If House Democrats were betting on Republicans getting blamed solely for the overall failure of a plan to fix the state budget deficit and fund a $5000 pay increase to teachers, they may have bet wrong, according a recent SoonerPoll of teachers in the state.
CLICK HERE TO VIEW THE TOPLINE RESULTS
On Monday, the state failed to pass the Step Up Coalition Plan, a comprehensive plan of tax increases and governmental reforms that would have fixed the current budget deficit, given teachers a $5000 pay raise and worked to avoid these budgetary problems in the future. Seventy-four percent of House Republicans voted for the bill, but only 36% of House Democrats voted for it.
Nearly 63 percent of teachers believe both parties are equally to blame for the plan not passing.
Among those who chose a party to blame, Democrats led Republicans by 4 points.
| 1. Both equally | 62.6% |
| 2. Democrats | 14.8 |
| 3. Republicans | 10.7 |
| 4. Don’t know | 11.8 |
Sixty-three percent of teachers viewed the state legislature as very unfavorable, and Governor Fallin was not far behind with 55.6 very unfavorable.
Nearly 72 percent of teachers disagreed when asked it they felt they were treated with respect from their elected officials.
About the Poll
SoonerPoll.com, Oklahoma’s public opinion pollster, conducted the scientific online poll of 1,098 Oklahoma teachers.
The study was conducted online February 13-15, 2018 and respondents were selected at random among those with a teaching certificate in the state of Oklahoma and registered to vote. Teachers were identified by filtering out only teachers who were currently employed, retired, or looking for a teaching position in the state.
Weighting was not required for the study as the demographical profile of the sample was very similar to the profile of all teachers in the state.
The study has a Margin of Error (MoE) of ± 2.88 percent.
For years the Oklahoma Legislature has been dismantling the funding sources to protect and fund education. Mary Fallin has spent the past six years slashing all the funding sources without a care as to what would happen to schools. School administrators have tried to inform the legislature of the problems they would create when they cut funding sources for schools but it has fallen on deaf ears. Before term limits we had legislators who had worked with education for many years and understood the formula in place for funding education. I am extremely disappointed with the lack of leadership from our governor and legislators. The losers are our children.