State Supreme Court strikes down schools petition

An initiative petition requiring 65 percent of public school money to go to the classrooms was struck down Tuesday by the Oklahoma Supreme Court.

Bob Sullivan, a Tulsa businessman and unsuccessful Republican candidate for governor, was chairman of First Class Education, the group that circulated the petition in 2006.

The 5-4 Supreme Court decision said the gist of the proposal, which is required at the top of each signature petition page, was legally insufficient and failed to provide enough information for someone trying to decide whether to sign the petition.

Keith Ballard, executive director of the Oklahoma State School Boards Association, said "65 percent was not good public policy for Oklahoma” although he favors putting as much money as possible into instruction.

"In a state where there are limited resources, we can't pick a magical number. It has to be a decision of a local school board,” said Ballard, who joined several local school board members in challenging the petition in the Supreme Court.

Sullivan said: "I am very disappointed that the Supreme Court is denying voters of Oklahoma the opportunity to vote yes or no on a requirement that would substantially improve their children's education without a tax increase.”

Last year Sullivan said that 2003-04 census information showed Oklahoma to be last in the nation in the percentage of public school money going into the classroom.

The census information said 55.4 percent of the money went into the classroom, he said. School officials said about 58 percent went to classrooms.

It could have put $300 million more into the classrooms, Sullivan said.

Ballard thinks that Sullivan and others who backed the initiative petition "really did care about education.”

The Oklahoma secretary of state certified 165,157 petition signatures. The group needed valid signatures of 117,101 registered voters.

A 1985 state law set the requirement for the gist of the proposal to be on each signature page of the petition.

A potential signer of the initiative petition did not have sufficient information to make an informed decision about the nature of the proposed legislation, the Supreme Court ruled, noting that the gist on this petition contained "too much and not enough information.”