Advocates for public education gathered at the state Capitol on Wednesday. The event kicked off with a pep rally on the rotunda.

Attorney General Gentner Drummond was the only elected official to address the crowd. Drummond, who graduated from Hominy High School as co-valedictorian in 1981, said public schools have been inappropriately attacked for simply accepting all students.

“But for the public schools, the United States that we love would not be what it is today,” Drummond said.

It is in public schools, he said, where young people learn history (“the good, the bad and the ugly”) and develop social interaction skills to disagree respectfully, consider others’ opinions and become better citizens.

“I will always be your defender,” Drummond said. “I am indebted to your passion. I’m motivated and called to greater action because of you and I am forever a public school advocate.” Drummond, a Republican, was elected in 2022.

Also this week at the Capitol, committees approved several education-related bills, making the legislation eligible to be heard on the floor. That included a bill to add four members appointed by the House and Senate to the Board of Education, a bill to rename and revamp the state’s Reading Sufficiency Act, and a bill to redesign high school graduation requirements.

A proposal to move school accreditation from the Education Department to the Commission for Educational Quality and Accountability was sidelined by the bill’s author and committee chair Sen. Adam Pugh, R-Edmond. He cited hateful and nasty comments he’d received about the bill.

“We’re broken. The state’s broken. We need some Jesus,” Pugh ranted before pulling the bill from consideration and abruptly adjourning the committee meeting.

Oklahoma Watch (OklahomaWatch.org) is a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization that covers public-policy issues facing the state.