And it came to pass in those days, that there went out a decree from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be taxed. (And this taxing was first made when Cyrenius was governor of Syria.) And all went to be taxed, every one into his own city.

And Joseph also went up from Galilee, out of the city of Nazareth, into Judaea, unto the city of David, which is called Bethlehem; (because he was of the house and lineage of David:) to be taxed with Mary his espoused wife, being great with child.

And so it was, that, while they were there, the days were accomplished that she should be delivered. And she brought forth her firstborn son, and wrapped him in swaddling clothes, and laid him in a manger; because there was no room for them in the inn.

And there were in the same country shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night. And, lo, the angel of the Lord came upon them, and the glory of the Lord shone round about them: and they were sore afraid.

And the angel said unto them, Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord. And this shall be a sign unto you; Ye shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger.

And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God, and saying, Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men.

And it came to pass, as the angels were gone away from them into heaven, the shepherds said one to another, Let us now go even unto Bethlehem, and see this thing which is come to pass, which the Lord hath made known unto us. And they came with haste, and found Mary, and Joseph, and the babe lying in a manger.

And when they had seen it, they made known abroad the saying which was told them concerning this child. And all they that heard it wondered at those things which were told them by the shepherds.

But Mary kept all these things, and pondered them in her heart.

And the shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all the things that they had heard and seen, as it was told unto them.

The fact that a person is born either male or female is nothing but a false “binary box” established by Western and American societies, and it’s responsible for marginalizing people who consider themselves to be “gender fluid.” To counter this requires university personnel to modify their language and change their interactions with students and others.

That’s the message of a recent University of Oklahoma employee training workshop, “Unlearning Trans and Homonegativity,” offered by OU’s Gender + Equality Center. It’s the latest in a long list of ongoing training seminars offered by the university for campus community members.

The presentation was given by Liv Whitley, the center’s training and development coordinator. Whitley did not share her professional credentials with the audience, but did list her “preferred pronouns” as being “she/they.”

Though the terminology related to sexual identity sometimes changes, OU currently defines the acronym LGBTQ+ as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (or questioning), while the plus sign represents other sexual identities, including “pansexual” and “non-binary.” Whitley also said that the term should be expanded to include people who identify as asexual.

Male or Female Is ‘Too Limiting’

“In its simplest form, ‘binary’ means we have only two options for our self-image, either male or female, which is what we have been socialized into,” Whitley said. “It’s a designation given to you at birth by someone else. This is problematic, because it is not accurate and is too limiting.”

The presentation materials stated that LGBTQ+ people are negatively impacted by being socialized into an environment that only offers two positively received gender options, male or female. Further, it said, to publicly declare one’s gender identity as being outside the “binary box” marginalizes a large swath of the American population. In fact, despite the presentation’s title, even the word “homosexual” is now considered a pejorative due to its prior negative stigma, and should not be used by the general public, Whitley said. The term “non-binary,” in contrast, is both its own category and an umbrella category, she said.

“Our goal is to shift into a holistic model, which we do through education and changing how we speak and interact,” Whitley said. “This is the first step in breaking out of that binary mindset.”

She added that “Gender and sex aren’t the same thing, and it’s very important that we know the difference between the two. Gender identity is how we see ourselves, our innermost self, and this can change over time. Gender identity is something you don’t know about a person until they tell you—you can’t know it by looking at them. Someone can be cisgender and transgender; the idea that you have to be one or the other is not the case,” she said. “All these identities are valid.”

Whitley also introduced the term “intersex,” defined as a way to describe people “born with variations that don’t fit doctors’ expectations of a male or female body.” What these specific variations are was not addressed in the presentation.

“The intersex rate is much higher than people realize,” she said. “It’s as common as being born with red hair.” No research information was provided to confirm this statement, however.

Whitley made a number of additional statistics-related statements during the presentation but offered no sources to back them up. Questions were asked via chat box, but no debate was allowed.

‘Cisgender Privilege’

While “white privilege” continues to be a heated topic of debate, Whitley added to the subject by introducing another new term, “cisgender privilege,” into the mix. (“Cisgender” is an individual who “aligns” with his or her biological gender.)

According to a new survey from Amber Integrated, Governor Kevin Stitt (R) holds a 47% to 32% lead over Joy Hofmeister (D) in the 2022 gubernatorial race, while U.S. Senator James Lankford (R) holds a commanding lead over his two GOP challengers - garnering 56% to State Sen. Nathan Dahm's 9% and Jackson Lahmeyer's 8%.

I find the Senate results to be somewhat ironic. When Nathan Dahm announced he was joining the race, Jackson Lahmeyer supporters loudly complained on social media that Dahm was getting in too late (a laughable statement). 

In the previous Amber poll, Lankford had 62%, Lahmeyer had 21%, and Dahm (who had just entered) was at 3%. Now, Dahm and Lahmeyer are statistically tied after Lahmeyer's support plunged dramatically. 

Anyway, the following release has some more results and details:

New Survey Shows Partisan Split on COVID; Gov. Kevin Stitt Maintains Lead Over Supt. Joy Hofmeister in Governor’s Race

OKLAHOMA CITY – The Oklahoma-based public affairs firm Amber Integrated has released a survey measuring voter attitudes about elected leaders and other political issues and current events. This survey was conducted from December 15 - December 19, 2021, and included a pool of 500 registered voters in Oklahoma. This survey has a margin of error of 4.38% at a 95% confidence interval. 

The full survey, including crosstabs, can be downloaded here.

Some key findings include:

Republicans list economic concerns as their number one priority, while Democrats say COVID is.

In December, 13% of voters identified COVID-19 as their number one public policy concern that state lawmakers should address, topped by “jobs and the economy” (28%) and education (15%). Concern over COVID sharply diverges among party lines.

• For Democrats, fighting COVID is the number one issue, with 22% identifying it as a priority, before “jobs and the economy” (18%) and education (16%).
• Just 6% of Republicans, however, identify COVID as their number one issue. Instead, Republicans say they are primarily concerned with “jobs and the economy” (36%), “law and order” (16%) and education (16%).Independents list their priorities as “jobs and the economy” (26%), COVID-19 (18%) and education (15%).

Gov. Kevin Stitt is beating Supt. Joy Hofmeister in a head-to-head matchup.

• Gov. Kevin Stitt is currently leading Joy Hofmeister in a head-to-head matchup, with 47% of voters saying they would vote for Stitt or lean towards voting for Stitt and 32% saying they would vote for Hofmeister or lean towards Hofmeister. Twenty-one percent remain undecided. Those numbers remain almost unchanged from an October survey that showed 49% of voters reporting they would vote for Stitt or leaned towards Stitt and 33% saying the same of Hofmeister.

U.S. Sen. James Lankford has a large lead in his primary election; other Republican primaries are toss-ups.

• Fifty-six percent of Republican voters say they plan on voting for Lankford or lean towards Lankford in the upcoming primary election for U.S. Senate, compared to 9% for State Sen. Nathan Dahm and 8% for Jackson Lehmeyer. Twenty-four percent remain undecided.
• In other Republican primary races, however, a majority of voters remain undecided, making these races wide-open. Fifty-six percent of Republican voters are undecided when it comes to who they will support in the race for attorney general, 57% are undecided on who they will support in the race for state superintendent of public instruction, and 52% are undecided on who they will support in the primary election for state treasurer.

Voters support Gov. Stitt’s decision to take Julius Jones off death row. 

OKLAHOMA RANKS FIRST IN REGION FOR TEACHER PAY

Oklahoma’s teacher shortage has long been blamed on low teacher pay, but a new report from the Legislative Office of Fiscal Transparency (LOFT) shows that excuse no longer holds water.

“After applying adjustments for both tax burdens and cost of living, Oklahoma’s average teacher salary ranks number one in the immediate region and is the only state within the surrounding region to be ranked higher than the national average,” Brad Ward, program evaluator for LOFT, told legislators serving on the LOFT oversight committee.

For its latest report, LOFT officials compared teacher pay in Oklahoma to all other states, taking into account cost-of-living differences and tax burden to determine the real buying power of Oklahoma teachers. LOFT officials also accounted for the value of teacher benefits in each state, including retirement, state-funded health benefits, and Social Security benefits.

Ward said LOFT found Oklahoma “to have the most complete offering of benefits within the region.”

“Oklahoma’s compensation levels are highly competitive both regionally and nationally,” Ward said. “After adjusting for tax burden and cost-of-living differences, the average Oklahoma teacher salary ranks highest in the immediate seven-state region, fourth-highest in the broader region as defined by the Southern Regional Education Board, and 21st-highest in the nation.”

At a district level, cost-of-living differences mean some Oklahoma teachers in rural areas have significant purchasing power.

“In 2019, the average salary in Okemah was $50,587, but after adjustments the real buying power increased by 17 percent to $59,385,” Ward said.

While Texas is often touted as outbidding Oklahoma for teachers, LOFT found only 20 percent of school districts in Texas pay higher effective salaries than the average pay in Oklahoma.

More broadly, LOFT’s analysis of 2,470 school districts’ average salaries within the surrounding seven-state region showed that only 31 percent offer higher average teacher pay than Oklahoma.

In response, Oklahoma Superintendent of Public Instruction Joy Hofmeister downplayed the importance of teacher pay.

“When we look at cost alone and compare that with other states, even with cost-of-living adjustments, it can be one-dimensional,” Hofmeister said. “Because we are not examining what the teachers are asked to do in this state compared to other states.”

She said Oklahoma has a “more severe teacher shortage than in other states” and suggested Oklahoma teachers are asked to take on tasks teachers elsewhere are not, including driving bus routes and cleaning classrooms.

Typically, schools provide additional compensation for driving a bus. That additional pay would not be counted as teacher compensation in LOFT’s analysis.

LOFT’s analysis indicated factors other than pay play a major role in Oklahoma’s teacher shortage.

Mike Jackson, executive director of LOFT, noted that teacher shortages “are not uniform across teaching areas” with the greatest shortages in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) courses.

LOFT found Oklahoma colleges of education are attracting significantly fewer students than they did a decade ago and are not only producing too few teachers to address STEM needs but also producing too many candidates for other positions.

“LOFT found that Oklahoma’s education pipeline is not producing enough graduates, and those graduating are misaligned to the teacher-labor market,” Jackson said.

LOFT found state colleges of education are failing to produce enough graduates to replace retiring teachers, leading to shortages.

“Oklahoma’s public teacher-preparation programs have not kept pace with the number of teachers retiring each year,” Jackson said. “Over the past 10 years, 29,574 Oklahoma teachers have retired, but Oklahoma’s public institutions have produced enough graduates to fill only 46 percent of those vacancies in the same time period.”

During that period, Jackson said enrollment in teacher-education programs declined by 48 percent. And increasing teacher pay has had no notable impact on reducing teacher attrition in Oklahoma. In Oklahoma, 21 percent of teachers leave after their first year in the profession and 53 percent leave public schools after five years.

“In reviewing annual teacher-attrition data, LOFT found that despite the average Oklahoma teacher salary increasing over time, the annual teacher-attrition rate continues to rise,” Jackson said.

LOFT suggested the Oklahoma State Department of Education (OSDE) could compile teacher labor-market data to inform colleges of education and prospective students on areas of need.

But Hofmeister dismissed that idea.

“OSDE is neither the employer nor are we the producer of the teacher supply, and OSDE is also not the state’s workforce development agency and is leery of mission expansion to include tasks such as analyzing workforce trends and occupational data,” Hofmeister said.

That prompted some pushback from lawmakers.

“For the edification of all of us who believe that a high-quality free public-education system is the silver bullet to economic prosperity for our state, whose responsibility is it for the teacher workforce?” asked Rep. Meloyde Blancett, D-Tulsa.

“That would fall under commerce and workforce development,” Hofmeister responded.

While Oklahoma’s average teacher pay ranks highest in the region, LOFT officials found that the state’s mandatory minimum salary schedule for teachers is flawed and may contribute to workforce attrition over time.

“Oklahoma’s compensation structure is heavily weighted on the front end with an emphasis on raising starting salaries but provides limited income adjustments at the mid- and late-career points,” said Kaitlyn Jasper, program evaluator for LOFT.

While Oklahoma’s salary schedule increases pay for teachers who obtain additional college degrees, the pay increase does not offset the cost of obtaining the degree. As a result, while a first-year teacher with a bachelor’s degree can work towards obtaining a doctorate, there is little real payoff.

“LOFT calculates that for a first-year teacher pursuing this path, it would take 14 years of scheduled salary increases to offset the average cost of these degrees,” Jasper said.

She also noted most states have transitioned away from teacher-salary schedules and Oklahoma is one of only 14 states to still set minimum salary schedules with progression steps. In contrast, Colorado and Texas have been shifting to “market-based approaches,” Jasper said.

While the average teacher pay in most Texas schools is lower than the average pay in Oklahoma, the embrace of performance pay has resulted in some individual Texas districts paying far more than Oklahoma.

“From a district-level perspective, Dallas may be Oklahoma’s greatest regional competition,” Jasper said. “Dallas Public Schools shifted from a traditional salary structure to a salary structure that pays teachers according to their performance in the classroom. Teachers may move up pay levels based on effectiveness. For example, an experienced master teacher can make up to $114,000.”

The LOFT report noted that state law requires the State Board of Education to develop a minimum of five different model incentive pay plans to be distributed to local school boards. But the report said LOFT officials “found no evidence” that OSDE had fulfilled that statute.

[Originally posted by the Center for Independent Journalism]

OKLAHOMA CITY (Dec. 17, 2021) — The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reports Oklahoma’s November 2021 unemployment rate has declined to a new record low of 2.5% and remains the third lowest rate in the nation.

Oklahoma’s unemployment rate improved from 2.7% in October, which had been the lowest since the Bureau of Labor Statistics started using the current method of measuring unemployment in 1976.

“It is encouraging to see our unemployment rate continue to decline and show that Oklahoma’s economy remains one of the strongest in the nation,” said Gov. Kevin Stitt. “While we celebrate record low unemployment, we must also remain focused on expanding and training Oklahoma’s workforce to make sure businesses can hire and retain the employees they need to keep our economy thriving.”

OKLAHOMA CITY – The Oklahoma House of Representatives is encouraging high school juniors and seniors to apply for the High School Page Program

Every year, hundreds of students from across the state have the opportunity to take part in the House High School Page Program at the State Capitol in Oklahoma City. Students participating in the program have the chance to view the legislative process up close and gain experience working in state government.

Rep. Brian Hill, R-Mustang, serves as director of the High School Page Program for the 58th Legislature.

"It's an honor to guide these students through their time at the State Capitol," Hill said. "It's always fun to watch their excitement and interest in state government grow as a result of their experience in the page program. This is truly a fantastic learning opportunity for students and a wonderful way to become civically engaged."

Pages accepted to the program are assigned for one week, arriving on Sunday and working Monday through Thursday afternoon, during the legislative session, which runs from the first Monday in February through the last Friday in May.

The students meet members of the House and other elected officials, work in the House Chamber during daily session, take part in the House Page Mock Legislature on the floor of the House Chamber and experience behind-the-scenes tours of areas of the Capitol and other agencies.

OU football coach’s hiring a model for other jobs

New OU Football Coach Brent Venables may be the most fortunate man working in a prominent position in Oklahoma higher education.

Venables is blessed to have been hired based on merit, free from the “diversity, equity and inclusion” (DEI) mania imposed on applicants for nearly every other job at OU.

In 2019, OU President Joseph Harroz Jr. told the school’s student newspaper that the “absolute most important thing to me” is to “get it right around diversity and inclusion.”

“Race and ethnicity have to be—we have to get that right,” Harroz said. “If we don't get that right, nothing else matters. I mean, period.”

OU job postings indicate Harroz wasn’t kidding. A posting for an assistant professor in math education said applicants should contribute to “mathematics for equity and social justice.” Those applying for an assistant professor of performance position at the school of musical theatre were expected to equip students to “explore and expose oppressive structures and power dynamics within our culture.” The college of architecture issued a report calling for “an anonymous, online reporting mechanism” to “allow the documentation of faculty and staff practices that contribute to white supremacy” and said white students should be taught “cultural humility.”

Job applicants at OU, for a wide range of positions, are now required to submit a “diversity, equity and inclusion” statement along with their job qualifications.

WASHINGTON, DC — Senator James Lankford, along with Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL), introduced the Protecting Our Democracy by Preventing Foreign Citizens from Voting Act to prohibit federal funding to states and localities that allow non-citizens to vote. Senators Steve Daines (R-MT), Thom Tillis (R-NC), John Kennedy (R-LA), and Rick Scott (R-FL) joined Lankford and Rubio in introducing the legislation. Representative Jeff Duncan (R-SC) will introduce companion legislation in the US House of Representatives. 

“Democrats are not fooling anyone with their election schemes; the latest is to allow non-citizens to vote in New York City elections. This is ridiculous—only American citizens should vote in American elections,” Lankford said. “A government by the people for the people should be determined by its people. The Fifteenth Amendment guarantees the right of every citizen to vote. Federal law and federal funding should uphold and honor the Constitution. Our nation’s elections at every level should be fair, secure, and decided by American citizens.”

“It’s ridiculous that states are allowing foreign citizens to vote,” Rubio said. “However, if states and localities do let those who are not US citizens to vote in elections, they shouldn’t get US citizen taxpayer money.”