The budget battle

As summed up in Janet Pearson's editorial in the Tulsa World, it looks as though most of next year's state budget will be settled in the next few days. This includes the supplemental appropriation to make up much of the teacher raise that was left unfunded last year.

Note that increasing funding for alternative education is still one of the Governor's priorities. There are several reasons that increased funding is needed:

1. Professional development to meet the NCLB "highly qualified teacher" requirements. Many Oklahoma alternative education teachers teach multiple subjects -- heck, they teach ALL subjects, and the "highly qualified" regulations lack the flexibility to keep excellent teachers from having to jump through all kinds of paperwork hoops, just so they can keep doing great work with our most at-risk youth. $300,000 could put a program in place that would make this problem disappear. At the same time, it would provide an excellent professional development resource for all Oklahoma alternative ed teachers.
2. Alternative education, which would carry much of the burden of implementing the Governor's dropout initiative, has still not recovered from the 25% budget cut a few years ago. A little has been added back each year, but programs are still running on only 95% of their original funding.
3. Updating the funding formula cannot be accomplished until full funding is achieved. It would take $2.5 million to properly rework the formula so that the dollars were directed to the programs that were serving the greatest numbers of students, while holding current programs harmless.
We'll keep y'all posted....
If you have any questions about any of these issues, post a comment, talk to your field coordinator, or call/email Dr. McKean.
We're looking forward to seeing a lot of students at Alternative Education Day at the Capitol next week. It's always one of the best days of the year, seeing the students and some of their best work proudly displayed in the rotunda.