforms.

The Oklahoma Institute for Child Advocacy (OICA), for instance, has worked successfully to broaden the coalition of justice reformers to include activists who have traditionally ignored “adult” issues like criminal justice.

“The people we are locking up for nonviolent offenses are moms and dads,” said OICA executive director Terry Smith. “Many of the kids end up in state custody. Almost all of them end up growing up in poverty. When we put this many people in prison, we are gutting our families and leaving children without the love, stability, and resources they need to become successful adults.”

The ACLU and OCPA are working together—a “politics makes strange bedfellows” scenario if there ever was one—to support a ballot initiative eliminating mandatory minimum sentencing for drug offenders.

The District Attorneys Council has integrated itself into Governor Mary Fallin’s Justice Reform task force and played a key role in pushing legislation aimed at reducing the prison population.

The Oklahoma City Chamber has created a task force, led by Thunder owner Clay Bennett, to support criminal justice initiatives and address the city’s crumbling jail.

Lastly, former House Speaker Kris Steele is leading a coalition of faith

leaders to push reforms emphasizing rehabilitation.

The joint efforts of these groups are paying off. In late April, Governor Fallin signed a flurry of bills (three of which I am proud to say I authored) aimed at reducing sentences for nonviolent offenders and offering alternatives to traditional incarceration, such as community sentencing.

All of these reforms are helping to slowly bend the curve, but it is clear the state can and should do more.

Making additional progress will require a long-term commitment from our legislative leaders and our governor, including our next governor.

It will also require a long-term commitment from conservatives to embrace change and a smarter, more effective policy approach.

As a proud conservative, I am hoping for that outcome. To a skeptic, I would say this: At the core of the conservative movement is a belief that any amount of public money—much less the billions we spend on our corrections system—has to actually accomplish a goal and generate a positive outcome.

By almost any measure, our current criminal justice policies have failed that test. When the public policy outcomes are this bad, people of all ideological stripes must coalesce around reform efforts.

Moving forward, conservatives are uniquely positioned to ensure those reforms are sound investments that deliver real results.

Greg Treat (R-Oklahoma City) represents District 47 in the Oklahoma Senate.

13

FAMILY

Improvements in Child Welfare System Encouraging

By Ed Lake

Oklahoma has made a substantial and wise investment over the past four years in improving its child welfare services. I have the privilege of leading the Department of Human Services (DHS) and the opportunity to see and hear stories every day that demonstrate why we do this work with such passion. This work isn’t just about following sound and effective policies and practices; it’s about people—children, families, foster parents, and case workers.

It’s about a young boy who had been in our foster care system for quite a while. His parents’ rights were terminated and he had been waiting for quite some time to find an adoptive home.

Thanks to reduced caseloads, workers had time to extensively research and engage this boy’s extended biological family.

Through these efforts, they discovered his parents had turned their lives around for the better after losing custody of their son, had more children, and were raising them successfully. With some extra work, we were able to safely and successfully reunite this boy with his parents and his new brothers and sisters.

If it weren’t for the state’s commitment and investment in the Oklahoma Pinnacle Plan, this particular story might not have been possible. Child welfare caseloads were simply too high for workers to spend that much time on one child’s case.

While we are not ready to claim total victory yet, we have gained such momentum in making improvements to the system that we can take a moment to proudly reflect on how far we have come. Not only have we been able to hire more workers and decrease caseloads, we have also increased their salaries. There are thousands more foster parents available to our children and they are being reimbursed at a higher rate. When children must be removed from their homes, the vast majority no longer are placed first in emergency shelters, but in family homes. The youngest children are almost never placed in a shelter.

All of these things are elements of a significantly different child welfare system than what existed in Oklahoma just four short years ago. And we have made these improvements despite caring for 2,000 more children in foster care than what the

14

PERSPECTIVE // July 2016

original plan was designed to address.

We are also working with some of the best child welfare and child advocacy minds in the country. Organizations like Casey Family Programs and the Annie E. Casey Foundation have also made significant investments into Oklahoma’s reforms by sending their staff, at no cost to the state, to bring proven best practices to our work. These organizations share our same goals—to prevent the need for foster care, but when it is necessary, ensuring we have a high-quality, high-performing system that does the right things for kids and families.

The Pinnacle Plan has an ambitious five-year timeline to show good-faith efforts toward making substantial and sustained progress in meeting certain goals. While we may need a little more time to finish what we started, I have complete faith that our dedicated child welfare workforce and all of the public and private partners who are engaged in working with us will soon accomplish what we set out to do.

While we are still challenged to meet all of our goals, we all remain energized by the growing number of successful outcomes being achieved—like the little six-year-old girl with significant disabilities in our care. When her foster mother required emergency medical treatments late one evening, our staff challenged themselves to find another foster home for this child. No one wanted to see that little girl, who used a wheelchair and could not speak or hear, have to go to bed in a shelter. They didn’t give up and engaged everyone statewide until they found another foster home that same night. Our staff didn’t go to these efforts because they weren’t allowed to place children in shelters—it was because they didn’t want to. To me, that is a powerful example of the culture change that has taken place in our system and in this state. That little girl, and thousands more like her, are motivating us to do our best for them every day. Every child deserves a strong and caring family.

Ed Lake is director of the Oklahoma Department of Human Services.

SAVE THE DATE OCPA PRESENTS

FEATURING DR. JAMES CARAFANO

Oklahoma Pinnacle Plan The Oklahoma Pinnacle Plan came about as a result of the settlement of a class action lawsuit in 2012. Funding for the plan over the past four years includes $108.8 million in earmarked appropriations and an additional $49.5 million DHS has redirected internally to Child Welfare Services. Achievements include:

•

DHS has added more than 800 new case workers and supervisors to the child welfare workforce, which is being paid 23 percent more due to funding for raises. This has resulted in lower caseloads and less turnover of frontline workers.

•

More than 6,500 children have been adopted from the foster care system and more than 10,000 have been successfully reunited with their families.

•

DHS and its contract partners have recruited and approved more than 3,000 new foster families who have received an average 36 percent increase in foster care reimbursements.

•

The use of emergency children’s shelters has been significantly reduced statewide by 71 percent.

DHS has closed one of its state-run shelters and plans to close the second when the last remaining child has been placed.

•

DHS has invested in more home-based services to keep many children safe with their families and avoid removals, and to help correct problems so families can be reunited with their children faster.

•

DHS has increased public-private partnerships to fund and support services the agency could not offer on its own or with limited state appropriations.

—Ed Lake

THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 15, 2016 LAWTON, OKLAHOMA

To learn more about being a foster parent, or to volunteer to foster a child, visit oklahomafosters.com.

15

EDUCATION

The Oklahoma Blob Votes Itself Largesse

By Greg Forster

Oklahoma’s education blob—school unions, education schools, and their allies—is becoming unusually shameless in its determination to vote itself another taxpayer bailout. Of course the blob is always on the lookout for another hustle. But in Oklahoma this year, things are getting to a point that might make even Donald Trump blush.

Contrary to widespread reports (predating even the Internet!)

Alexis de Tocqueville did not say that democracies always die quickly because “the majority discovers it can vote itself largesse from the public treasury.” That eloquent cynic was 18th century Scots historian Alexander Tytler. Tocqueville thought democracy, for all its faults, was here to stay in the modern world. But Oklahoma’s education blob could be Exhibit A for Tytler’s brief against democracy’s survival.

First it was a ballot initiative, championed by University of Oklahoma President David Boren. If approved, it will hike the state sales tax to fund a slate of goodies for educators, with the bulk of the proceeds going to an across-the-board $5,000 raise for all teachers. That doesn’t make sense for anyone but the blob— even if we think raising salaries is the best way to spend money on education, why do it indiscriminately? Teachers should be treated like professionals, and paid based on performance.

An indiscriminate raise only makes sense if this is a naked

16

PERSPECTIVE // July 2016

grab for money. And what do you know? Boren’s boondoggle would throw $125 million at higher education—i.e., at Boren—“to keep down tuition and fees.” Throwing cash at colleges will help raise tuition and fees, of course, but it will be too late to do anything about that once Boren has his boodle.

Next, in early April, around 30 educators announced they were filing together to run for state offices in the fall. Their platform? To fight for more money for educators. I wonder how I would be greeted if I announced I was running for office to fight for more money for columnists.

Since then, Oklahoma has seen a steady drip, drip, drip of press events and publicity stunts from the education blob.

Offers of compromise on teacher compensation packages have been publicly rejected with anger and scorn. Ellen DeGeneres repeatedly brought an Oklahoma elementary school librarian on her talk show. Search Google News for “Oklahoma education” if you doubt that even the most inflammatory rhetoric can become boring if repeated often enough.

Perhaps the most commonly cited statistic in the current publicity campaign—often obediently regurgitated by a compliant press—is that Oklahoma is 48th in the nation in education spending. I’m always skeptical of this claim, because I’ve heard it made in so many different states. For years, a small

group of education consultants has made a lucrative living working for the blob, devising ridiculous new formulas for calculating education spending so that each state can be made to look like it’s 48th or 49th. I know how Martin Luther must have felt when he used to tell people he had visited all 18 of the true burial sites of the 12 apostles.

In Oklahoma, it turns out, this standard-issue lie—while it is still a lie—isn’t as far from the truth as usual. U.S. Department of Education data show the state is actually 45th. That’s not surprising given its low cost of living, lower levels of urbanization, and other conditions. The state spends $8,813 per student, which adds up to more than $220,000 for each class of 25 students—hardly what one would call miserly.

Perhaps there’s a rational case that Oklahoma should spend more on schools. If so, I haven’t run across it going through pages and pages of the blob’s invective. Their argument boils down to “we spend X amount and it’s too little! We need to spend more more more!”

A press corps with any self-respect or sense of professional responsibility would ask the blob questions like these: Why have previous increases in school budgets and teacher salaries failed to produce educational improvements? Why shouldn’t the new spending you demand be targeted to more specific, publicly identified needs instead of being allocated indiscriminately?

How much spending—give us a dollar amount—would be enough to make you say spending is sufficient and any problems that persist are the responsibility of the schools?

The important point is not whether Oklahoma should spend more. The important point is whether Oklahoma is going to decide this question rationally, or based on bullying demands from the people who stand to gain monetarily.

Self-interest can be funny to watch. In February, Oklahoma edu-blogger Rob Miller was scandalized at the thought that some members of the state legislature might vote in favor of an education savings account (ESA) program and then make use of it to send their own children to a school of their choice. Since the launch of the blob’s publicity campaign this spring, however, he has changed his tune. Now he is full of praise for the educators who are lobbying and running for office so the state will give them more money.

But the consequences of self-interest are no laughing matter.

Tytler had a point about the danger in a democracy that one self-interested faction can become large enough to get its way through mere self-assertion. It was precisely this danger that moved James Madison to write Federalist #10, which stands alongside the Declaration of Independence in expressing the heart and soul of the American constitutional order.

The blob is not, strictly speaking, a majority. But it is just about as close as anything in American history has ever come to being the majority faction that Tytler and Madison warned against. (Retirees are almost their only competition in this regard.) The government school monopoly employs millions.

Teachers represent only half of the school system’s employees; the system also employs armies of bus drivers, cafeteria workers, etc. We’d get better services at lower prices if these services were privatized, but that won’t happen because it would contract the blob’s enormous political power base.

This, far more than money, is the blob’s source of political power. In many state and federal legislative districts, the local schools are the largest employer. What legislator doesn’t want to shove more money into the maw of the system from which so many of his constituents draw their paychecks?

But don’t get too haughty too quickly, comfortable reader.

Those rural and suburban legislators aren’t only thinking about the blob’s interests. They may be thinking about yours, too.

Do you own a home in a neighborhood with good public schools? If so, school choice and other effective education reforms would take some money out of your pocket, because the value of those schools has been priced into your home value. In a society where the government school monopoly has restricted people’s access to good schools, bringing justice to the oppressed would be costly for those of us who have purchased access to good schools under the old system. The “I’ve got mine” factor among suburban homeowners is at least as big a barrier to reform as the blob.

Madison and Tocqueville knew what Tytler knew, but they also knew more. Like them, we need to be realistic about selfinterest, but not cynical. Human nature is powerfully affected by self-interest, as the embarrassing spectacle of the Oklahoma blob shows. We need not be revolutionaries and try to make a brave new world where no such selfishness occurs; as Madison and Tocqueville both warned us, such utopianism is the quickest road to a pure dictatorship of the selfish. But democracy is nonetheless threatened by unrestrained selfishness, for the majority can in fact vote itself largesse.

Those who demand that government spend more money on themselves should be examined with heightened skepticism. The public interest (in this case, the education of children) should be clearly distinguished from private interests (budgets, salaries, and home prices). And policy should be designed, broadly and in the details, to serve the public interest only. None of that is being advanced by the blob’s campaign in Oklahoma or the press response to it.

Greg Forster (Ph.D., Yale University) is a senior fellow with the Friedman Foundation for Educational Choice. He is the author of six books, including John Locke’s Politics of Moral Consensus (Cambridge University Press, 2005), and the co-editor of three books, including John Rawls and Christian Social Engagement: Justice as Unfairness. He has written numerous articles in peer-reviewed academic journals as well as in popular publications such as The Washington Post and the Chronicle of Higher Education.

17

QUICK HITS

Federal Cash Buys Oklahoma Compliance This [transgender bathroom] battle is already lost—the feds rule. But it is important to understand when it was lost. The states weren’t defeated when President Obama was elected. They lost their autonomy when they decided to take the federal money. Many people don’t know that the Constitution prohibits the federal government from forcing states to implement federal policy. But it does allow Washington to purchase state compliance. Therefore, the time to fight federal overreach is not when the federal Don Corleone comes to collect his debt. You can only protect your sovereignty, self-respect, and policy autonomy by spurning the seductive offer of federal cash. Once you’ve sold out, there’s no turning back.

We are now facing this kind of test of our principles and policy competence in health care policy. … After the principal arguments of the scheme’s opponents have been vindicated by events, many of our leaders want to stop resisting, take the federal money, and more fully implement the failing scheme here. …We should be disgusted by the Republicans who, on one side of their mouth, vent outrage over the federal bathroom tyranny and, on the other side, demand that we pocket the federal health care bribes that will result in destructive mandates these pseudo-leaders will be sure to someday bemoan. Conservative voters, though, shouldn’t just be upset that these people are hypocritical frauds. What matters most is that, when it comes to sound policy, they don’t know what they’re doing.

—Andrew Spiropoulos, OCPA’s Milton Friedman Distinguished Fellow, writing May 19 in The Journal Record. To read the entire article, go to ocpa.us/OKcompliance

A Need to Sell What Works [Conservatives shouldn’t be] surprised that many people neither vote on nor care about political principle. Many voters are pure pragmatists—all that concerns them is whether a policy works, not its ideological pedigree. Ronald Reagan didn’t win 49 states in 1984 because he was a conservative. Reagan’s popularity soared only when people saw that his policies benefited them.

It is easy to forget, particularly in the wake of the extraordinary conservative electoral successes of the Obama era, that conservatism has always been a hard political sell. It is a morally and intellectually demanding creed, calling for the informed exercise of both public and private virtue. It is not easy to convince people that government should neither shower them with unearned benefits nor let them flout the principles of morality without social or political consequence. Preserving both a market economy and traditional social institutions requires hard work and self-denial, neither of which is easy nor popular. …We can’t let political expediency drive us to support policies we know won’t work. We don’t need to figure out what will sell. We need to figure out how to sell what works.

—Andrew Spiropoulos, OCPA’s Milton Friedman Distinguished Fellow, writing May 12 in The Journal Record. To read the entire article, go to ocpa.us/SellWhatWorks

Nearly $2 Billion in Tax Hikes Averted The Oklahoma Legislature this year faced an estimated $1.3 billion shortfall—the difference between the pre-programmed size of government and declining state revenues due largely to declining energy prices. … Here in the reddest of red states … some Republican leaders sought to close our state’s budget shortfall with a combination of gimmicks and massive tax hikes. (Sorry, they prefer to call them “revenue enhancements”.) On the campaign trail, they rail against “waste, fraud, and abuse,” promise to “rightsize government,” and lambaste the “tax-and-spend ideology that has created a deficit and debt crisis on the federal level and in many states around the country.” Yet nearly $2 billion in tax hikes and “revenue enhancements” were being considered this session.

Thankfully, fiscally conservative legislators held their ground. If character is following through in private on what you say in public, these senators and representatives have it. They protected Oklahoma taxpayers from nearly every attempt to increase the tax burden on our state’s citizens and our economy.

—OCPA president Jonathan Small, writing June 3 in The Journal Record.

To read the entire article, go to ocpa.us/OKTaxHike

18

PERSPECTIVE // July 2016

1

2

3

4

@OCPAthink 1. Jonathan Williams, an economist at the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), talks to Oklahoma lawmakers at a May 4 breakfast at OCPA. Williams reminded lawmakers that states with no income tax continue to outperform highincome-tax states in job growth and other important metrics.

2. OCPA president Jonathan Small (right) discusses taxation, health care, and more on Flash Point, a Sunday-morning talk show on the NBC affiliate in Oklahoma City.

3. OCPA intern Curtis Shelton gathers education revenue and expenditure data from a new data tool on the OCPA website.

This helpful new application (ocpathink.org/education-data) contains spending and enrollment trends for the state and for each local school district.

4. OCPA’s Trent England discusses the key role OCPA research played in beating back the proposed Obamacare Medicaid expansion during this year’s legislative session. Be sure to listen to Trent weekday mornings from 7 to 10—on the air at AM 1640 or on the internet at ocpa.us/MGradio.

19

QUOTE UNQUOTE “Nonprofit hospitals should not be in the business of aggressively suing their

“We haven’t cracked the code yet.”

Warren Buffett, who owns the Tulsa World and dozens of other newspapers, acknowledging that he hasn’t figured out how to save the newspaper industry. “Circulation continues to decline at a significant pace, advertising at an even faster pace. The easy cutting has taken place. There’s no indication that anyone besides the national papers has found a way.”

patients. ... Because of the favorable tax treatment these hospitals receive, they have a duty to help our nation’s most vulnerable.”

U.S. Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), commenting on the practice of “nonprofit” hospitals who sue poor patients. One such hospital, which reported a $150 million profit in 2015, files up to 4,000 lawsuits annually against its patients.

“Our office has been working with a coalition

“Proponents of universal government-

of student activists who have expressed that

subsidized preschool have to grapple with the

they would feel more safe with a confidential

fact that previous universal programs have

reporting system to report incidents of bias

failed and had negative social impacts on

and discrimination.”

children.”

OU vice president Jabar Shumate, discussing the creation of a “bias hotline” whereby students can anonymously inform on their neighbors

Heritage Foundation scholars Lindsey M. Burke and Salim Furth, in a new research review titled “Universal Preschool May Do More Harm than Good”

“We, in this state right now, waste outrageous amounts of money on remediation for students that come out of high school with good grades but they’re not ready for higher education. They’re not ready to be hired by businesses.”

Mike Neal, president of the Tulsa Chamber of Commerce, in a 2014 interview on National Public Radio