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Oklahoma state employees learned that their retirement plans will take a $9.7 million hit due to a state law passed last year banning the state from investing in companies perceived to be adversarial to the fossil fuel industry.

The federal government put a hold on a $4.5 million family planning grant to the state because Oklahoma laws may not allow women to know all their reproductive options, including that Kansas is the nearest state for abortion services.

Dr. Chris McNeil joins the podcast this week to explain that, in his opinion, because of a poor medical recruiting system, we are losing lives, talent and time. McNeil is the only Black male resident emergency physician in Tulsa, and starting July 1, he'll be the only one in the state. He has ideas on how and why that needs to change.

A lawsuit is coming against the Oklahoma Virtual Charter School Board, which willingly ignored the Oklahoma Constitution, the state charter school law and the nations laws by approving a Catholic Church request to pay for its new religious school. One new board member who cast a vote may not have been eligible to do so.

State Attorney General Gentner Drummond advised against approval, saying the fallout will be costly for Oklahoma.

The approval is meant to provide a test case, meaning Oklahoma gets to be someone elses guinea pig in a lawsuit.

Last summer, a development officer with the Tulsa Regional Chamber told Tulsa city councilors that the states anti-LGBTQ+ and anti-abortion laws and rhetoric are making it harder to recruit businesses to the state.

State Superintendent Ryan Walters accused public schools of distributing pornography and indoctrinating children, called teachers unions terrorists and released a propaganda-laced video using racist tropes, all of which contribute to the states already severe educator shortage. His firing of workers for sharing memos, which are open records, has drawn lawsuits.

The state needs at least 4,100 more certified teachers. Feeling respected by the states top education official and other state leaders would help in recruitment.

Oklahomas new culture wars are just starting, and theyre going to get expensive.

Frustratingly, these divisive public policies arent originating from Oklahomans but rather are imported from national ideologues who are hellbent on creating their version of a utopia in their likeness.

The culture wars dont reflect actual challenges facing Oklahomans. They dont embrace the states diversity. They dont improve anything.

Culture wars have been around for decades. Nothing is new in the age-old struggle for dominance over ideas. But recent years have seen it ramped it up and brought it into public governance.

Floridas Republican governor, Ron DeSantis, became a presidential hopeful after his masterful use of a complacent supermajority Legislature to push his political dogma, creating a model for right-wing conservatives. He picked on Disney for supporting LGBTQ+ people, feuded with the College Board over the content of its AP African American studies course, restricted discussion of race, gender or sexuality in schools, and popularized the overuse of the word woke.

As of December, his moral crusades have cost Florida taxpayers at least $17 million in attorney and legal costs, according to a Miami Herald investigation. That number is rising.

Texas instituted laws on Sept. 1, 2021, forbidding municipalities from contracting with banks that restrict funding of firearms companies or the oil and gas industry through ESG environmental, social and governance policies. In the first eight months, Texans paid between $300 million and $500 million more in interest on government bonds.

In January, a study published by the nonprofit Sunrise Project found that such anti-ESG laws in the the 18 states, including Oklahoma, that have enacted them could cost taxpayers more than $708 million. Oklahomas share of that is estimated to be at least $49 million.

Typically, boycotts launched by activists played out as individuals or organizations tried to change a system or business. The most famous was the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.-led Birmingham bus boycott, which successfully challenged racial segregation.

Now more elected leaders and people in power are turning boycotts into public policies.

Lawmakers enjoying supermajorities are using their power over taxes and laws to codify their political leanings and in some cases their financial interests. Its a hammer the majority uses to beat down those with different ideas, opinions and ways of life.

The only people benefiting are attorneys, who happily prosper in a litigation-based society.

Oklahoma cannot afford to go down this road. The states population and gross domestic product ($191 billion) are significantly less than other red states that are taking a chance with these cultural battles. The state has three Fortune 500 companies, compared to 17 in Florida and 55 in Texas.

A bigger population provides a broader well of resources to push wedge issues. Oklahoma topped 4 million residents last year, but thats small compared to Floridas 22 million or the 30 million in Texas.

When Texas ($1.9 trillion GPD) or Florida ($1 trillion GDP) loses out on recruiting a major company or adds millions to its bond or investment costs, it can survive. For Oklahoma, that can be a major setback.

Oklahoma operates on a slimmer margin, and missteps have bigger consequences.

Thats just the financial bill; there is also a human toll.

Recently, Oklahoma parents of transgender children have been on social media usually only within their close network raising money and making plans to get health care out of state. If a bill had passed that would have prosecuted parents for obtaining such care, that would have forced them to move away from Oklahoma.

Those who dont care for these families and want them gone are cruel and dangerous. Our laws shouldnt harm people.

Yet some wedge issues are costing lives.

Gun safety has only worsened as the number of firearms grows. Guns are the No. 1 killer of U.S. children, and the regularity of mass shootings is a national and international embarrassment. Nothing changes.

Consensus shows Americans want and need more access to mental health care. But extremists have taken aim at social-emotional learning, which gets at the heart of healthy mental health development. People in mental health distress still get their hands on firearms.

Abortion positions, for and against, are a political litmus test. But some anti-abortion laws may be putting pregnant women and rape victims into deadly situations.

Even vaccines are politicized, not just those for COVID-19 but of generations-old inoculations that have all but eradicated diseases such as polio, measles, rubella and whooping cough. Lawmakers are making it easier to ignore immunizations.

A states actions budget priorities, laws, policies reflect upon its residents. Those who do not live here will make judgments based on words our leaders say and the decisions they make.

As a lifelong Oklahoman with five generations of roots here, I know this state has unique selling points. Tulsa and Oklahoma City have transformed themselves into dynamic cities with distinctive personalities. Rural areas have vast natural resources and playgrounds.

All of that can quickly be undermined by battles waged by ideologues who are more interested in a national profile than local progress. Oklahoma cannot afford a culture war.

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Ginnie Graham: Cost of the culture war too high and unnecessary for ... - Tulsa World

Summer is upon us, and parents, children and teachers are winding down from what has been an exhausting and fully operational school yearthe first since the devastating pandemic. The long-lasting impact of COVID-19 has affected our students and families well-being and ignited the politics surrounding public schools. All signs point to the coming school year unfolding with the same sound and fury, and if extremist culture warriors have their way, being even more divisive and stressful.

The cause? The far rights assault on public education, which theyre waging by attacking teachers and their students and trying to pit parents against us. Legislators in 45 states have proposed hundreds of laws to ban books in classrooms and school librariesfrom the illustrated adaption of Anne Franks The Diary of a Young Girl to Amanda Gormans poem The Hill We Climb, restrict what can be taught about our countrys history, and promote school vouchers that drain money from public schools. This agenda does nothing to support kids learning. It does nothing to address learning loss, rein in social media and bullying, stop gun violence, or support the record number of children struggling with mental health challenges. In Florida, for example, the latest state budget takes $4 billion in funding away from these efforts and funnels it into a voucher program.

But it turns out, book banning, educational censorship and defunding public schools are wildly unpopular. While extremists say their effort is about parents rights, national polling shows theyve overreached, because voters, including parents, say they do not want to see their kids teachers attacked and their schools politicized. A recent NPR/Ipsos poll found that most Americans (65 percent), including Republicans, oppose book bans; a majority (80 percent) support teaching race as part of our history; and 70 percent approve of their local public school teachers. Another recent poll done by the parents group Moms Rising found even higher support among moms, with 94 percent of mothers supporting teaching honest history and 78 percent opposing book bans.

Most parents want what we all want: for our children to do well in the basics like reading, math and science. They want to ensure all children, regardless of background, develop critical-thinking and practical life skills and are prepared to succeed in the future. And by an 80 percent to 20 percent margin, voters and parents want legislators to focus on improving education in public schools rather than promoting divisive political issues or expanding school choice programs that take resources out of public school classrooms.

Educators want that toobigtime. Its why we are expanding community schools that are built on partnerships to make schools hubs for providing needed services, from academic supports to legal aid to nutrition and health, helping students focus on learning.

And its why were investing in experiential learning, which helps students develop lifelong skills, using their minds and hands to learn everything from welding and auto repair to nursing, graphic design, computer science, culinary skills and plumbing.

Its also why were focusing on literacy and creating joyful, confident readers with the AFTs Reading Opens the World program, which has handed out more than 1.5 million books to students and their families and helps teachers access reading instruction support.

These foundational approaches change lives and, developed in close partnership with parents, will equip our kids with the knowledge, skills and understanding they need for college, career and life. Culture wars do the opposite.

If our extremist opponents think their attacks will slow down Americas educators or disrupt our efforts to organize and improve the lives of workers, theyre mistaken. Good things continue to happen in schools, and parents, workers and communities continue to come together to support our pro-student, pro-family, pro-worker agenda.

For example, United Teachers Los Angeles negotiated an innovative contract that provides an additional $250,000 for each community school and lets educators partner on a virtual learning platform that keeps students connected to their classrooms. The United Federation of Teachers in New York City also broke ground with its new contract, securing retention bonuses to keep teachers in their jobs and expandinga pilot remote learning projectthat allowed small schools to offer virtual coursessuch as Advanced Placement Chemistrythat they otherwise couldnt because of staffing issues. The Florida Education Association has signed up 5,000 new members despite Gov. Ron DeSantis anti-education and anti-union policies. And the Chicago Teachers Union helped elect one of their own, Brandon Johnson, as mayor, despite the money spent by former Education Secretary Betsy DeVos and her cronies to defeat him.

So, the other side can keep waging their political attacks. And we will keep problem-solving. We are bringing communities together and strengthening and improving public education. Our opponents should never underestimate the creativity or commitment of teachers, and all those who work in schools, when it comes to improving the lives of the kids we teach and their families.

Enjoy your summer, and Happy Fathers Day.

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Smears vs. solutions - American Federation of Teachers

UNITED STATES

It is no secret that the United States has grown increasingly partisan over the past few years as the political landscape has become more fraught. Institutions of higher education tend to mirror the broader political landscape in the country. In other words, as states (through local policy) become more categorised into blue versus red, so too do the institutions in those states.

Historically, higher education institutions have navigated more liberal leanings within the complicated campus culture wars, and critics of higher education argue that liberal biases indoctrinate students. The effects of political interference in higher education trickle down to students, impacting their college experiences and even their decisions on where to study.

For the future of our countrys democracy, we must work to break the vicious cycle of partisan influence in higher education and encourage students to engage in healthy political discourse in the classroom and on campus.

The power of perceptions

Generally speaking, Republicans and Democrats differ in their perception of the value of higher education. For example, according to a 2018 Pew Research Center survey, over three quarters (79%) of Republicans, compared to 17% of Democrats, say that a major reason higher education is going in the wrong direction is due to professors bringing their political and social views into the classroom. This is often referred to as the liberal bias in higher education.

Conservative media outlets and politicians argue that higher education is overrun by liberals who force their political agenda onto students.

However, this is not the full picture. College represents a time for students to explore their political ideology and affiliation. Out of the 47% of students who changed their political leanings during college, 17% said they became more conservative.

Therefore, it is important to note that perceptions can differ from reality, but they matter nonetheless, as public opinion influences the way government operates.

Increased polarisation?

The political divide within higher education has implications for students experiences and their considerations in the college admissions process. Regardless of political views, research reveals that, according to students, state politics plays a role in where they decide to go to college. Many worry this impact on the student decision-making process will further the partisan divide and polarisation in the country, which has dangerous implications.

There are ways for institutions to address these challenges by teaching students how to engage with political discourse responsibly. In order to cultivate learning environments that encourage students to openly share their views (regardless of political ideology), faculty must work to foster safety and inclusivity in the classroom.

Unfortunately, this is often not the case.

A recent poll shows 59% of students expressed fear in sharing their political beliefs in class, and 31% of students admitted to having been ridiculed for expressing different political opinions.

Even so, students are not deterred by raising challenging topics, participating in healthy debate and engaging in politics. A survey conducted by the Higher Education Research Institute reported that 71% of students strongly or somewhat agree that dissent is an important part of the political process.

Todays college students are actually some of the most politically active individuals our country has seen in modern history. In fact, according to findings from the National Study of Learning, Voting and Engagement, 66% of college students who were registered to vote cast their ballots in the 2020 election, representing a 14% increase from the 2016 election.

Including students in policy debates

Knowing that todays college students are engaged in politics and willing to have challenging conversations regarding differences in political ideology, why are students often overlooked as stakeholders in higher education policy? Why are students often left out of conversations related to university policies that will ultimately impact their college experiences?

In order to begin to address these issues, higher education faculty and staff should prioritise the students role within shared governance and encourage students to engage in political conversations and debates.

In other words, we must strive to accomplish an environment in higher education institutions in which assumptions are not made regarding students political affiliations and values. Rather, students need to have the agency to decide on their political beliefs and the freedom to learn, grow and potentially change their minds in a safe environment and throughout their college experiences.

There is no denying that students and university leaders are different stakeholders who often have different goals. However, we should strive for an environment in which these two stakeholders are able to come together and discuss policies and sensitive issues.

For example, this could be as simple as inviting student government representatives to board meetings when important decisions are going to be discussed. If the goal of higher education is to foster student development and scholarship, students not only deserve, but are entitled to a seat at the table.

We owe it to our country's future leaders to allow for a world in which disagreement and political discourse are not only allowed, but also encouraged on college campuses. The future of higher education depends on it.

Rachel B Gorosh is a masters student in higher education administration and policy at Northwestern University, USA.

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Students are entitled to a seat at the governance table - University World News

The Software Training Lab in the Harold B. Lee Library provides free classes for BYU students, faculty and staff to learn to use various software programs.

Programs offered include Adobe Creative products, Microsoft Office and other software like Procreate and DaVinci Resolve. Through the program, students learn the basics of how to operate each program and create a project to showcase their knowledge. Prior experience in a program is not required to take any of the classes, according to Henry Sorensen, outreach lead for the Software Training Lab.

While these classes do not count toward class credit, they still provide students with valuable skills.

The real purpose behind it is that we want to get people experience and skills in these programs so that they can use them on their own, Sorensen said. We hope that when they come out of the class, theyll have learned something new, regardless of whether theyre a novice or an experienced user of the program.

The lab teaches classes each semester or term and has offered the classes for at least a decade, according to Sorensen. He said the lab tries to continue classes that were popular in previous semesters and vary the time of classes each semester to accommodate student schedules. The classes have a specific curriculum which is revamped every couple of years to keep up with updating software and materials.

Lee Martin, software training desk lead, said some classes are staples, such as Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator, but the lab has even done classes about YouTube and is developing a podcasting class.

Courses are usually around six hours total, which is broken up into several classes over a couple weeks, so they are a fairly low time commitment, Sorensen said. The library provides patrons with access to the software programs and computers necessary both during and outside of classes. There is also a help desk for patrons, so those who are having trouble with programs can get one-on-one help.

One goal of the classes is to help build community and connect students with others who are in the same creative mindset, according to Martin. There are collaborative activities in the classes to encourage students to work with each other.

Soren Patchell enrolled in software classes because she is considering applying to the advertising program in the BYU School of Communications. Patchell said the Adobe software is a skill set many teach themselves. She felt she was behind other advertising students because she never tried it in high school and does not have much experience.

I already feel like its helped so much because I honestly didnt know anything going into it. I think just doing this step by step has really helped me because I wouldnt even know where to start other than YouTube, Patchell said.

Patchell wants to continue to take classes, including using Lightroom and Photoshop.

According to Sorensen, it is usually BYU students who take the classes, although during spring and summer terms it is more common to see faculty and staff take the classes as well.

The classes are not offered to members of the community, but Martin said if someone is affiliated with a BYU student, staff or faculty member, they could sign up with that person to join a class.

That was the case for Staci Blackmon, who was able to attend the software classes because she had a net ID from attending BYUIdaho and her sister is a current BYU student. Blackmon said she is currently living in Provo while job searching and is not attending school, so when she saw the classes on the BYU calendar she thought it would be a great opportunity to learn the skills for free without having to teach herself.

Blackmon said she brings her own computer and uses a mobile hotspot since she is unable to access the computers and Wi-Fi as she is not a current BYU student, but she makes it work. She just started the InDesign course and has also taken courses in Photoshop, Illustrator and Excel.

I love learning the keyboard shortcuts, best part of any program. And the creativity that it encourages, while still having limits. Because I cant just go off on my own, I need help, Blackmon said.

Another benefit to the classes is that, in connection with the Instructional Psychology and Technology Department, the lab offers badges to students that they can put on a resume to show the projects they have worked on and the certification they earned from the class, Sorensen said.

According to Martin, even without taking the classes, badges are offered to anyone who can show they have the skills to operate the program.

Blackmon started the work toward the badges and plans on submitting them after she wraps up the classes she is currently taking and finishes her projects.

Interested parties can register for classes on the librarys Software Training Lab website.

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BYU Library offers free software classes - The Daily Universe - Universe.byu.edu

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Free Streaming Software Market to Witness an Outstanding Growth ... - The Bowman Extra