It is no secret that Oklahoma has long suffered a drain of talented teachers across the Red River state boundary for increased pay. Gov. Fallin knows this too, and she says enough is enough.
The Dallas Independent School District set up a recruiting booth this month at a hotel in Oklahoma City, which is in no way unusual. What is out of the ordinary is that Fallin brazenly dropped by the booth to film a call-out plea to Oklahoma’s Legislature to pass a teacher pay raise. Fallin recently called a second special session in hopes that legislators will do just that.
“We’ve got to find a way to remain competitive, not only in our football and job creation, but also in keeping and retaining our teachers in the state of Oklahoma,” the governor said in the video posted to Facebook.
Shots fired! Fallin just invoked the state’s spiritual hatred for Texas football in the name of a teacher pay raise.
She also calls some Oklahoma districts’ resorting to four-day school weeks a bad look for the state. (You don’t say!)
We like Fallin’s new guerilla video tactics and insistence for a rightful teacher pay raise (though she has not done much to alleviate the problem in two terms as governor).
Fallin will have a lot of free time on her hands when she leaves office. She should continue her woman-on-the-street video series, perhaps in the surrealist reality humor genre perfected by Sacha Baron Cohen and Eric Andre. In a state like Oklahoma, she’ll never be short on material.
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