Candidate for Oklahoma State Senate - District 21 in 2020 Oklahoma General Election.
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Get StartedFew people lose their jobs outright; they often transition to part-time work, causing a loss in income and, in some cases, their health insurance. Additionally, small-business owners find themselves unable to compete with big-business chains who can access the global market and afford the initial investment automation requires. As your State Senator, it is my oath to ensure that your livelihood and interests are protected as changes in the economy increasingly impact our daily lives. Learn more
Third, education systems are designed to enable students to contribute to our society and find employment. However, the demands of the world economy are changing rapidly, and future employment needs are difficult to predict. Therefore, we must focus on producing members of our society that are flexible and can work in a variety of fields. This requires an emphasis on the fundamentals and teaching students how to think, not what to think. This requires increasing funding for creative subjects like reading, music or art; STEM topics are always critical, but it’s through the creative subjects that we teach students “how to think” independently. Learn more
Second, we must consider the learning environment’s we are creating for our children and the working conditions we subject our teachers and support staff to. A classroom with 35 students, including several students with behavioral issues, is not a learning environment; teachers aren’t teaching students under those conditions; they’re just trying to make it through the day. Learn more
There are three education issues, however, that remain undiscussed in public discourse. First, we must recognize that the Oklahoma education system doesn’t exist in a vacuum; our state is in competition with other states for strong education systems. Oklahoma’s poor stewardship of our public education is the reason we’ve lost 30,000 teachers to neighboring states in 6 years. It does us little good to restore 2009-level funding to public education when neighboring states are funding at 2019-2020 levels. Learn more
Everyday this state refuses to accept full Medicaid Expansion funds is another life lost due to this state’s refusal to accept the money we already pay into through our federal taxes. If we want our rural communities to thrive, then medical facilities must remain available to the residents of those communities. Otherwise, we risk our rural communities becoming ghost towns as job opportunities and adequate medical care becomes available only in larger cities. Learn more
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