Editorial did OEA wrong

An important byproduct of the teacher walkout in April was the unprecedented number of candidates filing for office in mid-April, including record numbers of teachers. We count 115 educators or people with close ties to education (e.g. a spouse who teaches) who filed for the state Legislature or Congress. That has been a huge story locally as well as nationally.

In “Union targeting its allies in GOP” (Our Views, July 6), the Oklahoma Education Association was accused of ignoring Republicans who supported last session’s revenue-raising bills and the teacher pay raise in favor of Democrats. Nothing could be further from the truth.

The OEA Fund for Children and Public Education made 18 recommendations in the primary. Ethics rules allow us to share those recommendations only with our members, so they appear in the members only section of our website and in emails to our members, but are not made public. Among those recommendations were 10 Republicans and 8 Democrats. Ask Reps. Mark McBride, R-Moore, or Mark Lawson, R-Sapulpa, if they received a recommendation from the FCPE.

The OEA FCPE has strict rules about who can be recommended. Specifically, if an incumbent has a pro-education voting record, we will not recommend anyone against that incumbent, even a member.

It takes real courage to put your name on a ballot and step up with solutions for public education. Educators who have done so deserve our respect and admiration, but they do not automatically receive our endorsement.

It would be ill advised of us to recommend only candidates from one party, so OEA will continue to support incumbents and challengers who show a true commitment to improving public education, regardless of party.