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The Tulsa Beacon

 

Ray Carter

Center for Independent Journalism

Ray Carter is the director of OCPA’s Center for Independent Journalism.

Promoting Transgender

Tulsa Beacon

An Oklahoma Teacher of the Year nominee, Bristow Middle School teacher Lauren Vandever, has declared that it is important to be supportive of children exploring transgender transition. “I am not transgender. I’ve never experienced being transgender or on the LGBTQ spectrum,” Vandever said. “But I definitely think it is something that is an important thing…

OSSBA is strangely silent

Tulsa Beacon

State school board associations from across the nation are publicly condemning the National School Boards Association’s call for parents who object to Critical Race Theory to be investigated under anti-terrorism laws. But, so far, the Oklahoma State School Boards Association (OSSBA) is not among those criticizing the National School Boards Association. In a Sept. 29…

Because state students are so far behind, Hofmeister wants testing delayed 3 years

Tulsa Beacon

Due to COVID disruptions, education experts have long warned that significant learning loss has occurred in public schools and many students are now far behind. State tests administered in the spring are expected to highlight the magnitude of those losses statewide and also reveal which schools did better than others. But State Superintendent for Public…

Unvaccinated, healthy students are facing retaliation

Tulsa Beacon

With a state law that bans mask mandates in legal limbo, Oklahoma colleges and K-12 schools continue to impose mask and quarantine mandates upon healthy students. College students who question those policies have faced retaliation, while in Edmond parents are suing the school district. Colleges and public schools have imposed such policies even as COVID…

State officials want the Supreme Court to overturn McGirt

Tulsa Beacon

The State of Oklahoma has filed numerous petitions for a writ of certiorari with the U.S. Supreme Court, highlighting cases state officials say demonstrate the need for the court to reconsider and overturn its ruling in McGirt v. Oklahoma, which effectively decided that Indian reservations comprise most of eastern Oklahoma. In McGirt, the court ruled…

Stitt says states should govern abortion

Tulsa Beacon

Gov. Kevin Stitt has joined 11 other governors to file an amicus brief that argues the U.S. Supreme Court should overturn prior rulings and leave regulation of abortion up to state governments. The brief has been submitted in a Mississippi case that involves one of the most direct challenges in decades to prior U.S. Supreme…

White, women middle-aged teachers promote racism, OAEA activist says

Tulsa Beacon

Would-be school teachers at the Oklahoma Aspiring Educators Association’s recent Racial and Social Justice Symposium were told that both public schools and many of the teachers within them are tools of white supremacy. But featured speakers at the online event offered a solution: Purge the teaching profession of many of its current members, who are…

Phillips Seminary speaker links racism to Christianity

Tulsa Beacon

A featured presenter at an Oklahoma race-relations program says Christianity is linked to racism. Participants were also told survey data showed “stark, indisputable differences” between the views of black citizens and all other races in Oklahoma—even though those sweeping proclamations may have been based on a survey subsample of few as 44 black Oklahomans, a…

OSSBA rips ban on teaching racism

Tulsa Beacon

A top official with the Oklahoma State School Boards Association (OSSBA) has declared a ban on teaching children that people are inherently racist based solely on skin color “is harmful to our students” and will “confuse teachers.” Another top OSSBA official has declared it a “lie” to tell children that skin color doesn’t matter and…

All Lives Matter

Tulsa Beacon

The first session of Advancing Oklahoma, a “statewide conversation on race” involving five civic organizations, launched this month with a presentation by George Henderson, who became one of the first black professors at the University of Oklahoma in 1967. A key part of Henderson’s message: All lives matter. “I believe this: Ultimately, at the end…