Two of the geniuses who endlessly express their love and support for Oklahoma’s 755,000 kids in our 540 or so schools have come up with another idea to insure our state falls even further behind the other 49 in educational outcomes. Their newest scheme is explained by ace CNHI statehouse reporter Janelle Stricklein in an article published in the Norman Transcript.
Their proposal is incredibly simple, easy to implement and stupid. Their idiotic idea, if passed by the Legislature and signed by newly re-elected Gov. Kevin Stitt would allow most anyone with a high school diploma to teach in our public schools, with approval, of course, of the local school board.
The new plan has some flowery words in it about also requiring experience of some sort in the field that would qualify them to stand before students for six hours a day as though knowledge in a subject is all that is required to be an effective instructor in today’s complex and challenging educational environment.
Of course, nothing could be further from the truth, but the children elected to our Legislature these days want only cheap, simple and quick solutions to the teacher shortage crisis they alone have created. Already over 3,000 temporary teaching certificates have been issued for the current year and more are expected for next year.
And if you believe this newest iteration of incompetent and clueless educational concepts is the last or even worst to be filed for consideration in the upcoming 2023 legislative session, you simply have no idea how that bunch of lawmakers think. Or more accurately, don’t think.
No, before the session is over in May, probably 100 or more new thoughts will be turned into a jumble of words called a draft; then considered in both the House and Senate and finally forwarded down to our anti-public education governor for his signature.
He’s already said he likes this monumentally awful proposal so don’t expect a veto out of Clueless Kevin. More likely a press conference lauding the authors, where he will pat them on the head and direct our new whiz-bang of a Superintendent of Public Instruction, Ryan Walters, to go forth and implement it.
