Why Is Homeschooling Important?

Two long-time homeschoolers tell us why they're happy they've chosen homeschool and why homeschooling is important for children. These distinctions are important here in America where freedom is to be key to our lives as citizens.

Schools End-Around Mandatory Reporting Laws - V1SUT Vantage, Ashley Rolen

Ashley Rolen has spent years fighting to have the coaches who broke her trust and sexually abused her while she was a student at Little Axe High School decades ago removed from public education. She has yet to be successful. 

In this video V1SUT Vantage blogger, Mary, Ashley, Michael Grande and Jenni White discuss how schools are getting around mandatory sex abuse reporting laws, allowing public school employees who have abused students to just disappear from the school and wind up at another without ever being made to pay for their crimes. If we are to save Oklahoma children from sexual predators, this has to change.

Find the full video on our YouTube and Rumble channels.

Change MUST Happen To Protect Public School Students - Ashley Rolen; ROPE Report Live

Ashley Rolen submitted statements to the Little Axe school district in 2002 describing the sexual abuse that had been perpetrated on her by several coaches employed by the district. 

Nothing was done. Ashley moved on with her life. 

But as Ashley tells us in the full podcast (YouTube and Rumble), the day she heard about Olympic physician, Larry Nassar, and the stories of the brave gymnasts who came forward and told of their sexual abuse while under his care, she knew she had to make it right - for the other girls to whom this had happened and ones to whom it might be happening now. 

Ashley filed a complaint with the Oklahoma State Department of Education under Joy Hoffmeister. She was told that they had no investigators for her case and that she'd have to do her own investigation - which she did - and returned it to the OSDE under Ryan Walters. Still, nothing has been done. 

In this video, Ashley talks about what needs to happen for these reports to be taken seriously by school administration and the OSDE.

Find more on Ashley's story at V1SUT Vantage in her series on Harmful Coaching.

ACT Scores Recentered To Make Results Look Better - ROPE Report Live

Many years ago while writing about Common Core, I (Jenni White) found an indicator of student achievement that made me blanch. This graphic was taken from an old paper on ACT scores over the years. This graphic - including the original discussion on how Oklahoma has manipulated Student Achievement data to make it seem as though public schools were doing better than they are, especially when compared to testing scores - is a truly damning measure of how DUMB Americans educated in public schools have become and how our legislators and Education industrial complex has been stealing our tax dollars to dumb our students down. After all, people who can't think for themselves are easily led.

Here are some of the articles I've written over the years about this very same issue:

Is Common Core MEANT to Blow Up the American Educational System?

Governor Fallin says, "Stop whining or you'll get no more education funds."

Oklahoma's A-F Grading System Get's An "F"

ROPE Approves Democrat Disapproval

OSDE Test Scores VS Achievement Scores - ROPE Report Short

With our V1SUT blogger, Michael and Jenni went over the Oklahoma State Department of Education proficiency and achievement data through the school Report Card. Though we've had Reed Downey on the program previously to tell us how badly Oklahoma students are performing on Achievement data, it's even worse when we compare Achievement data with Assessment (testing) scores. Suffice it to say that the Oklahoma legislature should not give public schools in Oklahoma one more thin dime until they can actually show that they are EDUCATING Oklahoma students. This is truly tragic.

ROPE Report Short - Oklahoma's Elected Officials Rarely Challenged, Not Responsive To Citizens

Ken Malloy of NorthStar Project (https://oknorthstar.org/) talked to us about how NorthStar is influencing Tulsa Public Education. 

From recruiting and helping school board candidates to run on a campaign of reforming TPS to writing White Papers (https://oknorthstar.org/whitepapers/the-responsible-educational-progress-rep-index-for-oklahoma-public-schools/) detailing TPS educational accountability, this new Think Tank formed last year is off to a running start. Ken and his wife Maria Seidler (of Legal Overwatch For Parents Rights - https://legaloverwatch.org/), both retired attorneys, moved to Oklahoma to be with their family. 

Ken talks about how different the culture in New York - where litigation against governmental entities is more commonplace - is compared to here in Oklahoma where few of our governmental officials are ever called on the carpet and therefore, are not at all responsive to the citizens they represent and who pay their salaries. 

Oklahomans need to wake up and figure out that our government does not have our best interests at heart. In fact, Ken likens Oklahoma's citizens to mushrooms that are kept in the dark and fed 'crap', by their governmental officials.

ROPE Report Short - V1SUT; How Do We Get To One World Government?

Lots of people today recognize that we are moving all too quickly into a one world government scenario, but they're not sure how it's happening. This video is extremely short, but describes what things to watch for so that it's easier to see where to push back. If you have ever wondered about the concept of One World Government, this short video is for you.

ROPE Report Short; Without An Education, You're At The Mercy Of Those Who Know More Than You

Jenni and Michael talk about how important an EXCELLENT education is to - not only the development of children - but their lives as adults. Without an education, anyone can make you scared of anything, believe anything, do anything. Without an education you can easily become a slave.

Julianne Romanello - Education Tax Credit; It's NOT The Economy Stupid

Julianne Romanello, on our show Wednesday January 10th, tells us that by making everything about the economy, people have focused on their pocketbooks and NOT their LOSS OF LIBERTY. She asks, why in the world should we have to get our money back from the government to have freedom?

Major Adam Flowers Says, "YES", The Sheriff Can Stop Developmentally Inappropriate Books in Public Schools

Canadian County Sheriff’s Department Major Adam Flowers stalks online predators and is very good at it. He will talk with us about his job and the fact that he often arrests people who write things and send them online to children under 18 which are similar in nature to the language used in some of the books available to children in public schools, libraries and book fairs today.

ROPE/Chaffin Lawsuit Against Stillwater Public Schools - Request For Summary Judgement Heard Today

L. Nancy Blalock, ROPE Treasurer - Maria Seidler, Attorney - Jenni White, ROPE Education Director

This beautiful October morning, Attorney Maria Seidler argued for Summary Judgement in the case of Brice Chaffin and ROPE v Stillwater Public Schools.

Part 1: Jake Merrick Supported, Then Worked Against By Oklahoma Council For Public Affairs (OCPA) Dark Money Groups

               

Jake Merrick won a special election for now-Congresswoman Stephanie Bice's open Senate seat last year.  Jake is a Conservative, pro-life, pro-2nd amendment, small business owner who has served Oklahoma well since his special election.  Oklahoma Council for Public Affairs (OCPA) dark money helped him in his first election.  Here's the rub:  After voting YES in committee, he voted NO (on the Senate floor) on a bill to send public money to private schools (voucher - SB1647). This election cycle, OCPA is using many thousands of dollars to influence voters AGAINST HIM through a different dark money group.  

ROPE Endorses Dr. John Cox for State Superintendent

Every election since 2010, ROPE has announced support for a State Superintendent candidate.  We believe this position to be of paramount importance in the direction of education in our state.  This year is no different.

Four Republican candidates are vying for the State Superintendent’s chair:  Bill Crozier, April Grace, Dr. John Cox and Secretary of Education Ryan Walters.  ROPE held a candidate forum at Randall University on May 9^th.  Mr. Crozier was unable to attend and April Grace backed out of her original commitment to appear.

The Frontier Newspaper Blasts Oklahoma's Every Kid Counts For Not Disclosing Its Donors, But There's More

 

https://www.readfrontier.org/stories/billionaire-philanthropists-pushing-charter-schools-and-school-vouchers-also-fund-oklahomas-secretary-of-educations-six-figure-salary/

Though The Frontier blasts Every Kid Counts Oklahoma (EKCO) for not disclosing their donors, the real story here appears to be that an Oklahoma non-profit embroiled in controversy on several levels has no publicly-filed 990 since 2019.  Though there are Republicans who might dismiss information ferreted out by The Frontier as 'biased' or 'ax-grinding', the research I've been doing independently for some time, supports most reports made by The Frontier.

Sports VS Education - Do We Really Care About Education As Much As We Do Sports?

Not long ago, I off-handedly created a meme that went viral. It basically said that if Oklahomans worried more about the education of our children than who was going to be OU's next head coach, we'd start taking our country back.

Governor Stitt's State of The State - Public Education - Where We Can And Can't Agree

I would like to say this as an opener to this piece: This is not a rebuke of Governor Stitt - there are many things our Governor has done of which we all approve - but there is a sincere lack of agreement in the area of 'School Choice' that needs to be addressed. I am not criticizing to criticize, but to make points I think EVERYONE - especially Republicans - should think about before blind acceptance of the concept of state-sponsored 'school choice' through yet another voucher system.

Government Take-Over in Invented Emergencies (SB1647 - The Oklahoma Empowerment Account Program)

A guest post by Emily Hladik (bio below)

GUEST POST: "Generation Citizen" Provides 'Action Civics' Indoctrination In Oklahoma Public Schools

 

The following is a guest post by Jean Thomson. She has included a list of schools using the program. Additional comments have been added by the editor at the end of the post.

If You Wouldn't Keep Running Them Out Of The Profession, Teachers Wouldn't Leave

Last month, State Superintendent Hofmeister (who referred to the recent Governor-requested, first ever audit of the OSDE as "yet another attack on public education") happily announced she had gifted Teach For America over four million dollars to fill empty teaching positions. What she NEGLECTED to say however, was major.

PARENTS! Use These Laws And Sample Letters To Exert Your Parental Rights In Public Schools

Today, there are numerous state school laws being violated by public schools. For example, for years schools have been using Common Core in classrooms though it was repealed from law and supposedly removed from Oklahoma State teaching standards in 2014/2015. Now it's the teaching of racism through Critical Theory, made illegal by HB1775 during the 2021 legislative session - as well as schools forcing students to wear masks though prohibited by SB658, also passed on behalf of parents this year.