Quick Breadcrumbs Behind SB224: Expired Legislator Now Lobbyist's Timely Trip With OEQA Head, OK Supts & Ed NGOs
Former Rep McBride Visits Finland with Agency Head Behind Data Collection Bill
As the current session of Oklahoma’s legislature enters its final days, one bill stands out for its unprecedented ability to stay alive after failing votes.
Senate Bill 224 (SB224) proposes the creation of the Oklahoma Education and Workforce Efficiency Data System (EDS), an expansion of government, expenditures, data collection and data sharing involving the education and employment data of every Oklahoman.
Previous reporting:
OEQA Will Hold Oklahomans' Lifelong Data Under SB 224: Why You Should Be Concerned
·Senate Bill 224 (SB 224) is the most controversial within Oklahoma’s current legislative session. Under the guise of workforce development, it will establish a massive database full of information on every Oklahoma child and their parents/caregivers, from cradle to career:
In repeated acts of tone-deafness, UniParty leadership has broken every ethical rule to override multiple failing votes on SB224 in both chambers that would’ve killed any other piece of legislation. V1SUT highly recommends readers follow The Oklahoma State Capitol for Jason Murphy’s analysis of every lawless move of Senate and House leaders.
Someone is pushing puppet legislators to keep SB224 alive. Recent alliances and international appearances are leaving a timeline of breadcrumbs V1SUT will leave voters to connect.
January 2025 - House Rep Mark McBride (R-Moore), Chair of the Appropriations and Budget on Education Committee, leaves the legislature on term limits.
March 8, 2025 - Former Rep McBride registers as a lobbyist with the Oklahoma Ethics Commission (OEC).
March 24-27, 2025 - McBride travels to Helsinki, Finland with a group of Oklahoma public school superintendents, education NGO leaders and state bureaucrats to observe how Democratic Socialism does education.
All those known to be involved, except McBride, were working under public funding through government agencies, school districts or taxpayer funded grant money to NGOs at the time of travel. It is unknown who financed McBride’s travel.
McBride extensively documented the group’s travel, including site seeing, on his publicly available Facebook page.
The group included Jenks superintendent Stacey Butterfield, Tahlequah superintendent Tanya Jones and Yukon superintendent Keith Sinor.
Sinor serves alongside Governor Kevin Stitt (R), House Speaker Senior Advisor Jennifer Monies, Sen Adam Pugh (R-Edmond), and Rep Chad Caldwell (R-Enid) on the board of SREB, a highly progressive, USAID funded NGO that heavily influences education policy within its sixteen (16) member states. Caldwell is the principle House author of SB224.
See previous reporting:
OK Gov Stitt, Sen Pugh, Rep Caldwell Serve USAID Linked Education NGO, Send OK Tax Dollars Out-of-State for DEI
·Despite Oklahoma being the reddest state, with all 77 counties delivering a win for President Trump last November, it’s state leaders regularly remove their self-applied public labels of “Conservative”, “Republican” and “MAGA” once the cameras are off.
Also among the Finnish travel team were Oklahoma Public Schools Resource Center (OPSRC) director Tammy Dillard and Oklahoma Education Quality and Accountability (OEQA) executive director Megan Oftedal and others.
Oftedal’s OEQA, a state agency, will expand under SB224 and will be hiring for a lucrative position to oversee the peddling of Oklahomans’ data to government agencies, partners, researchers and whomever else a newly created committee within the OEQA approves.
As previously reported, Oftedal came to Oklahoma in 2013 as a Harvard data fellow and was embedded within the Oklahoma State Department of Education. In 2015, she then went to work for the education insurance company that funded the dark money group involved in Joy Hofmeister’s 2016 indictment alongside two (2) education union heads and two (2) political consultants.
May 21, 2025 - McBride made a personal appearance at the State Capitol for the latest vote on SB224. The bill again failed but Senate author Ally Seified (R-Claremore) moved to reconsider the vote, AGAIN. Expect SB224 to rise again tomorrow for consideration.
As a termed out politician, who was McBride representing in Finland, and why the personal appearance preceding a desperation vote on SB224? McBride responded to a Facebook comment related to his travel by saying “I may be working on research!!!!”
Readers, please comment or email to share where these breadcrumbs may lead for you. And feel free to identify anyone else you may recognize as traveling to Finland under public funds with McBride’s education delegation.
Have a tip or information you’d like to share? Comment publicly to this post or email privately (connect@v1sut.com).
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