OPINION/COLUMN
The 2026 legislative session has officially ended.
Normally we go through May, but everything ended a little earlier this year.
I want to talk a little bit about the recap I’m hearing from my Republican colleagues and give you a bigger picture response to what’s missing in their descriptions of how the session went.
We’re hearing a lot about how our work this year strengthened public education, especially when it comes to reading. It’s true that we focused on literacy with the Strong Readers Act. A big emphasis was retention of third graders who aren’t meeting the testing goals. I was really proud of the work of Senate Democrats, especially Senator Carri Hicks and Senator Jo Anna Dossett, both professional educators, and how they worked with the Republican author of that bill to make sure there were considerations for special education, English language learners, and for the kind of early intervention kids need to make sure they are not held back unnecessarily.
But at the same time, that bill did not address some of the biggest issues we see as ongoing problems for our public schools.
First of all, there’s the critical need for experienced teachers in our classrooms.
We’ve continued to see a huge exodus of teachers. We can’t forget this has been happening for a while, but it was made much worse by former State Superintendent Ryan Walters. We are just finishing the school year where he resigned. We started the school year with him still at the helm, still creating chaos and havoc, still attacking teachers directly, and they are tired and burned out from that.
We also see a huge need for investment. Oklahoma has not kept up with inflation. We’re $1.6 billion behind the regional average when you look at how much we spend per student. This is compared to states like Arkansas, Texas, Kansas – we’re not keeping up with what surrounding states are spending, and we’ve got to be real and recognize this affects our classrooms and our rankings. When you see a number like $1.6 billion, it seems like a whole lot, but keep in mind, that’s how much we’ve cut in taxes in the last five years. We have to be real about the fact that elected officials make those choices every day on these priorities.
The other big thing we cannot forget is class sizes.
It’s not a glamorous initiative, but we know having fewer students in the classroom allows teachers to get to know those kids better and spend more time helping each child – something you can’t do with overcrowded classrooms.
We know small class sizes matter.
I also want to point out that $25 million more is budgeted for private school vouchers, bringing the total of public dollars to $275 million a year to be set aside for unaccountable vouchers. This is going to folks to send their kids to private schools, and most of those kids were already in private schools to begin with. Plus, many of those families make over $150,000 and even over $250,000 a year. There’s no cap on that, and we don’t get any information back about whether those kids are successful or how those programs are going.
Another big educational concern is Oklahoma’s public television, OETA. Each year, we extend sunsets, which authorizes agencies to keep doing the work of the state. The Legislature gave bipartisan approval for OETA to continue its work, but the governor vetoed the bill. That means OETA has about one year to wind down operations. If we do not pass an extension next year, OETA will end.
I’m deeply concerned about the educational impact of that. I know how important our agriculture reports are, and how important OETA is for providing Oklahoma news and educational programing, and as an emergency alert and communications network. They serve all 77 counties and there is no alternative system for what they do. I hope this is something we can work on.
However, many, many of my Republican colleagues voted against the attempt to override that veto, and I am deeply concerned about what will happen to this educational agency.
The other big issue Republicans have been touting is that they passed a responsible budget. I don’t know what that’s based on, because what we saw was mostly flat budgets for services, and this is not meeting the needs of our state.
We see health and mental health issues rising. Child care is another tremendous problem. We have already seen more than 400 centers close, and we’re losing more slots daily. These facilities have lost the amount of funding they are receiving every day, plus we’re cutting back which families are eligible. The result is working families who are not making living wages now can’t afford child care, and that’s going to limit who can go to work, which limits whether they can be upwardly mobile, especially with wages as they are.
Meanwhile, the Legislature diverted money into Dream Accounts which are going to be waiting for kids to turn 18 to mirror a federal initiative. We saw a lot of money going to slush funds or pet projects in people’s own districts – those funds could be put to work for needs that are unmet today, and to save us costs down the road by addressing issues before they get worse and become much more expensive to address.
I hope during the coming months you’ll give us your feedback about the things you’d like to see addressed in the future, and what you thought about what happened in the Capitol this year.
If you have any questions or concerns, contact me at 405-521-5636 or Julia.Kirt@oksenate.gov. We want to hear from you.
Onward!
