Perspective - October 2017

OCTOBER 2017

OKLAHOMA COUNCIL OF PUBLIC AFFAIRS

Certifiably Inane Oklahoma’s education establishment and click-addicted media benefit from public hysteria about “emergency” teacher certifications. But in truth, the traditional teacher certification requirements are arbitrary and educationally useless.

In Case You Missed It Oklahoma’s state government spending is at an all-time high. ocpa.co/All-timeHigh

Medicaid may be contributing to the opioid crisis. ocpa.co/MedicaidOpioid

It’s time for state lawmakers to take a hard look at the hiring of outside legal counsel by Oklahoma school districts. ocpa.co/HB1749

Let’s use TSET money to plug Oklahoma budget holes. ocpa.co/OklaTSET

Oklahoma’s state constitution limits the power of government to take the income of its citizens.

Adjusted for cost of living, Oklahoma teacher pay ranks 30th in the country. ocpa.co/OKTeacherPay

Oklahoma’s budget-conscious politicians should appreciate homeschooling parents. ocpa.co/ThankYouHomeTeachers

Gallup tells us that 13 percent of Republicans have "a great deal" or "quite a lot" of confidence in newspapers. ocpa.co/GallupMediaConfidence

Misleading statements on state spending and taxation from Oklahoma politicians (and former politicians) are unhelpful.

ocpa.co/JoyBamboozle

The Oklahoma Education Association has lost nearly 20 percent of its active members over the last five years. ocpa.co/OEAdrops

No, every dollar spent on Oklahoma higher education doesn’t return about $4. ocpa.co/HigherEdMythBusted

ocpa.co/MisleadingStatements

ocpa.co/OklaSQ640

PERSPECTIVE

Worse than Joy Hofmeister’s deliberate flouting of campaign regulations was her decision to feign conservative convictions in order to bamboozle GOP primary voters.

Brandon Dutcher, Editor

OCPA Trustees

OCPA Researchers

Glenn Ashmore • Oklahoma City

Patrick T. Rooney • Oklahoma City

Robert D. Avery • Pawhuska

Melissa Sandefer • Norman

Lee J. Baxter • Lawton

Thomas Schroedter • Tulsa

Douglas Beall, M.D. • Oklahoma City

Greg Slavonic • Oklahoma City

Inc., an independent public policy

Susan Bergen • Norman

Charles M. Sublett • Tulsa

organization. OCPA formulates and

John A. Brock • Tulsa

Robert Sullivan • Tulsa

David Burrage • Atoka

William E. Warnock, Jr. • Tulsa

Michael Carnuccio • Yukon

Dana Weber • Tulsa

analysis consistent with the principles

William Flanagan • Claremore

Molly Wehrenberg • Edmond

of free enterprise and limited

Josephine Freede • Oklahoma City

Daryl Woodard • Tulsa

Perspective is published monthly by the Oklahoma Council of Public Affairs,

promotes public policy research and

government. The views expressed in Perspective are those of the author, and should not be construed as representing any official position of OCPA or its trustees, researchers, or employees.

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PERSPECTIVE // October 2017

Ann Felton Gilliland • Oklahoma City John A. Henry III • Oklahoma City Robert Kane • Tulsa Frank Keating • Oklahoma City Gene Love • Lawton

EMERITUS BOARD

David Madigan • Lawton

Blake Arnold • Oklahoma City

Tom H. McCasland III • Duncan

Steve W. Beebe • Duncan

David McLaughlin • Enid

David R. Brown, M.D. • Oklahoma City

J. Larry Nichols • Oklahoma City

Paul A. Cox • Oklahoma City

Lloyd Noble II • Tulsa

John T. Hanes • Oklahoma City

Mike O’Neal • Edmond

Henry F. Kane • Bartlesville

Andrew Oster • Edmond

Lew Meibergen • Enid

Larry Parman • Oklahoma City

Ronald L. Mercer • Bethany

Bill Price • Oklahoma City

Daniel J. Zaloudek • Tulsa

Tina Dzurisin Research Associate Trent England, J.D. Dr. David and Ann Brown Distinguished Fellow for the Advancement of Liberty J. Scott Moody, M.A. Research Fellow Andrew C. Spiropoulos, J.D. Milton Friedman Distinguished Fellow Wendy P. Warcholik, Ph.D. Research Fellow

Larry Arnn

Arthur Brooks

William F. Buckley

George W. Bush

DENNIS PRAGER “One of America’s five best speakers.” — Toastmasters

Jeb Bush

October 19 • Tulsa

Dinesh D’Souza Mitch Daniels

J. Rufus Fears

Brit Hume

Steve Forbes

For more information, contact Rachel Hays at 405.602.1667 or rachel@ocpathink.org.

Tommy Franks

John Fund

Jim DeMint

Charles Krauthammer

Art Laffer

Russell Moore Stephen Moore Peggy Noonan Marvin Olasky

Sarah Palin

Ed Meese

Star Parker

Dana Perino Michael Reagan

Clarence Thomas

Artur Davis

Newt Gingrich David Horowitz Mike Huckabee

Laura Ingraham Frank Keating Brian Kilmeade Jeane Kirkpatrick

Rich Lowry

Cal Thomas

Dick Cheney

Scott Walker

Paul Ryan

Joe Sobran

John Walton

J.C.Watts

Past OCPA speakers are pictured above.

Thomas Stafford John Stossel

Allen West

Walter Williams

Teacher Hiring Devastated by Emergency ‘Common Sense Shortage’

By Greg Forster

Oklahoma’s education establishment and click-addic ted media benef it from public hysteria about a “ teacher shor tage” and “emergenc y cer tif ications.” But the general consensus is that the empirical research does not f ind evidence of educational value—at all—to teacher cer tif ication requirements. These arbitrar y and educationally useless requirements do nothing to improve educational qualit y, and much to hinder schools’ abilit y to hire teachers.

The latest tactic of Oklahoma’s education old guard—the teacher and staff unions and their allies—is to use overheated rhetoric to whip up the appearance of a “teacher shortage.” The Oklahoma campaign was even covered in the Huffington Post this summer. The old guard wants across-the-board salary increases, protection from accountability, and other perks. But the evidence they cite not only doesn’t establish there’s a shortage, it actually points toward giving schools the one thing unions don’t want them to have: flexibility to hire teachers without arbitrary and educationally useless certification requirements.

I’ve been in the education policy business since 2002, and in all that time, a year has not gone by when the old guard wasn’t blaring about a supposed teacher shortage. When the economy is good, that causes a teacher shortage because allegedly underpaid teachers

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PERSPECTIVE // October 2017

now have the opportunity go into higherpaying jobs. When the economy is bad, that causes a teacher shortage because allegedly underpaid teachers need to go into better-paying jobs to pay the rent.

(Actually, federal data show teachers are paid well, but never mind.) When education reform is stalled, that causes a teacher shortage because no one cares about education. When education reform is active, that causes a teacher shortage because reform is a big hassle for teachers.

New moons cause teacher shortages because teachers have accidents driving in the dark without moonlight. Full moons cause teacher shortages because teachers become werewolves.

Claims about the causes are always changing, tailored to whatever is in the news. The claim that there’s an urgent, emergency shortage that we need to address right now never goes away.

On the current rotation of this merry-

go-round in Oklahoma, we are, as always, hearing a lot of isolated anecdotes that don’t establish a widespread problem. If you want hard data, they do exist. A 2015 study commissioned by a partnership of state agencies, including the Oklahoma Department of Education, found that the imbalance between teacher supply and demand in the state was trivial—less than a percentage point out of alignment.

The only hard datum presented by the old guard is the state’s recent approval of exceptions to teacher certification requirements in 631 cases. These exceptions allow schools to hire teachers who don’t meet the requirements for traditional certificates.

This is not evidence of a teacher shortage. But if it were, it would point to the need to relax the state’s educationally counterproductive certification requirements. These requirements do nothing to improve educational quality,

It all comes down to trust. Do we trust But that’s not what teacher shortage and much to hinder schools’ ability to hire schools to use their own judgment when hysteria is ever about. teachers. hiring teachers? Or do we think that if Leaving that issue aside, the other These exceptions are being described as we give schools freedom to hire and fire, important thing to know is that standard “emergency” certifications. This term has they’re going to foolishly hire and retain teacher certification requirements have been adopted not only by the old guard bad teachers? long been shown to have no educational but by many others, including some of Lawrence Baines, an education value. Many empirical studies have been their critics. I suspect it comes into wide professor at the University of conducted on this question over a long use not only because the old guard and Oklahoma—in other words, a man for period of time. The general consensus is the click-addicted media benefit from whom the certification requirements are that these studies do not find evidence public hysteria, but also because the a matter of job protection—wrote in The that there is educational value—at all—to schools seeking permission to make these Oklahoman that the teachers being hired teacher certification requirements. hires think they’re more likely to get it if by schools under certification exceptions One review of the evidence by a team their need is described as an emergency. are like people who forge phony medical at the Brookings Institution produced a However, the state refers to these degrees. They “may be geniuses or they chart plotting three lines: math scores of simply as “exceptions” to the standard may be psychopaths, but there is no way students whose teachers had traditional certification requirements. This more neutral description might permit a more careful analysis.

The first thing to know about these exceptions is that they are unevenly distributed. They are geographically concentrated in specific places, and also concentrated among specific types of teachers.

For example, while anecdotes are circulating that create the impression the Note: Classroom-level impacts on average student performance, controlling for baseline scores, student demographics, Source: Robert Gordon, Thomas J. Kane, and Douglas O. and program participation. LAUSD elementary teachers, grade three through five. For details of how an ordinary least Staiger, “Identifying Effective Teachers Using Performance shortage is hitting squares regression was used to adjust for student background, baseline performance, and other factors, see the appendix. on the Job,” Brookings Institution, April 2006. special education, state data collected of knowing. These folks are unvetted.” certification, alternative certification, and

by Baylee Butler and Byron Schlomach Someone should ask him what he no certification. The lines overlap almost of the 1889 Institute show that none (“0.0 would think of medical schools if a large perfectly; there’s virtually no difference. percent”) of the certification exceptions body of research conducted over decades Reformer Matt Ladner calls it the has been granted in special education. failed to find evidence that people with “Super Chart,” because of its enormous If these exceptions are evidence of a medical degrees make better doctors. implications for education policy. problem, the obvious thing to do is target While we’re at it, we should also ask him If these requirements are educationally our response to the particular localities why he thinks Oklahoma’s schools would useless, why do we have them? Because and disciplines where the overwhelming hire psychopaths. a lot of people make money off them— majority of the exceptions are being the people in education schools and granted. That way Oklahoma can solve elsewhere whose services are required the problem it actually has, not some Greg Forster (Ph.D., Yale University) is a Friedman if you want to get a certificate. Their other, imaginary problem.

Fellow with EdChoice. He is the author of six work makes no apparent contribution Ha, ha! Just kidding. The obvious thing books, including John Locke’s Politics of Moral to educational quality, but certification to do is raise teacher salaries across the Consensus (Cambridge University Press, 2005), and requirements keep them in business. They board, shut down accountability systems the co-editor of four books, including John Rawls are an important part of the old-guard statewide, and give the old guard all the and Christian Social Engagement: Justice as Unfairness. lobbying coalition, as the present hysteria other things it wants. Such measures will He has written numerous articles in peerillustrates all too clearly—unions and have only a very indirect effect on the reviewed academic journals as well as in popular education schools scratch each others’ localized and specialized areas where publications such as The Washington Post and the backs. certification exceptions are being granted.

Chronicle of Higher Education.

www.ocpathink.org

5

Illinois—Not Kansas—Is a Cautionary Tale for Oklahoma Policymakers

By William Freeland

A guided tour of a blue-state basket case In light of Oklahoma’s recent (and much overstated) budgetary woes, some are now pointing to Kansas’s recent fiscal experiment, which featured tax reductions in an attempt to boost economic opportunity, as some sort of cautionary tale for states failing to embrace a big-government policy regime.

Much can and has been said about the litany of untruths that have been written about Kansas. But what cannot be said about Kansas is that it remotely approaches the dysfunction and economic despair of my adopted home state—Illinois.

Illinois hadn’t passed a budget in just over two years, right up until July 6th. On that day, the legislature overrode the governor’s veto on a budget that apparently passes for a solution in Illinois—a “solution” featuring billions of dollars in annual tax increases.

That solution allegedly provides fixes to one of the nation’s least competitive policy environments, chronically weak revenue due to a hemorrhaging tax base, and a nation-leading level of crippling debt. Meanwhile, the state’s fiscal position remains so poor that two of the three bond rating agencies (Fitch and Moody’s) are warning the state of an imminent downgrade to “junk bond” status even after the recent tax increase.

All of this while (unlike Kansas) embracing high taxes and high spending. Allow me to give you a tour of what an economic basket case truly looks like as I guide you through the economic policy and performance of Illinois.

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PERSPECTIVE // October 2017

Illinois’ Fiscal Position The Mercatus Center recently analyzed the fiscal health of the 50 states. Illinois ranks second to last in the nation, a fiscal summary that is indicative of the deep hole that state has dug for itself through irresponsible fiscal practices and chronic noncompetitiveness.

Narrowing in on the state's massive pension debt, consider a recent study by the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), which tabulated state pension debt using actuarially sound methods. Illinois ranks at the bottom of the nation—48th in per capita pension debt. Illinois' nearly $363 billion funding gap—a figure that translates to a funding ratio of only 23.8 percent of pension liabilities owed—equates to $28,200 in debt per state citizen from the public pension plan alone.

Illinois’ Economic Competitiveness What is particularly notable about the extent of Illinois' fiscal woes is that the state’s colossal debt was accrued while taxing at one of the highest levels of any state in the nation. The Tax Foundation's annual tabulation and ranking of state and local tax burden ranked Illinois as the 5th-highest taxing state—with government consuming 11.0 percent of state income. And this is before recent tax increases, which are forecasted to raise personal and corporate income tax by roughly $5 billion annually, according to the Illinois Policy Institute.

Focusing on the burden of taxation faced by business in the state, the results are no better. The Tax Foundation's "Location Matters" study provides a broad overview of the business tax climate faced by different types of business under a state's fiscal regime. The study calculates the tax burden of seven different model business types, both as infant firms and at maturity, for each state using the same assumptions. This methodology gets beyond top line overviews of tax climate and into the details of compliance faced by different types of firms.

Illinois ranks in the bottom 10 in almost every one of the seven categories in “Location Matters” and averages a rank of only 42.4 out of 50.

Worse still, Illinois' substantive policy uncompetitiveness extends beyond tax policy. Consider the analysis of ALEC's "Economic Outlook Index," calculated as part of their "Rich States, Poor States: ALEC-Laffer State Economic Competitiveness Index" study, published annually for the last 10 years. Across 15 equally weighted variables detailing relative state policy competitiveness, Illinois ranks a dismal 44th among the 50 states.

Proponents of big government frequently choose to dismiss these measures of economic competitiveness. But these dismissals should be considered with skepticism, as poor measures of competitiveness and poor measures of economic performance—detailed in the following section—track one another with strong correlation in Illinois.

Illinois’ Economic Performance Illinois’ economy, despite being anchored by the strength bestowed on any state featuring a major “magnet” hub like Chicago, has seen a decade of pitiful performance that shows little sign of improvement on the horizon. Chart after chart and data point after data point detailed below will demonstrate this, but what should not be lost in the detailing of data is what the data mean for citizens in living in Illinois.

For example, weak income growth and the stampede of outbound migration affect the day-to-day life of those living in Illinois. The reality of those figures is the day-to-day struggle faced by Illinois citizens.

First, consider Illinois’ anemic income growth, as detailed in an Illinois Policy Institute analysis of Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) data. Illinois’ income growth ranks only 40th among the states for the most recent year of available data and 49th since the end of the Great Recession in late 2007.

Poor income growth is of little surprise given Illinois’ weak growth in state gross domestic product (GDP), a common measure of total economic production in a state or nation.

According to BEA data looking at cumulative GDP growth across the states from 2007 to 2016, Illinois ranks just outside the bottom ten worst-performing states at 39th.

Turning to employment, data from the Pew Foundation show that employment as a percent of the population is only 79.5 percent, just barely above the national average. Illinois’ ranking of 23rd in this category—putting the state in the middle of the pack nationally—is among the state’s few bright spots, thus demonstrating the depth of the state's poor performance: mediocrity leads a list of the good news in Illinois.

Perhaps most depressing of all are Illinois outbound migration data. These figures are the tabulation of citizens leaving Illinois,

net of those moving to the state, and come from the Internal Revenue Service data tabulated and visualized by the “How Money Walks” organization. Illinois has lost nearly threequarters of a million citizens on net since 1985. Moreover, those citizens took $45.34 billion in income with them—dollars that can no longer fund public services through tax revenue, be spent at Illinois businesses, or fund start-up entrepreneurial efforts in the state.

The Illinois Policy Institute notes that millennials in particular have been fleeing the state: more than 80,000 on net have left Illinois since 2011 alone. Almost by definition, this figure illustrates the bleak future Illinois is facing.

A broader summation of the economic state of affairs in Illinois can be seen in the aforementioned "Rich States, Poor States: ALEC-Laffer State Economic Competitiveness Index," which includes a measure of economic performance over the most recent decade of available data. Illinois ranks only 44th overall.

The state ranks 30th in GDP growth, 48th in absolute domestic migration, and 39th in non-farm payroll employment growth.

Illinois' Last Tax Hike: A Case Study in Fiscal Wastefulness In an article by the Illinois Policy Institute ("Illinois' Temporary Tax Hike: $18 Billion Later"), the organization looked at the result of the last round of tax hikes in Illinois, which were sold to the public as a path out of the state's deep fiscal hole. The study notes that $18 billion in taxes were raised, yet the state's fiscal scenario worsened—debt increased, the tally of unpaid bills grew, the state’s credit rating was downgraded numerous times, and interest payments on debt grew. Illinois citizens were sold a false promise.

As they say in the world of finance, "past performance is no indicator of future results." Still, it provides a good indication of likely outcomes. And the likely result of this new round of tax hikes in Illinois is decidedly not a more sound or responsible state budget.

Conclusions If policymakers in Oklahoma are looking for a cautionary tale in state economic policy, they could hardly find a more pertinent example than Illinois. Despite all the state has going for it with a world-class city like Chicago, the economic reality faced by Illinois citizens has been dismal.

Illinois has embraced a policy regime of big government, spending generously, and taxing with little concerns for economic consequences. And the Illinois fiscal experiment has been an unambiguous failure.

Living here in Illinois, I can see all the state has to offer, yet what I most acutely witness is the struggle and despair of my fellow citizens. It is painful and depressing to watch.

William Freeland is an independent public policy analyst, research economist, and data scientist with a decade of experience in public policy research and advocacy. He has worked as a research analyst and economist for the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), as an economist at the Tax Foundation, and as a member of the research faculty at the George Mason University Law and Economics Center.

www.ocpathink.org

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By Trent England

Rainy Day Fund Raid Was Unconstitutional After draining all $240 million out of Oklahoma’s Constitutional Reserve Fund, Secretary of Finance Preston Doerflinger decided to ask the state Attorney General whether doing so was legal. Recently, the Oklahoma Attorney General issued an opinion that, with minor caveats, claims to legitimize Doerflinger’s actions. In doing all this, Oklahoma’s executive branch has drained away not just the money, but the very purpose, from the Constitutional Reserve Fund.

Sound legal analysis begins with common sense, so let’s start there. First, it appears that before last year no one had ever claimed that Oklahoma’s executive branch could unilaterally take money out of the Constitutional Reserve Fund. Second, the purpose of the provision is rather obvious: to have funds in reserve and to protect those reserve funds in the state Constitution. If the money can be removed by a single, unelected state official, that purpose is frustrated.

A final point of common sense, though it might not be so common these days, relates to what constitutions are for.

The Oklahoma Constitution is how we, the people of Oklahoma, both grant and limit the powers of our state government. Put another way: the Constitution belongs to us; it exists for us; we are its intended beneficiaries.

One of the ticklish questions for Doerflinger is why he did not take money out of other state funds that actually had more in them than the Constitutional Reserve Fund. The Oklahoma Tobacco Settlement Endowment Trust (TSET), for example, had more than four times the balance. The Attorney General, waving such questions aside, says the Constitutional Reserve Fund is “not held in trust for another entity or a specific purpose.”

Trent England serves as Vice President for Strategic Initiatives at the Oklahoma Council of Public Affairs, where he also is the David and Ann Brown Distinguished Fellow for the Advancement of Liberty and directs the Center for the Constitution & Freedom and the Save Our States project. He also hosts a radio program, The Trent England Show, from 7 to 9 a.m. every weekday on Oklahoma’s AM 1640, “The Eagle.”

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PERSPECTIVE // October 2017

The Constitutional Reserve Fund is held in trust for the people of Oklahoma—taxpayers and service recipients alike—with the specific purpose being that in a fiscal pinch or dire emergency the state might have a third option rather than suddenly raising taxes or cutting services. The fact that the Constitutional Reserve Fund lacks a designated bureaucracy or its own special interest beneficiaries is no excuse to consider it less important than other constitutional accounts. It is a sad irony of modern government that narrow interests are “special” while those things that benefit the whole people are devalued.

The Oklahoma Constitution creates the Constitutional Reserve Fund and specifies its uses. In short, 3/8 of the funds can be appropriated to address a projected revenue shortfall, 3/8 can be appropriated when there is a revenue failure, and 1/4 can be appropriated when either the governor or the legislature declares an emergency (this requires either a 2/3 or 3/4 supermajority in both legislative chambers). Again, until last year, everyone seems to have believed these were the only ways to take money out of the Constitutional Reserve Fund.

The Attorney General’s opinion claims the Constitutional Reserve Fund is just one more state “treasury fund” subject to borrowing in order to pay the state’s monthly bills. Instead of the Constitution defining the only ways to take money out of the fund, the opinion declares that the Constitution limits only “appropriations” from the fund. Such a claim demolishes the very idea of a rainy day fund. The Attorney General’s opinion takes the position that money in the Constitutional Reserve Fund is entirely up for grabs, so long as whoever does the grabbing does not call it an appropriation.

Contra Oklahomans’ Preference, State Government Continues to Grow $20,000 $18,000 $16,000 $14,000 $12,000 $10,000 $8,000 $6,000 $4,000 $2,000 Millions

2000

2001

2002

2003

2004

2005

2006

2007

2008

2009

2010

2011

2012

2013

2014

2015

2016

SOURCE: Oklahoma Comprehensive Annual Financial Report (CAFR), various years

By Curtis Shelton

As chair of the House Appropriations and Budget Committee, Rep. Leslie Osborn was one of the legislature’s budget negotiators earlier this year. She used that position to make the case for a litany of tax increases, claiming that Oklahomans are “tired of us doing things the way we’ve always done them.” This raises the question: what has the state been doing?

Despite changes in tax laws and fluctuations in revenue, what has remained constant year after year is the increase in state government spending. According to the data from Oklahoma’s most recent Comprehensive Annual Financial Report (CAFR), state government has increased spending in 22 of the last 23 years. Despite recessions in 2008 and 2015, when many Oklahoma families had to make tough choices,

Oklahoma government continued to spend.

Oklahoma government has been growing, not shrinking.

People might question the priorities in the budget or in how specific agencies spend money, but the total burden on Oklahomans is higher than ever.

In its opinion striking down SB 845, the recent tobacco tax, the Oklahoma Supreme Court noted that state constitutional provisions “mandate fiscally responsible government” and “indicate—by strictly limiting the Legislature's ability to enact laws that generate additional revenue—the people's preference that when revenues shrink, so too does their government.”

This is the people’s will as expressed in the Oklahoma Constitution. Maybe the state should try doing things this way?

Curtis Shelton is a policy research fellow at OCPA. He holds a B.A. in finance from Oklahoma State University and previously served as a staff accountant for Sutherland Global Services.

www.ocpathink.org

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By J. Scott Moody and Wendy Warcholik

Oklahoma’s Higher Education Spending Outstrips the National Average State lawmakers, in their oversight role, should examine where the money is going.

The chart below uses the latest available U.S. Census Bureau data to examine the growth in higher education spending (as a percent of the private-sector share of personal income) between fiscal year (FY) 1992 and FY 2014. There are two major points to be gleaned from this chart.

First, average spending over this time period on Oklahoma’s higher education system is a whopping 39 percent higher than the national average (3.1 percent vs. 2.2 percent) in FY 2014. This averaged the 11th highest level in the country (between FY 1992 and FY 2014).

Second, and even more troubling, is that the linear growth line shows that Oklahoma’s rate of higher education spending is faster than the national average—even despite the recent privatesector energy boom which dramatically drove down the burden of higher education spending in recent years.

To their credit, many state lawmakers have spent the last few months looking for ways to deliver government services more efficiently. As they continue to do so, and as the 2018 legislative session gets under way, we would suggest that higher education deserves careful scrutiny.

OCPA research fellow J. Scott Moody (M.A., George Mason University) is a senior fellow at the

Percent of Private Sector Personal Income

CHART

Higher Education Expenditures as a Percent of Private-Sector Personal Income (Fiscal Years 1992 to 2014)

American Conservative Union. Formerly a senior economist at the Tax Foundation and a senior economist at the Heritage Foundation, he has twice testified before the Ways and Means Committee

4.5% Oklahoma All States

of the U.S. House of Representatives. Moody is the co-creator of the Tax Foundation’s popular “State Business Tax Climate Index.” His work has

3.8%

appeared in Forbes, CNN Money, State Tax Notes, The Oklahoman, and several other publications.

3.0%

OCPA research fellow Wendy P. Warcholik (Ph.D., George Mason University) is a senior fellow at 2.3%

the American Conservative Union. She formerly served as an economist at the U.S. Department of

1.5%

Commerce’s Bureau of Economic Analysis, and '92 '93 '94 '95 '96 '97 '98 '99 '00 '01 '02 '03 '04 '05 '06 '07 '08 '09 '10 '11 '12 '13 '14 Sources: U.S. Department of Commerce: Bureau of Economic Analysis and Census Bureau; Oklahoma Council of Public Affairs

was the chief forecasting economist for the Commonwealth of Virginia’s Department of Medical Assistance Services. She is a co-creator (with J. Scott Moody) of the Tax Foundation’s popular “State Business Tax Climate Index.”

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PERSPECTIVE // October 2017

QUIZ

Is This Actual Research in Oklahoma’s Tax-Funded Higher Education System?

By Brandon Dutcher

1. Music, Religion, Politics, and Everyday Life: The Tensions of Utopianism and Pragmatism in Movements for Change

6. Transgressing the Boundaries: Military Masculinity and the Effects of Whiteness

Real Fake

Real Fake

2. Towards Queering Food Studies: Foodways, Heteronormativity, and Hungry Women in Chicana Lesbian Writing

Real

7. Hetero-Cis-Normativity and the Gendering of Transphobia

Real

Fake

8. Bow Down Bitches: Feminism, Beyonce, and the Quest for Agency

Fake

3. Soul Shaking: The Private Perils of Teaching Whiteness to White Students

Real

Fake

Real Fake

4. Alter-Ontologies: Mapping Environmental Knowledge Gaps in Fossil-Fuel-Producing States

9. The Man with the Midas Touch: The Haptic Geographies of James Bond’s Body

Real Fake

5. Scholarly Rearing in Three Acts: Black Women’s Testimonial Scholarship and the Cultivation of Radical Black Female Inter-Subjectivity

10. Queer Theory on Campus: A Critical Ethnographic Exploration of Campus-Hosted Drag Shows

Real

Real

Real

Fake

Fake

Fake

ANSWERS 1. Fake 2. Real (http://bit.ly/2waoHiB) 3. Real (http://bit.ly/2waCnKo) 4. Fake 5. Real (http://bit.ly/2vm1n3Z) 6. Fake 7. Real (http://bit.ly/2u4me82) 8. Real (http://bit.ly/2waCnKo) 9. Real (http://bit.ly/2v00WuW) 10. Real (http://bit.ly/2fcafmj)

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11

By Brandon Dutcher

Oklahoma Voters Want Tax Dollars to Follow the Child Nearly two in three Oklahoma voters support using tax dollars to choose the public or private school which best meets their child’s needs.

That’s one of the findings in a survey commissioned by OCPA just as the new school year was getting under way. The statewide survey of 1,016 likely Oklahoma voters was conducted by the firm Cor Strategies and has a margin of error of plusminus 3.07 percent. The survey question wording is below.

To see a summary of the results, go to bit.ly/OklaEdPoll2017.

To see a summary of the results by party, go to bit.ly/ OklaEdPoll2017Party. To see the methodology, go to bit.ly/ OklaEdPoll2017Methodology.

“If you could select any type of school in order to obtain the best education for your child, what type of school would you select?”

While 47 percent say they would choose a traditional public school, the majority of Oklahomans would choose something else. Specifically, 30 percent would choose a private school, 12 percent would choose homeschooling, and 11 percent would choose a charter school. Whether in Oklahoma City, Tulsa, or the rest of the state, fewer than half of respondents say they would choose a traditional public school in order to obtain the best education for their child.

“According to data from the Oklahoma Cost Accounting System, public education spending in Oklahoma is approximately $9,700 per student per year. Would you say that taxpayers are getting a good return on their investment?”

Only 22 percent of respondents think taxpayers are getting a good return on their annual investment in public education (the expenditure summary file is at bit.ly/OklaExpendSummaryFile), whereas 66 percent do not. This gloomy take on ROI cuts across party lines, being shared by Republicans (69 percent), Democrats (60 percent), and Independents (68 percent).

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PERSPECTIVE // October 2017

“A proposal has been made to move local school board and school bond elections to the general election date in November. Some people support the idea, believing it would increase voter turnout for these school elections and make it harder for education interest groups to influence the outcome. Other people oppose the idea, believing that the school elections would get lost on a crowded ballot and it would make them more partisan. Do you support or oppose moving school board and school bond elections to the general election date in November?”

Oklahomans support this idea by a margin of 53 percent to 35 percent. Democrats oppose the idea (45 percent to 42 percent), but Republicans (58 percent to 31 percent) and Independents (63 percent to 24 percent) are in support.

“Educational choice gives parents the right to use the tax dollars associated with their child’s education to send their child to the public or private school which best serves their needs. Generally speaking, would you say you support or oppose the concept of educational choice?”

Fully 65 percent of respondents support using tax dollars to send their child to a school of choice, whereas 28 percent oppose. (Interestingly, 44 percent strongly support the idea while 15 percent strongly oppose.) Republicans, Democrats, and Independents all support educational choice—with the Republican tally coming in at 76 percent to 17 percent.

“A proposal has been made to give parents the chance to customize their child’s education through Education

Savings Accounts, or ESAs. With an ESA, the state puts the funds it would have spent on a child’s behalf into a bank account the parent controls. The parent can then use these funds to purchase the education that best meets their child’s needs from a wide variety of sources, including private schools, virtual schools, and institutions of higher education. Any funds not used in a school year could be carried over for future education, including college. Would you say that you support or oppose Oklahoma having a program like this one?”

Oklahomans support ESAs by a margin of 49 percent to 36 percent. Though Democrats (49 percent to 42 percent) oppose ESAs, Republicans (52 percent to 30 percent) and Independents (56 percent to 25 percent) overwhelmingly support ESAs. A poll, of course, is only a snapshot of public opinion at the time the survey is taken. This newest snapshot does, however, add to a growing body of evidence. Here are the recent survey data which have shown strong support for ESAs and other forms of private-school choice: • Braun Research survey (registered Oklahoma voters), January 2014 • Tarrance Group survey (registered Oklahoma GOP primary voters), July 2014 • SoonerPoll survey (likely Oklahoma voters), January 2015 • Tarrance Group survey (registered Oklahoma voters), January 2015 • Cole Hargrave Snodgrass and Associates survey (registered Oklahoma voters), December 2015 • SoonerPoll survey (likely Oklahoma voters), January 2016 • SoonerPoll survey (likely Oklahoma voters), July 2016 • Cor Strategies survey (likely Oklahoma voters), August 2017 Here is the recent survey research showing that Oklahomans oppose school vouchers (the survey didn't ask about ESAs): • Public Opinion Strategies survey (likely Oklahoma voters), March 2015 Brandon Dutcher is OCPA’s senior vice president. He is editor of the book Oklahoma Policy Blueprint, which was praised by Nobel Prize-winning economist Milton Friedman as “thorough, well-informed, and highly sophisticated.” His articles have appeared in Investor’s Business Daily, WORLD magazine, Forbes.com, Mises.org, The Oklahoman, the Tulsa World, and 200 newspapers throughout Oklahoma and the U.S.

Vouchers Give Hope for Foster Kids At any given time, there are several thousand Oklahoma children in foster care, often due to abuse or neglect. Others have been adopted from state custody, but in either case these children frequently have difficulty adapting to a typical school environment.

They need a more nurturing and structured school environment— and thanks to bipartisan action by the Legislature this year, they’re eligible to get it.

Senate Bill 301, sponsored by state Sen. AJ Griffin, R-Guthrie, and state Rep. Jon Echols, R-Oklahoma City, expanded the Lindsey Nicole Henry Scholarship Program to cover foster children and those who have been adopted out of state custody. Under the original program, created in 2010, children receiving special education services could transfer to a private school and be accompanied by a portion of the state aid dedicated to their education.

Now, foster kids and adopted foster kids will have the same opportunity. It is significant that this bill passed the House by a vote of 87-0 and the Senate by a margin of 43-0. Doing what’s right for kids is not a partisan issue.

At a recent meeting at OCPA, Sen. Griffin said many foster kids have undergone severe emotional and even physical trauma. “Early childhood trauma impacts the brain forever,” she said, noting that traditional schools often cannot dedicate the special attention to those kids that tailored schools can.

Where special education children eligible for Henry scholarships must be under an Individual Education Plan, foster children can qualify by being under an Individual Service Plan. And because many foster children have been moved from home to home or school to school, they’re not required to have been enrolled in an Oklahoma public school the year prior.

SB 301 “is not about saying that public education is bad,” Sen. Griffin rightly points out. “I’ve never said that, and I never will.”

Rather, she says, “the complex nature of these children’s backgrounds demands that we do it differently for them,” Sen. Griffin said.

The new companion to the original Henry Scholarship program may be timelier than many imagine. Like many other states, Oklahoma is experiencing an epidemic of opioid addiction, and among those afflicted are parents. The rising toll from overdose deaths and court actions to remove more children from the custody of addicted parents is expected to further increase the number of children in foster care.

Significantly, the Legislature this year also voted to expand Oklahoma’s other school choice program, the Equal Opportunity Education Scholarship Program, which gives tax credits to those who donate to funds that help children choose a private school education.

Legislation this year made more cap space available for a tax credit.

—OCPA president Jonathan Small

www.ocpathink.org

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Use TSET to Protect Vital Services In the final hours of the 2017 legislative session, lawmakers desperate to find revenue passed Senate Bill 845 to impose a $1.50 per pack tax on cigarettes. (To get around constitutional limits on legislative power, they labeled the measure a “fee.”)

The Oklahoma Supreme Court unanimously struck down the revenue provisions of Senate Bill 845. This left some elected officials claiming them must pass new and larger tax increases.

To strengthen their case, they have the same doom-and-gloom predictions they trot out for every tax debate: nursing homes will close, rural hospitals will fail, health and human services will be depleted. All this supposedly because lawmakers couldn’t constitutionally pass a tax on tobacco.

But if lawmakers want to use tobacco money to protect vital services, there is a better place to look.

It’s called the Tobacco Settlement Endowment Trust, or TSET. This is a public trust that manages money received by the state as a result of the tobacco lawsuit and settlement from years ago.

This fund alone recently topped $1 billion, and it gets more money and spends about $50 million in earnings every year.

TSET does a few important things, but also has plenty of questionable spending. Right now, TSET is spending around $770,000 to lecture Oklahomans to (among other things) drink more water. Last year, public outrage forced TSET to change course when it attempted to create a new administrator position at a salary of $250,000 a year.

So, when you take a billion-dollar bank account, growing every year and generating annual earnings around $50 million, then factor in some questionable spending, it’s obvious TSET

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PERSPECTIVE // October 2017

By Jonathan Small

offers state leaders an alternative to increasing the tax burden on Oklahoma families. The money is already there to prevent all of the doom-and-gloom scenarios.

This is why OCPA has called on lawmakers to reform TSET and access those funds to stabilize reimbursement rates for nursing homes and rural hospitals. This could also fund the Physician Manpower Training Commission and fill gaps in health and human services funding. It could all be done without taking away from existing TSET programs or the current endowment.

Believe it or not, some have ridiculed this suggestion simply because it is not a tax increase. Others say the reform is too complicated.

The state constitution does say that reforming TSET requires a vote of the people. But so does passing any tax hike that has less than three-fourths support in both legislative chambers. Why not let Oklahomans vote to break down this funding silo, just a little, in order to shore up some basic services?

It’s time to use TSET funds to prioritize rural hospitals, nursing homes, and other vital services without increasing the burden of taxation on Oklahoma families.

Jonathan Small is the president of the Oklahoma Council of Public Affairs. A Certified Public Accountant, he previously served as a budget analyst for the Oklahoma Office of State Finance, as a fiscal policy analyst and research analyst for the Oklahoma House of Representatives, and as director of government affairs for the Oklahoma Insurance Department. Small’s work includes co-authoring “Economics 101” with Dr. Arthur Laffer and Dr. Wayne Winegarden.

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@OCPAthink

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OCPA president Jonathan Small is pictured here at the annual meeting of the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), an organization of state legislators dedicated to the principles of free markets and limited government.

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Scott Chance (standing), chairman of the Oklahoma Young Republicans, moderates the “Elected Leaders” panel at the Oklahoma Young Republicans 2017 Convention, which was held August 12 at OCPA. Seated (from left) are state Rep. Kyle Hilbert (R-Depew), state Rep. Tess Teague (R-Choctaw), and state Rep. Avery Frix (R-Muskogee).

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Author and Wall Street Journal columnist Peggy Noonan addresses the crowd at the 25th annual meeting of the State Policy Network. OCPA’s board chairman, legal counsel, and several of our staff members were among the thousand-plus think tank leaders and freedom-movement partners who gathered in San Antonio to strategize, network, share ideas, and learn new skills.

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Adam Peshek, director of education choice for the Foundation for Excellence in Education, discusses his new book "Education Savings Accounts: The New Frontier in School Choice" on September 7 at OCPA. His presentation was cohosted by OCPA, Americans for Prosperity-Oklahoma, ALEC, ChoiceMatters, and Oklahoma Faith Leaders.

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Dave Bond sits down in OCPA's Avery Boardroom with FOX 25 reporter Jordann Lucero to discuss OCPA's recommendations for the (unnecessary) special legislative session.

www.ocpathink.org

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QUOTE UNQUOTE “We love [the four-day school week] here, all of the parents and community. There's literally not one person that's come

“Hysteria and

into my office or sent a letter saying it doesn't work for them. ... Parents have told me, 'Don't take this from us.'"

advocacy have

Coyle superintendent Josh Sumrall

completely replaced news reporting. And

“I think that when it comes to the training of human

“The state is the great fiction by which everybody tries to live at

beings, you have to be a great deal more careful

[journalists] pay

the expense of everybody else.”

little or no price

than you do in other spheres about preservation of the right of individual liberty and the principle of individual responsibility; and I think we ought to be plain about this————that unless we preserve the principles of liberty in this department there is no use in trying to preserve them anywhere else. If you give the bureaucrats the children, you might as well give them everything else as well.”

J. Gresham Machen, testifying before the Senate Committee on Education and Labor, and the House Committee on Education, February 25, 1926

Frédéric Bastiat

“Oklahoma Wesleyan is not a ‘safe place,’ but rather a place to learn: to learn that life isn’t about you, but about others; that the

among those who still believe them.”

Dennis Prager

bad feeling you have while listening to a sermon is called guilt;

“The line between

that the way to address it is to repent of everything that’s wrong

straight news

with you rather than blame others for everything that’s wrong

reporting and

with them. This is a place where you will quickly learn that you

opinion has been

need to grow up. This is not a day care. This is a university.”

obliterated.”

Everett Piper, president of Oklahoma Wesleyan University and author of the new book Not a Day Care: The Devastating Consequences of Abandoning Truth

Joe Concha, media reporter for The Hill