Former Oklahoma Rep Sherrie Conley joins me to discuss a couple of education related bills. SB 224 and HB 1491.
SB224 would establish a Statewide Longistudinal Data System in the state of Oklahoma. This would allow the govermnment to track and monitor your child from cradel to the grave. I have a big problem with this! Listen and you'll understand why.
Then, we have HB1491 and this interesting move by Gov Stitt with support from Speaker Hilbert and Pro Temp Paxton. They want to allow any of the board members to participate in setting the agenda for the OSDE. Maybe this would not seem so interesting, if it were not on the heals of Gov Stitt's recent move to remove three board members and replace them with three members that some have suggested are closely aligned with Stitt. Is this a hotile takeover to wrest control from Superintendent Walters and prevent him from trying to count children of illegal immigrants? Or is it an honest move to redistribute power? We'll lay out some facts, and you can decide.
Transcript:
Jake
How do you feel about surveillance? How do you feel about surveying your children or the state surveying your children? We're talking about data mining. It is a topic of one particular bill here in the Oklahoma legislature. We're gonna take a look at it. I'm here with Sherry Connolly and will also look at house bill 149 1 that was recently backed by Governor Stitt and the speaker of the house. This deals with a shake up in the school board here in Oklahoma so got a lot to get to let's get to it. All right, I'm here with the former house representative Sherry Connolly Sherry welcome to the show
Sherrie Conley
Thank you so much for having me
You
You bet. Well I appreciate you all the work you have done and are doing in the state. Before we get too involved in these subjects that I wanna dive into both this idea of data mining collecting information on our children in the state and also this house bill 1491. I want to give you a chance to talk about a passion project of yours. Exposing the corruption in the public schools. Real quickly, what is the website that you are working on?
Sherrie Conley
So we have we have two websites one is our broken trust website it's still in the construction phases but we've got another one that we're taking over called iHeart my teacher
You
OK
Sherrie Conley
.org. It is a collection of over 24, 000 reports of a teacher misconduct the majority of it is all sexual misconduct and so. Yeah, it's like it's a huge undertaking. We got to update it. I believe the gentleman that has it that we're taking it from. He worked for about four years doing it and just got overwhelmed with all of the information and so yeah we we got a lot of work ahead of us, but it's iHeartmyteacher.org
You
You know someone would ask, "is this actually happening in our schools?" and I think that's the right I mean that is eye-opening that the one who founded this to track this and expose it he's overwhelmed because of all of the data that he's he's collecting and all of the instances of sexual misconduct in our schools so yeah, it's definitely happening
Sherrie Conley
It is definitely happening and I have collected it over the last year and a half while really just a year started my research in February of last year collecting the data. I got 2 6 3 predators from inside the school and those are just Oklahoma cases those are just predators from inside
You
Wow
Sherrie Conley
Oklahoma.
You
Well, that is iHeart my teacher .org the other one broken trust you're working on but that's gonna be coming to everyone pretty soon and I just wanted to make sure we we highlighted that before we get into these other conversations and forget to because I really appreciate your work there. I think it's needed in the state.
Sherrie Conley
Yeah, thank you
You
But the topic today we're looking at this statewide longitudinal data systems. The SLDS this is something that looks like it's been adopted by about 40 states and often times that's used as an argument for for something to adopt it and if we see a trend across the nation then often times Oklahoma says well it's happening everywhere else we want to happen here too, but we want to hit the pause button on that and say wait a minute is this a good idea? To actually track the data on our students what have you seen Sherry about this SLDS in our US concerned about it as I am
Sherrie Conley
I am extremely concerned about it and let me just kind of give you just a little piece of information. This started in Oklahoma back in 20 12 Oklahoma received a $4.99 million grant. For the race to the top program to institute a longitude that system and that money good for the year 2012 to 20 17 I haven't that information just came to me, but I have not had an opportunity to dig into that and what was instituted whenever that money was received?
You
Well, back in 20 12
Sherrie Conley
Yes
You
OK, do you know where this is originating from? I mean, who is behind this and pushing this as far as wanting schools to adopt us
Sherrie Conley
No, I asked the house author where the language came from and he's he's not real sure where it came from but he knows that it's being pushed by the education people in Oklahoma and also by the chambers and so you know if you look at The language inside the bill it gives the workforce commission higher education, career tech superintendent, public instruction, Oklahoma, employment security commission oh QA and the the university it's the Russo group. It gives them all access to the data that comes out of the database. Me personally it also add some language in there that says among approved entities, but then it also goes down and it makes the comment that that there could be other Groups that are given access to it, and so that is the part that concerns me if this was being
You
Right
Sherrie Conley
created and used in the state of Oklahoma in order to improve education at the common end level at higher Ed workforce you know I'm getting our kids to work and getting them educated in the field that they want to pursue I would be OK with this, but I see you know connections to the agenda from the United Nations for a global database system, and that is what concerns me about this
You
Me too, yeah have you seen the divergent series?
Sherrie Conley
I have yes
You
Stuff like this reminds me of this, and I know that that could be laughable, but so all too often we're seeing the sci-fi fantasy world becoming reality you know, and when you have an agenda for kids when you when you wanting to mind their skills and their strengths and all these data points on them to it seems like fund them in a certain direction
Sherrie Conley
Yeah
You
And it just reminded me of that I don't know if is a divergent series or one of those I think it's called a divergent they they have certain categories that people go and
Sherrie Conley
Yes
You
select at a certain age and you know it seems like we're thinking along those lines, dude does the government really need that much data on our kids and do they need to have that much control about how to funnel them in a certain direction?
Sherrie Conley
Yeah, well it makes me think of the movie. I think it's ants where when the baby answer born somebody holds it up and says this is a worker aunt and hold it up and you know this is you know
You
Right
Sherrie Conley
whatever whatever the other categories are it's been a long time since I've seen the movie but that's what this kind of makes me think of is funding kids into you know well your grades are not high enough so you can't go to college so you're gonna have to go either into the military or into career tech, I feel like you know we need to be educating our kids. On all sorts of You know the arts and music, appreciation and being able to think logically and reasonably and you know create a dialogue and rhetoric and all of those things and then let the kids decide. I think that we're doing too much of deciding for the kids. I say all the time I know there's a lot of other people that that say this, but let's teach the kids what to think or how to think and not what to think you know and that's what this feels like there. This is a push
You
Right, right?
Sherrie Conley
towards is pushing kids to think this is where I'm gonna have to go because I'm not good enough to go to know to someplace else and I just I don't agree with making decisions for children. People have the freedom. They should have the freedom to be able to make the decisions on their own, we should not be collecting data points in order to push them into the direction that somebody else thinks they need to go.
You
Well, I'll just read here from the text of the bill again we're talking about Cinna bill 22 4 and is there is there a house bill with a different number?
Sherrie Conley
I have not found one
You
OK OK I think it's just this one. It's run by Seyfried in the Senate in Caldwell in the house and here in section a right at the beginning of the bill first page. It says the purpose of the SLDS shall be to provide state agencies, but right there first red flag provide state agencies, legislators, and other
Sherrie Conley
Yeah,
You
approved users with with that's the issue. It's very vague very open right other approved who are these approved users and who's approving them
Sherrie Conley
that's the Yes
You
It was shall provide them with access to data on early childhood education, elementary and secondary education, workforce training and employment outcomes and employment outcomes so I mean how how far are we gonna track these
Sherrie Conley
Yes
You
individuals these children it is it employment while they're in high school or is it beyond that?
Sherrie Conley
Well, the next word, the next four words, five words say improve education, and then here's the caveat and workforce outcomes
You
There you go
Sherrie Conley
You know here's the thing is that you have to track somebody past their high school in college careers in order to be able to track workforce outcomes right so you
You
Yum
Sherrie Conley
know that I mean they're calling it a longitudinal data system and so they are truly talking about tracking people from the cradle to the grave and determining where they go, what I see this is using this for ES G and social scores you know I just came from London and one of the perfect examples of a social credit score is the Uber system and you know you can take that system and you can you can see where using these data points where people go whether or not they're working, you know you can use gaps in their employment as they hit on their social credit score that if you're tracking their workforce your tracking their work and And everything that comes after high school in college that's exactly what that stuff can be used for
You
Yeah, well it's clear and it's no secret. The DEF has made it very clear that they have an agenda and you know when you start seeing things like this it seems to match what they have been very vocal about this this global
Sherrie Conley
Absolutely
You
agenda and it's so easy to dismiss this and say you know you radical conspiracy theorist talking about 15 minute cities and and social credit scores. But then we have a bill like this and it's talking about tracking from the cradle to the grave preparing people for the workforce and and here's a thing I get so sick of it because it's always for our own good. It's always about the government protecting us helping us, but it's like you said, are we telling them what to think or we just simply teaching them how to think how to be independent critical thinkers who then can go pioneer their own way rather than
Sherrie Conley
Yeah Yeah
You
fall into a certain track that has been pre- prepared for them.
Sherrie Conley
Yes, yeah and that is that is very concerning to me because how many people actually reinvent themselves all the time they get a degree in one thing and then you know decide I don't wanna do that and so they go to another job that's
You
Yeah
Sherrie Conley
outside of where of what they actually majored in in college and you know is that eventually going to be used against us if you look at the comparisons to the launch Tual database and to the UN agenda They have data collection and management on there, which is sharing the and the integration of the educational data for global monitoring monitoring monitoring sorry
You
Monitoring
Sherrie Conley
Privacy and security oversight then they got tracking student progress, which aligns a state level educational outcomes with the global four targets and interestingly enough it actually even has a workforce and migration data in it and it's to improve understanding of migration impact or education systems and what I find so interesting is that the argument you know I'm gonna go back to the argument between Walters and stick the argument between them was Walters, wanting to collect the data on the students who are illegal immigrants to determine the impact that they're having on Oklahoma's education system and the funding right and yet this the UN database the UN agenda is actually wanting to collect that data through these launch to databases and so I find it very interesting that they got that battle going back-and-forth between them and yet this SDS actually does exactly what Walters just wanting to do to determine the impact on our education system here in the state of Oklahoma
You
Yeah, I just as I read down the bill it just for me. It's more concerning. It says implement identity management capabilities, identity
Sherrie Conley
Yeah, what is that?
You
management, right to create unique identifiers that link early childhood childhood education, elementary, and secondary education post secondary education, workforce data, so we've seen those for Elements there in the previously in the bill that early childhood elementary secondary post secondary and workforce but this identity management capability What is that about and you know one thing we know
Sherrie Conley
No
You
about the UNWEF this global agenda is the big 3M's that the monitoring management and monetize
Sherrie Conley
Yep
You
and this is the goal is to monitor that's why I push back
Sherrie Conley
I didn't
You
against surveillance, especially in this day, even if it's used to justify preparing our youth for the future or use to justify catching more criminals I'm gonna be paranoid whenever we talk about
Sherrie Conley
Yes
You
surveillance because I know there's a bigger agenda here and that is the first step and
Sherrie Conley
Absolutely
You
monitoring which then when you're monitored, you can be managed and when you're managed, you can be monetized not for your
Sherrie Conley
Yep
You
benefit, but for someone else's benefit to use you
Sherrie Conley
Yep
You
as a channel and Just direct you in a certain way where you can be a good worker which where we heard that before if it rings a Marx's
Sherrie Conley
Yes,
You
tone
Sherrie Conley
yes well and if you think about it, these companies that are changing their human resources to human capital that gives a huge Red flag for me that you are counting me not as as as someone who is valuable to your organization, but you're counting me as an asset that I
You
Yeah
Sherrie Conley
am I am looked at as money for you to make money and I don't know they're just there's something just really creepy about that. It's kind of a weird word to use, but that is very scary to me and then the that section 4 was something that was very section 3 that was very concerning to me because when you say identity management capabilities, that is what it sounds to me like and I hope I'm wrong but what it sounds to me like is giving someone a number inside the database that will follow me kind of like my Social Security number that will follow me all of my life so that it can be tracked, regardless of where I go work and regardless, if you know what state I'm working in that it can always be tracked back to that number and that I'll have to use that along with my Social Security number so that they can identify who I am and what I'm doing.
You
Yum and we're talking about things like your history of illness for instance, your travel where were you
Sherrie Conley
Yes
You
exposed to other forms of illness
Sherrie Conley
Exactly
You
Behavior psychological
Sherrie Conley
Yes
You
evaluations, you know
Sherrie Conley
Yes
You
businesses you started businesses you've been affiliated with the list goes on and on and on and the ones reading this first of all, we don't even know who that
Sherrie Conley
It does
You
is because they've
Sherrie Conley
Right
You
intentionally made it vague, so who's gonna be looking at this data and how would they be evaluating you? Do you want them evaluating you and your children especially So man, so many red flags here and you know one of the things we mentioned at the start of this I think before we went live is you know Chad Colwell was carrying this in the house you know you respect Chad Caldwell in the house and we're waiting to hear back from him as far as what is it that he sees that would be good about this bill I personally don't know him well I don't know Senator Seyfried well in the Senate I know both of them have had other good pieces of legislation in the past So I'm curious to hear from them what what is it about this bill that you think would be good for Oklahoma's
Sherrie Conley
Yeah, I am. I am very much interested in hearing hearing from him and that's the reason why I reached out to him. I was hoping that I could get you know a response back so that we could talk about you know what he seems to be the benefit of this, but I will tell you that I'm also very concerned about this being linked to school based healthcare. I'm also very concerned about it being linked to common core and I was looking at a graphic that was put out by Jenny White and it's it's kind of a complicated graphic I I really need to sit down with her and have her explain to me yeah
You
I saw that graphic arrows going everywhere
Sherrie Conley
Yes, yes everywhere but if you look at it closely, you can see that there are different entities that are gathering data on our students at every single level and so I mean even our night test you know that are tracking our our test scores are reading in math test scores for fourth and eighth graders You know that's that's a concern to me also, I mean, I understand the need to be able to determine where our kids arming we're using that data to be able to say look our schools are not cutting it. They are failing our students and so they're failing our families and they're failing our communities and our businesses who need good you know intelligent articulate workforce so I understand that but this I believe goes way further than what anybody realizes the capabilities of this are and if this truly is connected to the UN and I noticed. Let me see I wrote some notes on it so the $4.99 million if they got in 20 12 you know what was the cost of that 4.99 million. What did the state have to give to the federal government who provided the grant money for this what were the stipulations what were the strengths and I guarantee you in looking at what they say the cost in implementing this is gonna be 2.1 to $5.1 million and again you know is this a state investment is this federal dollars I believe it says in there or something about grant money and so if anytime you connect the federal government to a data system they are going to want something for that money you can't they don't just give money away and expect you you know to just say hey thanks and then walk away. They want something for it. And to say, it says data access, she'll be granted through a formal data sharing agreement submitted to the statewide launch to database data system, government council, and you know so who who does that mean is going to get is gonna get this information it also says controlled access to approve external partners, including researchers or vendors Ensuring compliance with privacy protections, but you know what here's the thing is that if you if you have attached a number to my kid and you tracking them, I'm more concerned about that than I am you sharing you know where our kids are in math at a fifth grade level OK so if that is sharing that information Performance information outcome information with them to help them determine what they need to do with curriculum. I'm OK with that, but when you start selling the data to people who are going to use it to manage behaviors and the ability to limit our freedoms based on that data, I have a huge problem with it.
You
Yum Yum that money from in 20 12 where did it go? Was it was it spent on this as as the beginning laying out the infrastructure in the foundation for it that was that money spent was a set aside what happened to it?
Sherrie Conley
Yeah, I don't know that's a really good question and that's sad. That's gonna be my next dig to see if we can figure out you know what legislation created that I like. I said it was just given to me right before I came on the call and so
You
OK
Sherrie Conley
I am I still have yet to figure to figure that part out, but I will tell you that you can't. You can't gather all of this information and not connected to the healthcare industry and to mental health and those sort of things because. I just believe that those are data points that they will include in this and so I think I said that it was the Yeah, I didn't. I didn't see anything on there. Maybe it did say Oklahoma healthcare but I didn't put it in there. Seems like there was something in there.
You
Well, obviously, the big push for community schools, wraparound services, social emotional
Sherrie Conley
Yes, yes
You
learning, and you know this is very concerning to a lot of people, including myself as we are asking teachers and school administrators and possibly leaving, not even hiring outside Contractors to come in to service our children when we send them to school to learn and so we're just blowing the lines between school and every other aspect of their life is that the reason we have public schools government funded schools
Sherrie Conley
You know I anymore I'm I'm starting to question you know the people who are in control at the higher level not you know at the state level obviously, the majority of Oklahoma's are levelheaded, but I don't think that they are looking past What they've been told about this legislation I don't think that you know one of the things you were in the Senate and you know one of the things that we need to be thinking about as legislators is what what is the long-term goal here? What are the long-term consequences here and I think that you know people read legislation they get the lobbyist to come and talk to them and they say oh we wanna do this and this is what we're gonna do. You know what we're gonna use it for but they don't look downstream to see well upstream to see who it's coming from number one but then downstream to see what are those long-term consequences and you and I both know that there's legislation that gets past every single year that has to have cleanup language done to it because somebody didn't think about the unintended consequences.
You
No doubt no doubt well I'm looking at the time here. We're already at 40 minutes and try to keep these about a half hour long but that's OK. I want to let's just touch on this 1491 and we'll do a part two to dig into this little bit
Sherrie Conley
OK
You
deeper, but this is house bill 149 1 filed by speaker Hilbert with support from the pro Tim, Lonnie Paxton and Governor Stitt, and it would allow any member of the state board of education to place an item on the board agenda, if requested in writing by at least two members of the board. Now speaker, Hilbert said we have volunteer boards and commissions that play important oversight function for the for state agencies for a reason and the duly appointed members of the state board of education should have a say in the agenda before them. This has been a long-standing issue that needs to be fixed and then pro Paxton said the state board of education plays a crucial role in shaping the future of our schools and its members should have a clear and fair process for addressing key issues. This legislation ensures that every board member has a voice and setting the agenda, reinforcing transparency, and accountability in our education system he said with the current structure, the board is neutralized and has no no say in shaping policy, allowing this will provide a fair and more effective Structure. What do you think? Do you do you like this? Does it make sense to open this up for other board members to have a say in setting the agenda or do you think that that is going down a path with going back to our last argument with unintended consequences?
Sherrie Conley
Yeah, so that's a really great question and so my thoughts on it go to number one. The board members on the state board of education are appointed by one person and so what looks like is happening now is it's being stacked against the the chairman of the board, which is superintendent Walters to push an agenda or to reverse an agenda you know on policy that was passed prior to now that's just you know from the outside looking in that's what it looks like, but what I would say is that because all Five of the board members that sit on the state board of education are appointed by one person that creates
You
Can we talk about the governor?
Sherrie Conley
Yes, that creates a balance of power issue for me because if you look at the first six years, the governor state has been an office. He's been perfectly fine with everything that superintendent Walters has you know done with the exception of maybe a couple of issues which I believe that they have had conversations you know behind the scenes about that you know those board members they're reminded often I think who they are appointed by and who they are actually they're on the best of. And so they're reminded quite often that they are expected to carry out the governors agenda, right that's at least what it sounds like when you're reminded you this is who you work for that sounds like a threat to me and so if I'm reminded who I work for that. Sounds like they're trying to tell me you know do what I tell you to do or you're not gonna have this job anymore which looks like exactly what happened with the shake up right well
You
Yum
Sherrie Conley
now there's three new board members appointed to this board and with a fourth seat that is open. And that really looks like an opportunity for you know some some shenanigans. I'll just call them to happen within the state Board of Education now that Governor and Ryan are not agreeing on things and so I disagree with what they're trying to do but only because if he had done this at the very beginning without it looking like there's an agenda behind it then I probably would've thought. Oh yeah that's probably a good idea. But now looking at the timing of this, it looks very suspicious to me and so I'm very concerned that it's because of the immigration policy that the three members who were removed voted for And and and since that was the first question that was asked of one of the new board members was on the immigration issue, you know it looks very suspicious and it looks like there's trying to be some control there so the governor actually has control over the rules if he doesn't like the rule when it comes to his desk, he can reject it and so him trying to do this in the 11th hour of his term it really just kind of feels like there's Like I said, some shenanigans going on there
You
Yeah, I mean it is. It's impossible to simply dismiss how this has
Sherrie Conley
Yes
You
followed the removal of those three board members and replaced ironically with three members who seem to have connections back to it. So it's it's suspicious to me as well. The timing of this it feels like an agenda. It's interesting attorney general Drummond said Governor step promoted and supported superintendent Ryan Walters, every step of the way, even standing by the superintendent when he gave blanket approval for the miss spending of our tax dollars now that his handpick superintendent refuses to do his bidding Governor state wants to change the law to get his appointee full control of the education agenda.
Sherrie Conley
Yeah
You
So I mean, I'm not a big drum and fan but I think that he's probably right here
Sherrie Conley
I agree, yeah and you know if these five members of the board were elected I would feel a lot differently about it and are we going to change this policy for all school boards to wear all school school board members have the opportunity to add items to an agenda because that looks very suspicious that you are picking on one board you know we have a multitude I couldn't even tell you how many boards we have across the state and so when you are hand picking a specific board to make the changes on, but you're not including all of the other boards that have member sitting on it. It looks very suspicious and it makes me you know. Doubt that this is the right thing to do
You
Here with Sherry Connolly, former house rep and an educator and you've spent years in administration as well so your perspective and insight into education in general is is very respected and I appreciate your insight today
Sherrie Conley
Thank you so much. I appreciate you asking and giving me the opportunity to to share my thoughts on this and I hope that you know we've been able to help shed some light on that the issues of both bills and I look forward to having conversation you know you and I had had other bills that we wanted to discuss and so I look forward to
You
Yeah, well I said
Sherrie Conley
talking again with you.
You
thank you and I said we would do a part two on this. Maybe we covered it adequately for now but there's there's
Sherrie Conley
Yeah
You
definitely many others that we have our eyes on so yes, let's let's plan this again soon because these bills are going through quickly and some of them we wanna make sure don't go through. There's big
Sherrie Conley
Yes
You
concerns just like the one we mentioned Cita bill 224 and even this one we must
Sherrie Conley
Yeah
You
consider this what is the bill number house bill 1491 on the school board, so yeah we're gonna keep an eye on these and come back and talk about this. She appreciate you.
Sherrie Conley
Yes, I appreciate you too Jake. Thank you so much.
You
You bet all right guys we should like share and subscribe spread the word and I will see you again next time
