Tulsa needs a new school board.

Reform must come from the top and Tulsa won’t get it from the present board.

Recently, the Tulsa Public School Board did their annual evaluation of Superintendent Deborah Gist. Of course, Gist passed with flying colors. That’s because Gist is a liberal educator who is more concerned about growing the district’s administrative size and power than educating students.

The test scores in Tulsa are terrible. When the State Legislature passed more funding for public schools, Gist used some of that funding to hire expensive administrators and costly consultants from outside Oklahoma.

That money was all supposed to land in the classroom but it didn’t and the blame should be shared by Gist and the school board.

Gist was a cheerleader for this year’s teacher strike – a union action that took place after lawmakers gave teachers a $6,000 a year pay hike. (Not every teacher got that much because salaries are determined by school boards, not by legislators).

Gist is probably one of the highest paid superintendents in the state. Her methods don’t seem to work very well as TPS graduates don’t do very well on the ACT and the ones that do go to college have to take remedial courses to catch up.

Here is what needs to happen. Citizens with conservative values and common sense – people who understand the challenges facing classroom teachers – need to run for the Tulsa School Board.

It’s a tough challenge. Conservatives have to battle the current board, most administrators, the teacher union, the Democrat Party, the Tulsa World, the TV stations and much of the PTA. And conservative politicians are slow to fund school board campaigns.

That’s how to effect change. It would be a slow, uphill process. But if TPS is ever going to have meaningful reforms, this must take place.