"The Education System Needs A Tune-up And Teachers Are Not To Blame...
The curriculum that is given to teachers is instructing our kids how to take a multiple choice test, not how to live in the real world. Life skills classes need to be brought back into the schools: A mandatory cooking class, a better financial literacy class, how to apply for a part time job ect. These skills are essential because college is not for everyone and the students who know it is not for them get left behind in the real world and that needs to change." -Michael Baughman
Common Sense Solutions
Education
Teachers are the backbone of society, however the current system is failing our students. Despite many accusations teachers are not to blame, the curriculum that is written is the culprit. Several working class educators have spoken out about how the curriculum is not teaching the kids how to live in the real world, right now they are just cogs in the machine.
I plan on making sure that the curriculum is reformed that gives teachers more flexibility teaching life skills classes. By life skills I mean cooking classes, how to be an entrepreneur, re work the financial literacy program ect.
Corruption is running rampant in the schools. Several cases across the state including one right here in Stillwater where a worker in Stillwater Public Schools embezzled more than $200,000 of tax payer funds: That is enough to give 40 educators in Stillwater a well deserved 5,000 pay raise. That embezzlement in Stillwater schools was just one department in one school district out of 520 different districts in the state, what is not being caught?
There should be an easier way to demand audits of the schools. Parents and educators (who are also tax paying citizens) want this first and foremost.
Fight Inflation By Lowering Taxes/Ending Wasteful Spending
I make a promise to never vote for a tax increase. Rather I will look at the budget carefully and ask the question "Is this wasteful spending that the taxpayer can use better than the government?"
Tax dollars should be cherished by representatives and audits need to happen regularly to make sure the money is being spent wisely/not being embezzled by bad actors.
Farm Land
Agriculture is very important not only for state security, but it is important to our national security. The Chinese Communist Party has been making Oklahoma their personal sand box by buying up farmland. It is time to crack down on the questionable purchase of Oklahoma farm land, it should belong to Oklahoma farmers first and foremost. We need to step up and defend our precious farmland and bar the Chinese Communist Party any entry to Oklahoma agriculture.
Stand Up To Overreaching Federal Government
Big Government is encroaching on our everyday lives now more than ever. I don't care who is in charge of Washington DC: Republican, Democrat; Trump, Obama, Bush, or Biden. BIG GOVERNMENT needs to stay out of peoples business and let the states have their way in some cases, which the founders imagined this great country to be.
I believe that standing up against federal overreach is a BI-PARTISON issue, on both sides of the isle, not when the other side has their party in control of Washington DC.
Oil and Gas
Having grown up in the oil business with my grandparents, oil and gas runs through my veins. What big federal government is doing; transitioning to renewable energy too fast and crippling US energy independence (a cause for the high price at the pump) does not make any sense. With recovering from the Covid 19 pandemic that is the last thing the US needs. The transition to renewable energies cannot be done overnight, we need to continue to do more research and increase our technology ten fold and lead the world in energy production (Oil and Natural Gas). Full transition to reenables cannot happen now in a single day, maybe not in this decade. We must continue to push back against big government overreach and continue drilling in Oklahoma.