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Fun Political Terms

By
Tom Deighan
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Some new words are unforgettable, needing little or no explanation. They intuitively and metaphorically illuminate the previously undefined. (Who heard of “crowdfunding” and “selfies” 10 years ago?) As we enter a new political season, however, we keep using the same stale, old terms to describe our hyper-partisan, social media political reality, and it’s boooring.  Time to freshen things up.

“Flaming Pennies” are the radical one-percent willing to burn the world down just to make a point, and they wield inordinate power in our social media age.  They are not necessarily radical because of their beliefs but rather their behavior. Worse than even hateful social media trolls, flaming pennies actually leave their basement. Fortunately, when rational adults ignore the flaming pennies, much like walking away from toddlers throwing a tantrum, they lose their power. Eventually, they will even turn on each other to prove who is more dedicated to the cause.  That’s why we don’t have flaming nickels. 

People immediately understand the term “Cable News Goggles,” because regardless of how non-partisan, unbiased, and fair-minded we claim to be, we all favor one news source or another. Whether that be the Fox News side or the MSNBC side, we all have our biases.  In fact, I now trust naked partisans more than so-called “unbiased” sources.  At least we know what the partisans are selling! Our Cable News Goggles certainly impact how we look at the world, even non-political issues, and if you have any doubt if yours are red or blue, just look at what pops up in your newsfeed.   The algorithms know us better than we know ourselves. 

“Gotham City Shades”, on the other hand, are an entirely different type of eyewear that force us to assume faraway “big city” problems are rampant here at home.  We are convinced that the rampant crime, radical behavior, and extreme social problems we see in the media are happening right next door in the same magnitude. (Really?) Yes, bad stuff happens everywhere, but Gotham City Shades create boogey-man central to push agendas.  No one wants to live in Gotham City except Batman, and you can’t get one of those belts off the rack at Nordstrom.  

“High-Noon Strangers” are those politicians and activists that heroically invade communities to save the day. They appear at school board meetings, city councils, and even lead marches through towns they could only find on Google Maps.  Their mission: to save dumb locals from themselves.  They usually come from Capital City or are trying to get there, and nowadays, they are often funded by faraway dark money.  They always claim a constituency, but look a little closer, and you just might find a large gallery of cardboard cut-outs cheering them on.  They ride in, shoot the place up, and leave before the smoke clears.  Don’t worry, their supporters are carefully stored for the next town to prevent creasing.  

Finally, because this column is “mostly” educational, let’s consider two complementary educational terms: “Pollyanna Public Schools” and “Evil Public Schools”.  These are the false, extreme forces dividing common-sense parents and educators nowadays.  One side entirely ignores the unnecessary problems pushed into public schools, and the other side ignores the miracles public schools accomplish every day.  Meanwhile, both sides clamor for more money to either reward mediocrity or to start their own separate schools.  I have been beating this drum for over a year now, but don’t we have more choices than Marxism or Crony Capitalism? 

Sure, it’s arrogant to presume I can coin new terms, but I teach college stuff now, so that makes me a true “speck-spert” (a so-called expert who presumes that his knowledge about a tiny subject also makes him smart about real-world issues). Don’t worry, however, I get all of my political insight from actors, entertainers, and social media influencers, so you know I am well-informed.  After all, if you cannot capture an idea in a Tik-Tok or a meme, nowadays, you are probably busy doing unimportant stuff like working or raising your family.

Tom Deighan is a public educator and author of Shared Ideals in Public Schools. You may email him at deighantom@gmail.com 

What’s Next, For the Kids?

By
Tom Deighan
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In recent years, satire and parody from comedy sites like The Onion and The Babylon Bee have proven to be prophetic, as many “jokes” later became true. Parody, satire, and old-fashioned comedy are now dangerous for many reasons. First, they may get you cancelled, and secondly, your silly joke may become reality.  

I used to joke that politicians’ worn-out battle cry “for the kids” had been used to promote everything imaginable. Under that slogan, Oklahoma has championed issues like liquor by the drink, horse racing, the lottery, and medical marijuana. The only thing  left, I foolishly surmised, was legalized drugs and prostitution, “For The Kids!”  Our proposed state question for recreational weed lists education as its first beneficiary. So far, I was only half prophetic.  

The surreal is now real, not unlike professional wrestling, which is why I call this new reality the “educational smackdown”. It’s all theatrics, and level-headed parents and educators are forced to choose between two elitist mindsets: Pollyanna Public Schools (PPS) and Evil Public Schools (EPS). Meanwhile, neither side accepts any responsibility for their antics, leaving us with very stark choices in the upcoming elections. Now that primaries are over, I wonder if either side will pivot to reflect the beliefs of common-sense parents and educators. 

To capture the hearts and minds of sensible parents and educators, the PPS crowd must admit that radical agendas have been pushed into schools for decades. Age-inappropriate issues, hostility towards people of faith, and out-of-touch national unions have alienated many from public schools. We need to own that as educators. To win back rational parents and educators, the PPS crowd needs to get real. We have usurped the parent-educator partnership in favor of faraway activist agendas. 

Likewise, the EPS crowd cannot continue to pretend that everything in public schools is deplorable. Local schools accomplish miracles every day, and local communities know it. Clearly, the new strategy of replacing one form of indoctrination with another doesn’t work; neither does focusing on isolated examples of bad behavior while ignoring their own complicity in crippling public schools. We can do better than taxpayer funded barbeque grills or vague teaching laws that proponents cannot even follow in their own classrooms. We trust the doctor-patient relationship; let’s trust the parent-educator partnership, too. 

Case in point: as data emerges from the pandemic, both sides are outraged, but neither side will admit their part in the dumpster fire. Sensible parents and educators struggled to survive it while flaming pennies (the radical one-percenters on both sides) set their schools ablaze. One side openly advocated to close schools while the other side created knee-jerk rules that forced schools to close. In retrospect, both sides needed closed schools for their own contradicting political purposes, and the proof is now in the pudding. As a superintendent during all this, I navigated both sides to keep my schools open, but in the end, no one won.

We now need leaders with the courage to represent everyday parents and common-sense educators, but so far, we are only faced with extreme choices offered with faux outrage, bluster, and backroom deals of elitists in a pretend educational smackdown. We need a leader willing to betray their own orthodoxies to serve sensible, everyday, common-sense parents and educators – leaders willing to honestly resist the extremes of their respective political cults. Eighty percent of parents and eighty percent of educators agree on eighty percent of kid-level issues, and this 80/80/80 rule works every day in your neighborhood schools. May the forgotten and ignored majority of parents and educators rise. 

Most importantly, however, we must stop all jokes, parodies, and satire. Let’s call on the government and big tech to immediately shut down, de-platform, and block sites like The Onion and Babylon Bee, because we can no longer discern pretend from reality. Besides, God only knows what will happen next . . . for the kids!

Tom Deighan is a public educator and author of Shared Ideals in Public Schools. You may email him at deighantom@gmail.com.

Dear Class of 2021

By
Tom Deighan
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Last year ended with terrible uncertainty. Your junior spring was cancelled, including proms, sports, and other important events. You watched the class of 2020 lose their senior year, and you undoubtedly wondered what yours would hold. Each step from August to graduation has been tentative. Each day a guessing game. Your senior year has been hidden behind a mask, isolated in quarantine, and anonymized virtually – a year characterized by uncertainty and confusion. You endured a level of angst not seen in recent generations. 

As someone who graduated over 30 years ago, I must confess that normalcy is a myth, and you have taught me that lesson. Over the course of the last year, we have watched you make the hidden seen, connect beyond the isolation, and stubbornly refuse to disappear into the cloud. While we older folks have been somewhat paralyzed, you have navigated all of this with aplomb and maturity beyond your years. You embraced the angst of life and have emerged with a perspective unlike any other Senior Class in history. You not only survived and overcame it. I believe you have transcended it all.

Concepts like normalcy or the good old days are simply idealized myths built upon the best of intentions, but idealized versions of life often hold us back more than they help because those things were rarely as good as we remember them. Memory is like a slick Instagram account – the bad stuff has been airbrushed out. The snapshots we choose are never as perfect as they seem. Consequently, as people experience the angst of life contrasted with these myths of perfection, they often assume they are somehow abnormal. On the contrary, we all struggled to navigate it all at your age, but few of us faced the challenges you shared. Just remember, we only post the pics we want others to see. 

Your class, however, has endured this corporately on a level unseen in generations – a lifetime of angst crammed into one critical year. You can see beyond the myths because you endured it together. Faced with so many airbrushed versions of reality, you could have easily despaired, but I believe you are the men and women who have transcended the angst to emerge as the most resilient cohort in a generation. You will not be trapped in a perpetual adolescence, for you can see clearly through masks older generations cannot, and you can see the future better than we can.

After navigating so much simply to graduate, you can handle just about anything. Seniors in my district were blessed to be in a community that navigated all the insanity to keep school open their senior year, but many seniors were not so fortunate. In either case, however, you will find your fellow seniors as resilient as you. This year provided you with a good template for life: no problem is too big and no one else can define how you face adversity. Problems are meant to be solved and adversity is meant to be overcome. You have done both with grace and maturity beyond your years. Yes, aplomb.

I have written many messages to senior classes, but none as strange as this one. I might be missing it, but I think that’s the key. I cannot possibly understand what you have faced or overcome to graduate. None before you can, either, but we can nonetheless celebrate your stepping forward into adulthood as perhaps the best-equipped class in a generation for the uncertain but glorious future before us all.  Congratulations, class of 2021, and much respect. You persevered, and you did so with a style all your own. God bless you all. 

Tom Deighan is a public educator and currently serves as Superintendent of Duncan Public Schools. He may be reached at deighantom@gmail.com

The Nagging Issue of Experience

By
Tom Deighan
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I recently brought my rapidly aging pickup in for repairs on its flux capacitor, and after telling my mechanic my plans to get 300,000 miles out of it, he offered me some advice. Upon learning that his personal truck had nearly 300,000 on the odometer, I counted his advice as Gospel, grounded to his solid track record of ability and expertise. He has earned my trust and business as a result.

Thirty years ago, I tinkered on my own vehicles, often causing more damage because I assumed my driving experience translated to mechanical expertise. I have noticed that public schools are approached similarly. We have all attended school; we all have driven cars, and neither have changed much in thirty years. How hard can it be to fix an engine or our entire educational system?  

Over the past 12 years, Oklahoma has adopted, canceled, replaced, re-adopted, re-cancelled and modified so much that we can’t claim two years of consistency. Notably, we have changed our state’s curriculum no less than four times since 2010. We started with PASS, switched to Common Core, switched back to PASS, and hastily drafted Oklahoma Academic Standards (OAS), which curiously resemble Common Core. Perhaps, we have overestimated our expertise, because after fifty trips to AutoZone, everything still pulls to the left, and it now makes weirder sounds.

Several years of consistency are needed to evaluate a curriculum, but Oklahoma has not properly implemented anything in over a decade. To make it worse, we started all over with the 2020 closures and testing cancellations. Of course, all this tinkering unfolded with widespread bi-partisan support, and we continue to confidently tinker without understanding the parts. Unfortunately, anyone with substantive administrative experience is disqualified from leading our state because they have made too many tough decisions. Consequently, an entire generation of students has graduated knowing nothing but inconsistency, curricular confusion, and finger-pointing.

This year, we will select our new state superintendent, and for the first time in a generation of students, we will have a veteran classroom teacher leading our schools. Despite their driving experience, however, we do not know their mechanical abilities. Surprisingly, managing a school, a district, or a multi-billion-dollar state agency requires some expertise and experience – teams of teams who know the ramifications of modifying or removing the flux capacitors. (Yes, Mr. McFly, I know that’s make-believe.)  Their new DeLorean is not only bigger but also infinitely more complex.

The nagging issue of experience, therefore, looms over our schools. Lofty ideas of disrupting the status quo and abruptly adopting/cancelling programs are nothing new for Oklahoma – look at the last 12 years and the revolving door of hastily adopted legislative “fixes” for schools that required many trips to AutoZone. Look at how many times we have dismantled the third-grade Reading Sufficiency Act under the shade tree, and you will understand. 

Our next state superintendent will be an experienced classroom teacher, but the victor will need seasoned mechanics to help them. Someone with 300,000 miles on their odometer would be nice, but with so much dark money and non-Oklahoman influences in this election, we should be very interested in everyone behind the scenes. Hopefully, they understand the ramifications of marginalizing parents or rejecting federal funds . . . you know, the simple stuff!  Admittedly, anyone can work on a car, but maybe we need to see some odometers and resumes. 

After all, Oklahoma roads are much different than California’s or Florida’s, where we seem to get so many of our new ideas. I am confident I will reach 300,000 miles on my Ram, but I wonder how much more well-intentioned but inexperienced tinkering our state’s schools can tolerate. (Unless, of course, that is the plan.)  It will be nice to have a classroom teacher in the Oliver Hodge Building; let’s hope they assemble a solid team of drivers and mechanics as they fulfill their promises to “fix” everything in our local schools, including those pesky flux capacitors.

Tom Deighan is a public educator and author of Shared Ideals in Public Schools. You may email him at deighantom@gmail.com.

Toby Dawn’s Flaming Pennies

By
Tom Deighan
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0

“Flaming pennies are ruining our country, Tommy Boy!”  My lifelong friend and childhood hero, Toby Dawn McIntyre cornered me recently to bloviate on the ills of society. “Flaming pennies,” he explained, “are the less than 1% of people who have completely lost the ability to discuss or conversate civilly, so they set the whole world on fire to get their way.”  (Conversate is also Toby’s terminology.)  He continued, “Most people can engage in rational discourse, even when they vehemently disagree, but not these flaming pennies. There aren’t many of them, but they are destroying this nation.”  

As Toby talked, I remembered the story of Sampson lighting foxes’ tails on fire and sending them into the fields. Those angry and terrified foxes wrought havoc as they recklessly destroyed everything around them.  But instead of foxes, I now pictured little copper Abraham Lincoln heads rolling through communities.  Pennies are small, but if they were on fire or red hot, no one would be safe because it only takes a tiny spark to start a wildfire.  Toby Dawn then warned me to check between my couch cushions before pantomiming an explosion with his hands.  He said “Poof!” as he walked away.  I was disappointed he didn’t have a little smoke bomb for dramatic effect. 

My friend Toby might just be on to something. I interact with a lot of people every day, and a lot more interact about me on social media.  The flaming pennies sure get a lot of attention, but they really are the exception. In fact, I have not encountered very many flaming pennies in my lifetime, even including the COVID age. I see them on television, in my news feed, and on social media, but I have met very few real-live flaming pennies focused on destroying everything and everyone to make a point.   

To be clear, I interact regularly with a lot of very passionate people with very sincere beliefs that they will never compromise.  I also encounter a lot of really upset people on a regular basis.   People who are willing to hurt others or their community to make a point, however?  Honestly, not very many, and I once had a guy named Vern chase me with a machete.  Even Vern calmed down . . . eventually, so despite it all, I believe that most people are still capable of having a civil, rational, and adult conversation.

A good example of this is our recent board meeting when they engaged the community on the most difficult of issues: face masks.  We are all aware of such meetings spiraling into chaos, but we never hear about the thousands of school boards and city councils across the nation who have held meetings on the issue without incident.  Yes, we had very passionate people with opposite views provide input.  Community members also spoke at the board meeting, and every single person was respectful, rational, and tolerant of differing opinions.  Not a single flaming penny in the group!  No one was willing to set the board meeting on fire or to insult anyone else to prove a point.  Just a group of rational adults having civil discourse about a very complex issue.  What a radical idea. Where were the cable channels when we needed them?

As often happens after such complex discussions, no decision was made, but the meeting turned into something more meaningful than even masks.  As one attendee explained, the rest of the world is losing its capacity for tolerance. Our community, however, once again modeled the tolerance we hope to see in our children. People treated each other with dignity and respect, despite conflicting views.  I couldn’t be prouder as a superintendent. 

I am struggling with Toby Dawn’s theory about flaming pennies, however, because on social media, it sure seems like more than 1%.  Maybe flaming quarters?  Nevertheless, a keyboard can often make people seem bigger and more threatening, so again, Toby Dawn might just be on to something with his crazy flaming pennies. (Disclaimer: no foxes or Verns were harmed during production.)

Tom Deighan is currently the superintendent of Duncan Public Schools. He may be reached at deighantom@gmail.com  You may read past articles at www.mostlyeducational.com

Safety and Security in Schools

By
Tom Deighan
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This is part of a series of ten summertime articles mapping the common ground upon which parents, educators, and communities can unite regarding one of the most divisive topics in America: public education. 

At over 6 feet tall in 7th grade, Jake towered over the other students in the hallway.  On this day, however, the double-barrel shotgun crooked over his arm is what caught my eye.  A crowded hallway . . . a teenager with a gun . . . every educator’s nightmare!  Fortunately, this was twenty-five years ago. 

“No shells,” he reassured me, placing two fingers in the barrels. “I had to give a dumb gun safety speech, but I’m running it to the pickup before your class.”  Jake was 13 and had no business driving, but I trusted him completely with a gun.  That was long ago in a small rural school where we hosted school turkey shoots as fund-raisers.  His pickup wouldn’t have been the only one with a firearm or a gun rack.  Times certainly have changed! 

I have written about the 80/80/80 rule in public education (80% of parents and 80% of educators agree on 80% of the issues), but it may be more of a 95% rule when we consider safety and security.   Virtually all parents and educators agree on this issue.  As superintendent, I have served in a small rural district with no local police department, which meant we were on our own in an emergency.  I have also served in a large urban district that had its own police department.  Approaches to safety and security vary depending on the district and community, but all parents and educators agree on some basic principles.

First and foremost, parents demand to know that school staff are not only qualified professionally but that they are also good people.  It may sound unfair to label people as good or bad, but there’s really not much gray area on this issue.  Adults can afford to interact with each other within broad parameters, but when it comes to children, people are either good or bad.  Ask any parent, and I suspect you will find widespread agreement in their definitions.  Parents only want good people working in schools.  Period.

Beyond just trusting the staff, parents also expect their children to be protected from unwanted intruders.  The doors should be locked, the playground fenced, and staff should have reasonable procedures to limit access to the school.  In addition to being a security issue, this is also a practical matter because schools are so easily disrupted. The best-intentioned visitors can easily cause chaos by showing up on the playground or in a classroom unannounced.  Trust me, I check in at the office every time, even as the boss, because we are ultimately considering the worst-case scenario.    

God forbid, if a threat emerges in a school, parents want to know that staff will do whatever is necessary to protect their children from any harm.  How schools plan for this varies widely. Evasion, isolation, and evacuation are always options, but any bad person threatening a child should be decisively stopped by whatever means necessary.  More and more districts are hiring armed security or arming their staff due to this fear.  Threaten a child with a gun, and political differences quickly evaporate, at least for that moment.

Once schools reasonably ensure that children are safe and secure, we can worry about all the normal kid stuff, but things have changed a lot since I saw Jake in the hallway with a shotgun.  We didn’t worry as much about guns 25 years ago, but we also did not worry about cyber-bullying or online safety either. Of course, no school is perfectly secure, but statistically speaking, schools are still the safest place for a child. Parents and educators from wildly different backgrounds actually work together every day on this and other critical educational issues.  I bet Jake is a parent now, and I bet his 13-year-old can safely handle a shotgun and a pickup truck.  I also bet that he would agree with most parents and educators about the importance of safety and security, even regarding double-barrel shotguns.

Tom Deighan is a public educator and currently serves as Superintendent of Duncan Public Schools. He may be reached at deighantom@gmail.com

More Juvenile Justice and Mental Health Needed

By
Tom Deighan
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The specter of a school shooting always lurks in the back of parents’ and educators’ minds, but this week, it openly torments us. Adequate prayers cannot be uttered at a time like this, but we pray, nonetheless.  In the days and weeks ahead, we will learn more details, but we will also lose focus and interest as well.  Before that happens, we must seize our current state of crystal clarity and chart a different course regarding school safety, juvenile justice, and juvenile mental health.      

First, we must recognize who is to blame for this school shooting. Yes, the Uvalde shooter was troubled, bullied, and disadvantaged, but so are billions of children who do not do such things.  This young man was simply evil.  Yes, he was once a good boy, but in the end, he proved to be pure evil. Yes, he watched bad movies, listened to bad music, and visited bad websites, but unlike the countless others who also do those things, he chose to do evil. Yes, in hindsight, everyone could have done more for him, but he alone is responsible for his evil acts, not everyone and everything else who could not see the future.  Evil people will always have somewhat of an advantage because normal people do not think the way they think.  Evil people have an even greater advantage, however, when we are unwilling to recognize evil, or we keep blaming evil actions on everyone but the evil person. He and he alone is responsible for this. 

Our responsibilities lie in trying to prevent this in the future, while this is fresh on our mind. We must commit to quickly rebuilding our juvenile justice and mental health systems. Almost without exception, people who were close to school shooters recognized the evil tendencies, but they rarely had any options because we have completely dismantled our juvenile justice and mental health systems in recent decades. Schools are clearly not equipped to serve the modern variants of violent or disturbed children, but schools are often legally required to keep violent and disturbed children in school with everyone else. 

We recognize the right of all students to attend school free of harmful adults. The same right should apply regarding a school free of violent or disturbed children.  We know that the earlier we identify and serve them appropriately, the better chance we have of helping them, and this cannot always happen in school.  I don’t know if the Uvalde shooter had such services available, but they are almost non-existent in Oklahoma. We desperately need a robust juvenile justice and mental health system for kids who pose a threat to other children, so they can get the help they need at early ages.  

Thankfully, few children turn evil, but those who are struggling deserve the appropriate mental health services, and often that means long-term, in-patient mental health care, especially for the violent or disturbed. School shootings are extremely rare, but the numbers of violent and disturbed children are growing, and they should not attend school with everyone else until they have received the services they need.  Such children are suffering greatly, and they also have a disproportionate impact on the schools they attend – even if they do not turn into shooters. No one wishes to institutionalize any child, but without that option, we are institutionalizing whole schools.   

We need a system to serve disturbed or violent children before they turn evil for their sake and for the sake of schools struggling to deal with them. This is a very difficult discussion, and not very politically correct for a superintendent, but we clearly need to adopt new strategies for this growing segment of students. They deserve to be helped, and our schools deserve to be safe, but we do not currently have the system to serve them.  While this wound is fresh, let’s commit to create that system.  And although our prayers seem inadequate, keep praying for our brothers and sisters in Uvalde.   

Tom Deighan is author of Shared Ideals in Public Schools. You may email him at  deighantom@gmail.com and read past articles at www.mostlyeducational.com

A Few Voucher Questions

By
Tom Deighan
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Yes, I am a public school superintendent, but I have never opposed school choice, be it charters or vouchers. I firmly believe locally controlled public schools – schools truly in the hands of parents and local educators – can compete with any other structure, no matter how epic. As our state barrels toward vouchers, however, I wonder if we have learned from the epic nightmare that allowed millions of Oklahoma tax dollars to be secreted away by an online virtual charter school. If that stuff happened in your local school, it would be an open-and-shut case. 

I do not fear school choice, because frankly, the traditional educational establishment has alienated ourselves from parents and educators at the local level in recent years.  People wonder why educators do not show up at the polls, and I suspect it is because we have allowed radical national voices to shape our message in Oklahoma. Oklahoma parents and educators are not radicals. In such an environment, I cannot dismiss parents’ legitimate concerns and demands for more options. 

Unfortunately, the radical alternative paints all public schools as evil places. And likewise, few local parents see their community schools as evil (it’s those other schools), and they do not wish to see their local funds disappear into some epic sinkhole.  Local parents and educators want the same thing: Safe, Caring, Healthy, Open, Orderly Learning Spaces where kids can learn (S.C.H.O.O.L.S.).  As long as we continue to allow Marxists or Crony Capitalists to sanction our options, however, your local community schools will continue to be either overregulated and bureaucratized or systematically dismantled and sold to the highest bidders. I don’t believe this is the school choice parents envision, either.

Hopefully, our state’s epic journey has taught us that rules for the politically connected and powerful, on either side of the aisle, should be the same.  If that is the case, public schools can compete with anyone. That’s why Public Money, Public Rules must apply to vouchers. This cuts both ways. If the rules are good enough for public schools, they should be good enough for voucher funds poured into private and for-profit schools. Conversely, if the rules are not reasonable for private or for-profit schools, they should not be applied to public schools. I have never encountered a single educator who opposes this logic, for the current rules are killing neighborhood schools.  Likewise, I have never encountered a single private school educator willing to deal with all our rules, tons of cash notwithstanding.

I realize that there is nothing more dangerous than asking questions nowadays, but Oklahomans might consider some as we move forward on vouchers. Will they report four, five, and six-year graduation cohort rates?  Will they be penalized for drop-outs, even if they move to other states?  Must their teachers and principals suffocate under the obsolete, time-wasting TLE Evaluation system?  Will the salaries of ALL staff be reported publicly?  Will their students take all of the irrelevant, state-mandated, federally-driven, Common-Core Friendly standardized tests?  Will they pick-and-choose which kids they enroll?  Will they receive A-F scores? If voucher students don’t “fit,” will these “other kids” be sent packing to their home school district? (As it currently happens.)  Will they return the remaining funds to the home school? (This currently does not happen.) Will they pay their teachers according to the minimum salary? Who will track and ensure the money has been spent appropriately?  How do we avoid thousands of tiny little scandals that could easily create an even more epic disaster for Oklahoma? 

Here’s a suggestion: let’s just pattern the new voucher system after the medical marijuana laws. Let’s invite out-of-state or foreign bad actors to milk the state for all its worth and damage rural communities. When it becomes a political liability, we can courageously and slowly fix those laws to protect Oklahomans.  We could even throw some drug money at the schools (for the kids!). Wait a minute, this all sounds strangely familiar. Perhaps, the real question: Is this some sort of epic template?

Tom Deighan is superintendent of Duncan Public Schools. You may email him at  deighantom@gmail.com and read past articles at www.mostlyeducational.com

Burp Detectors and Voucher Funds 

By
Tom Deighan
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On March 7th, 2022 at approximately 7:23 P.M., during a public board meeting at an undisclosed public school district in Oklahoma, a board member burped very discreetly. No one in attendance noticed, but within seconds, a series of analog reels began whirring in an unmarked basement office in the Oklahoma State Department of Education.  Moments later, a thin sliver of paper emerges. “Broccoli, she had broccoli for lunch,” a federal agent announces. “Log it and document a trace of wasabi. ” Another tiny slip of paper emerges, and he hits a large red button.  “Red alert. We got curry.” Warning lights strobe. “Repeat, curry in section four! This is not a drill.”

Public school board members, students, parents, and staff know that virtually every aspect of their school day is an open record, subject to public accountability, scrutiny, and documentation. And while we hope that burp-detectors are just a myth, no one really knows who reviews all this “data.” We only know it’s on a shelf somewhere, ready when needed. For the record, I also had broccoli last night, seasoned with Ms. Dash. (I respect her too much to call her Mrs. Dash.) I will file the correct forms after Spring Break.

During this session of the legislature, the issue of school choice and vouchers have been center stage, and a very curious thing seems to be happening.  Oklahomans are starting to ask if the burp-detectors currently plaguing public schools will follow the voucher funds. Oklahomans are very self-reliant, and we passionately support personal freedom, but we also know how to pinch a penny. We don’t oppose vouchers; we just want to know where the burp-detectors will go in these private schools. It appears that as much as Okies like school choice, they also want to know where their hard-earned tax dollars are going.

No one claims our current system is perfect.  Parents, educators, and students have been systematically alienated in recent years by being forced to choose between either Marxism or Crony Capitalism.  These are false choices, for true school choice does not begin with far-away, out-of-state interests telling us Okies how to run our schools. Local Oklahoma educators are not radicals committed to usurping parental rights, and local Oklahoma parents do not wish to burn down their local schools.  True choice begins at the local level by truly re-empowering local educators and parents.

I have never met a single private or homeschool proponent who wants the government burp-detectors. Likewise, I don’t know any public education parent comfortable with the government monitoring their kids’ cabbage levels.  Consequently, the issue of vouchers has become much more difficult as Okies have begun asking questions about accountability and oversight of “voucher” funds. People can agree or disagree with how public schools spend money, but anyone can review every single penny. Will the same public rules apply to vouchers?

In recent weeks, it appears that what has been good for roasting the public goose is problematic for the private gander. Everyone knows if public schools are serving curry, wasabi, or Ms. Dash, so the same transparency should apply to the voucher goose. I have no clue how to season a goose, but Okies want to know the recipe if their tax dollars are being used. This is not as political as it is practical. Oklahomans wish to avoid another epic scandal with school funds.  Public Money, Public Rules seems to be a reasonable solution for Okies on both sides of the issue. If the burp-detectors are not good enough for voucher funds, maybe we should reconsider them in your local schools. Unfortunately, we all know where this is heading in the future . . . Dateline: August 23, 2025.  Principal Smith sits in his new government-issued chair. Within seconds, a series of computers begin whirring in unmarked basement offices in Washington D.C. . . .

Please pray for wisdom among our state leaders on this difficult issue. Pray for a sense of humor, and above all, please pray for the safety of all Oklahoma schools this Second Sunday of the Month.

Tom Deighan is superintendent of Duncan Public Schools. You may email him at  deighantom@gmail.com and read past articles at www.mostlyeducational.com

Tap-Dancing Toddlers

By
Tom Deighan
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When I recently saw a YouTube video touting a tap-dancing toddler, I was intrigued. After all, toddlers can barely toddle. Unfortunately, my hopes were cruelly dashed. The kid was awesome, but he was no toddler. A quick search confirmed my suspicion that little evidence exists of real toddlers tap-dancing. The one video I found with tiny tapping tots was painfully cute, but it also proved that they need to master walking and standing first. We might as well teach them to juggle. 

No one can be an expert until they have mastered the essentials. Nevertheless, public schools have been forcing children to tap-dance and juggle long before they are developmentally ready or have sufficient time to master the fundamentals. Over the last twenty years, teaching and learning have been gradually replaced with a cultish devotion to increasingly unrealistic standardized tests. This has all been initiated at the federal level and exacerbated at the state level with broad bi-partisan support. Consequently, Uncle Sam now dictates more of a child’s school day than parents, teachers, or principals. 

States simply made it worse by adding layers upon layer to the federal requirements. Among the dozens of educational “fixes” since 2010, I cannot identify a single curriculum reform in Oklahoma that has remained unchanged for more than two years. We are not only asking our children to hunt bumblebees with bows and arrows, but they are also expected to tap dance while they are doing it — blindfolded. Even if teaching to the test worked, we would need consistency and reliability to play the game. 

Unfortunately, when a teacher knows that third graders have not yet mastered basic multiplication, they are compelled to move on to Algebra. I would love all my third graders to do Algebra (and many can), but my fourth-grade teachers really need them to multiply first, so they can master division. Just ask middle and high school teachers what they must reteach as a result. State and federal mandates force teachers to cover so much stuff that they can no longer teach the essentials to mastery. 

After 20 years of this federal culture and after over a decade of insanity in Oklahoma’s curriculum,  teachers have been reduced to implementers and children to bubblers. Education has become a conveyor belt driven by far-away bureaucratic and corporate agendas. According to such results, one may propose that Oklahoma’s children cannot learn, but that is preposterous. No, we are told that Oklahoma teachers cannot teach, so we need to add more regulation, more rigor, more mandates, and to speed up the conveyor belt. 

Not only are Oklahoma public school children capable of learning – regardless of their background – Oklahoma teachers are more than capable of teaching. Both, however, must be afforded the freedom and time to master the right things. Good coaches know that they need kids who can dribble and shoot lay-ups before teaching fade-away jump shots. Teachers and parents likewise understand that children must master certain essential skills before we expect them to juggle chainsaws and tap dance like Gregory Hines. I am a career public educator, and I have dutifully tried to follow the standardized script, but I can no longer pretend it’s reliable or valid enough to do so.  

Yes, we must still take these tests, just as we must pay taxes, but we must also recognize them primarily as political tools. They reveal little about a child’s college or career readiness or a teacher’s ability to teach. At best, they should be isolated events in the spring, so we can focus mainly on graduating students ready for the real world. Our teachers and children deserve the freedom, time, and support to master those essential grade skills that truly prepare them for college and career success. Our kids can learn and our teachers can teach, but we need to have the courage to trust them more than bureaucrats and corporations. If we do this, I believe we will have more kids tap-dancing and juggling than ever before, not because they have chased the standardized bumblebee but because they first learned to master walking and throwing and running and catching. And if you get time, search YouTube for tap-dancing toddlers to see some really cute stuff.  

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