OK Senate Battle In District 17
Ron Sharp Returns
In an exclusive interview, Oklahoma Senate District 17 Candidate Ron Sharp declared, “I must run, in my opinion, otherwise you will never find another legislator, ever, to address corruption in the State of Oklahoma. If I lose, it is indicative to the point that from this point on, you will never be able to overcome corruption.”
Sharp first won the seat serving portions of Cleveland, Oklahoma and Pottawatomie Counties in 2012 and was defeated by then representative now Senator Shane Jett in 2020. Now the two face off again and it is a race of bold contrast. Sharp was a 38-year teacher and coach with the Shawnee Public Schools and remains a dedicated advocate of public education. Both are Republicans.
Sen. Jett held a press conference calling for a multi-county grand jury to investigate the Shawnee Public School District in April of 2022 and has a “blockbuster announcement regarding threats launched recently by Shawnee Public Schools demanding release all the confidential conversations Sen. Jett has had with parents who have confided with him regarding the sexual aggression of former Shawnee Public School Coach Ron Arthur who was convicted February 21, 2024 of these crimes.” (Click here for more.)
Sen. Jett will make an announcement regarding the issue at the upcoming Oklahoma Conservative Political Action Foundation (OCPA) luncheon meeting Wednesday, May 29 according to the OCPA meeting notice.
In answer to this writer’s first question of why he was running, Sharp said, “That is a question I have asked myself. If you are doing a good job as a senator, it is a full-time job. There is not any respect anymore for being an elected leader. But I have been having trouble. First, Epic Charter School got after me because there was obviously so much corruption. Being on the education subcommittee on appropriations, I could not let that go by. It was just too much.
“I knew that when I started that they were not supportive of me when I would mention to them, ‘What is going on here?’ I would ask and they were not very responsive. I realized later that most of them were receiving huge contributions from Epic Charter Schools. So basically, I was by myself,” Sharp said.
The ongoing political and legal battles of Epic Charter School in Oklahoma are worthy of its own story, if not a book, and Sharp added, “Most of that [dispute] is still in court and I have no idea if I am going to be called to testify. That is a criminal case and I am not supposed to be involved. I was just looking at the budgetary fund.”
When asked what goals he has should he win the Senate race Sharp said, “I want to bring some rationality to funding public schools. To raise awareness that if we keep diverting funds away from public schools, they are not going to be able to perform properly. Yes, [the legislature] is increasing the budget, but they are also diverting that money to charter schools. We now have thirty or maybe forty charter schools, including virtual, and just think about the administrative costs that could be going to our public schools. Public schools by state statute already must provide virtual learning. The only difference is that they are still under the district management. You can go to Shawnee Public Schools and never set foot on the campus and yet get a Shawnee Public School Diploma.
“What I am saying is that we don’t need virtual schools, each public school district already has that choice with oversight the others do not appear to have,” Sharp said.
Question: Are you saying Oklahoma should only allow government schools?
“You have private schools. If you want to go to a private school that is excellent and I support that, but parents should be paying for that. There is a reason why there are private issues and public issues. Any time public money goes to a private school, the private school is no longer private, but public. Every dollar spent must be accountable. You don’t want to mix public dollars with any private entity. It’s not going to end well,” Sharp said.
“Ten to fifteen years from now there is going to be a change in political parties who control the legislature and they are going to want some accountability,” Sharp added.
It remains a question as to why Sharp, a Republican, would anticipate Democrats to soon regain majority in the legislature, but that’s a side issue. Republicans have long championed parents receiving vouchers for education to help with the costs of private education from the taxes they pay. Apparently Sharp is not aware of the deplorable results of public education in Oklahoma and the disastrous pay system which allows superintendents and upper echelon administrators and staff to get paid profusely while classroom teachers are paid a pittance.
Sharp said, “I’m just saying, I don’t like what is going on. They need someone in the Legislature that has teaching background that can instruct legislators what is baloney and what is fact.
“I am a 38-year teacher. You don’t have time to teach socialist, communist doctrine. In my recent research, there are only six states in the United States that are teaching Critical Race Theory and Oklahoma is not one of them. I was a social studies teacher in AP History, AP Government, US Government, American History, and Economics and there was nothing in there relating to Critical Race Theory. No one in Oklahoma education even knew what that was.
“When I left in 2020, Critical Race Theory was not even mentioned. Suddenly in January of 2021, two months after I left office, Critical Race Theory was all over the political landscape of the Legislature. So, it was a made-up deal,” Sharp declared.
To the contrary, this writer in September 2017 on Tulsa Today covered a controversy at Booker T. Washington High School where students made t-shirts demanding white students, “Stop trying to replace our traditions with your whiteness. Respect our school” (click the link for that story). The point is that the name “Critical Race Theory” may not appear in Oklahoma, but racialists sentiment is prevalent. That is a trait of the disingenuous left, they can change names faster than others can define meaning.
When asked about his asserted Ph.D., Sharp said he earned that at, “Kingsington University in California through a distance learning program. For 2 ½ years I worked through the program. It’s been on my record since 1989. It was not a virtual school; it was a distance learning program.
“At the time I received my degree, it was approved by the Oklahoma State Department of Education and has been on my transcript since 1989.
“Shawnee Public Schools never paid me for a Ph.D., they only paid me for 32 hours above a master’s degree. My degree was never challenged by Shawnee Public Schools. I retired in 2012 so that has been a long time ago. My degree has been affirmed by the Oklahoma State Board of Education. It was much more monitored than any online degree today is monitored,” Sharp said.
In an April 1996 story the Los Angeles Times notes,” In fact, the entire campus is housed in a small Glendale office building…. But to state regulators, Kensington hands out advanced degrees ‘which may have little, if any academic value’ and has been perpetrating a ‘fraud on the public.’
“Embracing the unconventional, California by the 1970s had become a hotbed of small private colleges offering easy degrees, with more such institutions than any other state, according to the California Postsecondary Education Commission, an advisory panel. (Click here for that story). During the 1980s, California gained a reputation as ‘the diploma mill capital of the world,’ as one state study put it. So in 1989, the Legislature passed tougher regulations and later created the Council for Private Postsecondary and Vocational Education to enforce them,” the Times wrote.
In June of 1996, the Times wrote about Kensington University’s move to Hawaii to avoid California closure. (Click here for that story.) The coverage begins, “Highlighting a growing regulatory problem in California, a Glendale correspondence university accused of offering shoddy academic programs has sidestepped a state closure order by transferring most of its programs--at least on paper--to Hawaii.”
The school has a reputation so bad that the State of Texas made it illegal to use a degree from that school as a credential. (Click here for that report.)
The First Circuit Court of the State of Hawaii issued a default judgement against defendant Kensington University, Inc. October 29, 2003 which enjoined them from “providing any post-secondary instructional programs or courses leading to a degree; acting as or holding themselves out as a ‘college, academy, institute, institution, university or anything similar.”
It appears Sharp noted one month of advanced work in May of 1983 on his teaching records. He was apparently paid at the higher (32 hours above a master’s degree) rate from 1983 through retirement. Sharp said he finished his Ph.D. in 1989.
When asked what that degree cost him, Sharp said, “With all the expenses, tuition, books, and my expenses to fly to California to defend my dissertation I will say $10,000 to $15,000.” In its original Greek meaning, Ph.D. roughly translates to “lover of wisdom.” The average costs of a Ph.D. in America according to Best Colleges (click here for more) is $40,900 per year and the median time for a doctorate is 5.8 years.
Question: On your Facebook page, you have a post that says, “It would be ridiculous to assert unions are powerful in Oklahoma!”
Sharp said, “They are not powerful. As a legislator, I write statutes. I go to the lawyers for the various committees, but as a legislator, I write the laws here in Oklahoma not unions. I don’t know where the public gets the idea that union leaders are actually writing laws, but that is ridiculous. We don’t even have binding arbitration in Oklahoma. Oklahoma is an open shop state so you don’t even have to join a union.”
“I was in public education for 38 years and the only [reason] you are joining the OEA (Oklahoma Educational Association) or POE (Professional Oklahoma Educators) or AFT (American Federation of Teachers) is if some parent gets after you, then you will have someone that comes in with you that can say, ‘look this is what happened.’ You don’t want to go in there by yourself and get hit by an administrator or a parent. You need someone who is objective and demands documentation of allegations. You need that support, but that is only in the school district, they have no power.
“That’s not to say an OEA Lobbyist will not come talk with you about something, but you can always tell them to go jump in a lake. Or you can say, let me see if I can address that issue,” Sharp added.
Question: Is power not often considered money that can be poured into a campaign?
“You get money from doctor’s associations, oil companies, and the State Chamber. I can tell you in my eight years in office, I never had a single lobbyist or organization come into my office and say, ‘we gave you money and we want you to do this.’ Not one single time did that happen.”
Question: In a recent analysis, I wrote of different kinds of Republicans. What type of republican do you believe you are?
“I’m a Conservative Republican. I’m not a Libertarian Republican that wants to eliminate all taxes and privatize education. There is a large faction of Libertarian Republicans in the party right now. I am a Conservative Republican which means I want to conserve. I like the status quo and believe the basic foundations of our government must be stable for economic and family purposes,” Sharp said.
Oklahoma voters in Senate District 17 will decide the primary contest June 18, 2024.
Sharp has a conservative rating of 54. Jett has a conservative rating of 90 . Jett is endorsed by the Oklahoma Second Amendment with a survey rating of A and A++ voting record. Sharp declined to fill out the survey. Looking at the rating it looks like Jett is the real conservative and Sharp is the classic RINO.
Great interview! Sharp actually said, "I like the status quo." Only 27% of Oklahoma school children test as proficient. Parent don't like the status quo.