By Linda Murphy

Oklahomans are rightly concerned about being labeled as 50th in education. The “bottom of the barrel,” so to speak, among all of the states is not what how we want to be known. There is a solution to this serious problem, and we have educators in our state who know how to fix it. The obstacle in the past 30 plus years has been the federal education laboratory solutions imposed on our schools. Top - down control through processes and testing requirements created by sociologists, not educators, and sold in the name of creating better “accountability” have failed repeatedly.

In 1993, when President Bill Clinton took office, he brought with him education plans created and funded by David Rockefeller and the Carnegie Foundation’s National Center for Education and the Economy (NCEE). Marc Tucker, CEO and President of NCEE from1988 to 2019, wrote a letter to Hillary Clinton when Bill was elected. He celebrated the victory and went on to describe the education plans they had worked on with David Rockefeller for several years.

These plans contained in the “Dear Hillary Letter” (Sept. 17, 1998, Congressional Record - Representative Bob Schaffer) are for a “cradle to grave” system to gather and store data on individual children through employment as adults. It includes the use of technology, which today is far advanced. The focus was on improving the economic condition and GDP – gross domestic product output. Workforce testing, labeling, and sorting students into job categories as directed by the global corporate leaders was the core focus.

Through the “Outcomes Based Education” and “School-to-Work” federal models, the states started implementing radical changes called for by Dr. William Spady. It required excessive “group learning” and for first graders to “monitor their own reading progress.” Spady, a sociologist, was the U.S. Department of Education’s top-official at the Far West Laboratory where he coined the term Outcomes Based Education (OBE). He came to Oklahoma to teach leaders to implement OBE.

In 1995 Oklahoma repealed OBE from our state law and returned to an academic focus with Priority Academic Student Skills (PASS). Today, Dr. Spady trains “leaders” using insight from spiritual Shaman according to his website: “Bill calls his decades of consciousness-raising inner work my ‘Amazing Journey of Spiritual Awakening.’” It took form in 1975, deepened and evolved profoundly during the 1990s, and continues unabated to this day. During these 45 years he worked closely with, or intensely absorbed, the teachings and processes of the Lifespring Organization, (names several individuals) and both North and South American shamans. His Opening to Greater Realities book captures four decades of those many “Amazing” consciousness-expanding experiences. Bill continues to explore, integrate, and describe those greater realities in his life, culminating in the three life-changing Courses being offered on this website. (www.innerstanding.life) Dr. Spady’s federal plans failed to produce good results and cost millions/billions of dollars because they had been mandated into our state law until Oklahomans rose up to repeal them. Should we be surprised?

Then in 2001 President George W. Bush came into office. On January 23rd he proposed the use of federal aid to create a plan to “hold schools accountable” for the educational outcomes of students. The “No Child Left Behind” federal bill was championed by Senator Ted Kennedy and President Bush working together in a “bipartisan” agreement. It was signed into law in 2002 and ushered in the greatest federal control over local public schools and teachers that America has ever seen. The results from the Federal control of education were once again disastrous.

Under President Barack Obama 2008-2017, the State Longitudinal Data System (SLDS) was funded and implemented in Oklahoma. State Superintendent Janet Barressi hired John Kraman from Washington DC to put the SLDS in place to collect and store student data. The system was designed to share the data to numerous other “stake holders” including the Federal Government and from there to UN affiliated education entities. Obama and Barresi also oversaw Common Core State Standards and testing implementation. Oklahoma’s standards were by state law once again taken away from the strong academic focus of traditional education and changed to a focus on “higher order thinking” and changing attitudes, values and beliefs through evaluating and training social emotional learning skills.

Just before President Obama left office, the Bush era “No Child Left Behind” federal legislation was replaced by another “bi-partisan” agreement between Senators Lamar Alexander (R-TN) and Patty Murray (D-WA), who were the primary architects of the “Every Student Succeeds Act ” (ESSA).

The following is an AI summary of ESSA-Federal control of local schools:

“The ESSA maintained the core principle of accountability from NCLB, but changed how it was implemented. Key provisions that Alexander and Murray championed include:

– More state and local control: States were given more authority to develop their own accountability systems to measure school performance, rather than the ‘one-size-fits-all’ model under NCLB.

– Reduced emphasis on standardized testing: While annual testing was kept, the new law aimed to reduce reliance on high-stakes testing. This gave teachers and students more time for instruction instead of test preparation.

– Expanded access to preschool: At Senator Murray's urging, the ESSA included investments to improve and expand access to high-quality preschool programs.

– Rejection of federal mandates: The bill specifically prohibited the federal government from mandating or incentivizing states to adopt any “particular set” of academic standards, such as Common Core.”

In 2014 Joy Hofemiester was elected State Superintendent. She traveled to Washington D.C. to testify before Congress about the ESSA legislation. She told Congress that we “want you to hold us accountable.” Her testimony was the opposite of what the Republican party had stood for; smaller government and local control of education. Never have I heard another Republican say that we want the Federal Government to hold our local schools and teachers accountable to them.

Oklahomans repealed the Common Core State Standards in 2014, before Hofmeister was elected in November and she got into office saying she opposed Common Core. In office she directed the writing of new Standards, but instead of following the law, which prohibited Common Core State Standards and Testing, she implemented “renamed common core” styled standards and tests. We are still operating under the plan that Hofmeister created.

Oklahoma had the opportunity to turn around our academic performance in the schools which are performing very poorly on the National Assessment of Education Progress (NAEP) federal test. Political agendas got in the way and stopped the work on creating Oklahoman’s own Academic Standards as our state law requires.

The English Language Arts (ELA) plan was being created by a team that included conservative educator Mark Bauerlein, Professor of English at Emory University. I had the honor of working with Mark on an ELA plan and listened as he shared his experience helping other states work on turning around their performance with good academic standards and methods. Oklahoma has many well educated and experienced teachers who have worked voluntarily to put our state plan, standards, and testing on the right track.

It is no surprise that political agendas have been pushed by misusing information. Few Oklahomans know that less than 5% of our schools are tested by NAEP, which is used to rank education systems and compare states nationwide. Those schools which are failing must be improved!

In 2026 Oklahomans have an opportunity to elect a State School Superintendent who has the knowledge and experience to lead the turn around we need. It is time to make sure our students in all public schools receive a solid academic foundation.