A Power-Crazed Fool

So sad to watch four elected Tulsa School Board members beg, on almost bended knee, of Ryan Walters not to take over their district – the largest in Oklahoma.

Through the years I've met a few power-crazed fools that somehow got elected to public office but the only one even close to Superintendent Walters in that category is long forgotten state Rep. Randy Terrill, R-Moore. For those who might have forgotten, he went to prison, not for being a fool, which he was, but for felonious activity.

Here's a few of the more outrageous comments made at this week’s State Board of Education meeting:

1. If Tulsa is a bad as Walters says, which means the problems have existed for years, what good would a monthly report be on the "progress" being made to please him? None is the answer. It's just more paperwork for some poor secretary which won't contain any valuable information and won't be read anyway but will be his excuse to take over the school eventually anyway. Don't doubt it.

2. One of the Stitt clones on the board, Kendra Wesson, who is a failed candidate for the Legislature, queried, "Aren't we spending more money now on education than ever before." Everybody shook their heads yes, patted themselves on the back and forgot to ask, "How does that rank with the other states?" The answer, which that board and that superintendent don't care about is, yes and that still ranks us 49th in the country in per pupil spending.

3. So Walters is happy the Tulsa board is shuffling the chairs on the Titanic. It has hired Dr. Ebony Johnson to step in as temporary superintendent and agreed to pay her more. Her current role is academic dean or assistant super or whatever and if scholarly achievements in reading and other core responsibilities have been her area of responsibility, why hire her since that is the area where Tulsa is greatly criticized? She's been there for years so isn't that where the buck needs to stop? Or was she hired because people “like” her?

4. Walters, playing the role of junior G-Man to J. Edgar Hoover, or perhaps 1950s era United States Sen. Joe McCarthy, is determined there are not going to be any Commie yen spent in Tulsa indoctrinating our children to become commies. What about other countries of the world that make investments in our schools, creating shared scholarships, trips, sister-and-brother schools, a myriad of other relationships with other countries of the world? Ryan, while you’re at it, why don't you just build a wall around Oklahoma to keep all outside influences out of your redneck, dumbass McAlester view of the world?

5. Whoever Dr. Donald Burdick is – a board member from Tulsa, it appears – came up with a great and novel idea: How about getting about 150 successful, probably white guys, from Tulsa together to read to some Tulsa students. Burdick thought it would be keen to get a similar number of kids, put them in a gym with said successful guys, read for an hour, and then disperse. He even volunteered an hour a week of his time but when Tulsa School Board member Diamond Marshall asked for more, Burdick said "Get back with me." Oh yes you did.

6. Walters' people say 65% of Tulsa schools are failing. Tulsa School Board President Stacey Woolley said no, it's closer to 35%. Seems like some fact like that should be pretty easy to discern that is if anybody really cares. [Woolley did, in fact, clarify the number is 37% “which is not acceptable – but it is not 65.”]

7. Burdick: "What do you need to improve the reading outcomes?" Marshall said, “We need more reading specialists, counselors and speech pathologists." Another state board member said the problem is not money. It just needs to be re-directed. From where? Education, including higher education, was cut nine of 11 years since the beginning of Mary Fallin's first term as governor. The other two years increased funding came because of a teacher walkout and this year's increase was driven by big increases in federal outlays as well as huge buckets of cash going to private and home schoolers. Now there's something to be proud of.

8- Walters fretted about embezzlement in the Tulsa schools. He is under investigation by both state and federal officials for losing/misplacing/wasting millions of GEER funds. Would have been better to keep his mouth shut on that one.

I'm out of room, patience and time, so I'll try to send more information soon.