By O’Colly Editorial Board
O’ Colly Newspaper
Oklahoma State University
Monday, there will be thousands of empty classrooms across Oklahoma.
Oklahoma teachers are participating in a walkout, protesting a long history of legislative budget cuts in education spending that have tanked Oklahoma’s ranking in education and average teacher salaries.
This failed policy of underfunding Oklahoma’s future generations has teachers leaving our state for neighboring states, where they can receive a living wage, and now, has led to a statewide walkout.
As an editorial board, we support the teachers’ decision to take a stand.
Several of us have parents, aunts, uncles or grandparents who are teachers. Several of us also have younger siblings in Oklahoma public schools who have struggled because of the lack of state education funding.
And all of us are college students, which means we couldn’t have made it to where we are now without support from our teachers.
It’s far past time for the Oklahoma government to start appreciating them.
A low education budget has made a visibly negative impact on public schools across the state. Classrooms are consolidated and overcrowded. Many teachers have to instruct multiple subjects and are overloaded with responsibilities because of the teacher shortage.
This walkout won’t be easy for anyone.
Students who rely on school lunch every day will need food assistance, and if the walkout drags on, the need for teachers to return to the classrooms will grow stronger as working parents must find new childcare options.
Although the path to fixing this problem won’t be easy, enough is enough. It’s time to support our teachers and the future leaders of our communities.
Benjamin Franklin once said, “An investment in knowledge pays the best interest.”
Until this state’s government cares to make enough of an investment, we’ll never know how much interest it could pay and how much of a difference quality education could make in the futures of Oklahoma children.