In honor of National Public Schools Week, Andy is joined by Erika Wright, founder & director of the Oklahoma Rural Schools Coalition, to discuss the state of public schools throughout Oklahoma and the unique challenges they face in rural areas.

It's been a busy week! Andy summarizes several recent, relevant stories:

• Proposal to eliminate requirement for sex education 
• Grocery sales tax reduction & its impact on the state budget
• OK County selects location for new jail
• Drummond dismisses suit against ClassWallet, again
• Edmond School Board fights back against State Dept of Education
• Proposed changes to the ballot initiative process

RSVP for our upcoming The West Wing watch party on 2/28

Andy is joined by James Davenport, Associate Dean for Social Sciences at Rose State College and noted Libertarian, to discuss governance, civility, and what civic engagement really means.

Governor Stitt delivered his sixth annual State of the State address to joint session of the Oklahoma legislature and we noticed a higher-than-usual amount of religious content. Given our conversation last week with Rev. Dr. Shannon Fleck and the rise of Christian nationalism across the country, we felt it important to highlight those excerpts for you. You can also listen to the full speech at the end of the episode.

Read the full text of the speech

Watch video of the speech

We're joined by Rev. Dr. Shannon Fleck, executive director of the Oklahoma Faith Network, to discuss how they bring together the interfaith community and how to understand white Christian nationalism so that we can fight it together.

We're joined by Arielle Mizrahi, Partnerships Manager for Unify America, a national nonprofit that creates interactive experiences to help people bust out of their bubbles, build civic muscles, and work together to tackle our country’s biggest challenges.

Recorded with a live studio audience, Andy and Scott reflect on 250 episodes, engage the audience with some Oklahoma history trivia, and are joined on stage by Labor Commissioner Leslie Osborn and state Senator Julia Kirt.

We're joined by Colleen McCarty from the Oklahoma Appleseed Center for Law and Justice about their work on criminal & juvenile justice, education justice, elections justice, and pretty much every other kind of justice.

Click here for tickets to our 250th Episode party!

Join us on November 30th at 6pm at Factory Obscura for a LIVE podcast event to celebrate our 250th episode. Get tickets here!

Andy is joined by LFT policy fellow Cooper Marshall to for a round-robin update on federal government gridlock, Oklahoma legislative special session, and upcoming elections.