CCOSA Report

from Better Schools Spring 2025

By Dr. Randall Raburn, CCOSA Executive Director

The Seventy-fifth Anniversary of OASA, OAESP, and OASSP will be celebrated at both the CCOSA Summer Conference in June and the OSSBA-CCOSA Education Conference in late August. The theme, Our Place in Time, fits well with the Seventy-Fifth. Even our keynote speaker, Neil Howe, will talk about Generations, a book authored with William Strauss, and about their newest book, Millennials Rising. Mr. Howe’s presentation should be very interesting.

What about our place in time?

In our time, Oklahoma led the reform movement in the early 80s with general education and subject area testing for teachers. More students are taking AP courses and plan to attend college. Funds were provided for professional development by HB 1706, and other reform initiatives were included in the act. Soon the “A Nation at Risk” report was released and additional reforms came forth.

Oklahoma, along with the nation, has been reforming ever since. The most comprehensive Oklahoma reform in our state’s history was the passage of HB 1017 developed by the Task Force 2000. To fund this program, taxes were raised. Even with the increased funding provided by 1017, today we still rank near the bottom in funding for education among the states. The gains of 1017 were lost when the state surplus of the 90s was followed by tax reductions and the passage of SQ 640, which required tax increases to pass both houses by 75%. Shortly afterwards, the economy slowed down.

A significant tax increase has not occurred since SQ 640, and the current surplus is likely to be gone with tax reductions rather than investing in Oklahoma’s roads and bridges, education, health issues, and increasing Medicare’s state funding. Surplus funds could be used to strengthen the Teachers’ Retirement System and improve benefits for current retirees while eliminating the inequities in the system for Rule of 80 educators. They are the only active members of any of Oklahoma’s retirement systems that have limitations on contributions that ultimately will limit their retirement benefits. How much longer will Oklahoma educators be penalized?

On another subject, over twelve years ago, in partnership with the American Association of School Administrators and Discover Card, a college scholarship program was developed that utilized OASA teams from various school districts to choose the students to receive scholarships. Last year, OASA teams of superintendents and community leaders selected nine high school juniors to receive the Discover Card Tribute Award Scholarship of

$2,500 each. The students receiving scholarships from Discover Card for 2004-2005 are: Sarah Effinger, Northwest Classen High School, Oklahoma City; Derek Ellis, BT Washington High School, Tulsa; Autom George, Pawnee High School; Chelsea Henning, Dibble High School; Carrie Highfill, Chisholm High School, Enid; Kaylee McDaniel, Idabel High School; Ronald Pittman, Okeene High School. In addition, two other students, Tiffany Grant of Sperry High School and RhaShonda Keehn of Madill High School, were also selected as National Winners and received $25,000 scholarships. Since its inception, Oklahoma has had more national winners than any other state.

Unfortunately, Discover Card did not renew its contract with AASA. I enjoyed putting the Oklahoma teams together and meeting the leaders from five different communities for the past ten years. As I listened to the leaders describe the students, some with significant obstacles to overcome, I was very proud of our students and the schools that served them. I enjoyed our place in time. ■ and endpoint security.

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