True School Choice Is Eliminating Property Taxes - Sherrie Conley

In this ROPE Report Short, our guest for Wednesday, June 26th, Oklahoma Representative Sherrie Conley and Jenni White talk about what really makes "school choice". Is it the government giving people taxpayer dollars to privately school their kids (vouchers), or is it the government allowing taxpayers to have our property without property taxes (Ad Valorem) so that taxpayers could help pay to educate their own children? This led to a bit more discussion on taxation...

The video in its entirety (recorded live on the 26th) can be found on our Rumble and YouTube channels.

If You Can't Answer These Questions, You Can't Support Vouchers; Sarah DeNeui - ROPE Report Short

Wednesday, June 5th, Sarah DeNeui - a homeschooling mom and Broken Arrow, Oklahoma, resident - came on the podcast to talk about the bill that ushered in Oklahoma's "Universal School Choice", HB1934, 2023.

She began to research the bill because it included a provision for homeschoolers to collect $1000.00 in tax credits if they provided all the information required and were eligible. She wanted to know if homeschooling could somehow be damaged by the program so she did a deep dive.

What she found concerned her, so she started asking herself questions about the entire program - especially the part where the state gives public money to private schools. Those who believe vouchers are a good thing should take the time to answer each question Sarah has thoughtfully asked.

If you can still support vouchers after this video, there simply isn't a way to be a self-identified "conservative", or "small government" or even "Republican". There really isn’t…

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.

Is Jeb Bush Behind Oklahoma's Plan To Insert The Benevolent Hand Of Government Into Homeschooling? It would appear so.

Few ideas for 'big' legislation DON'T come as boilerplate ideas from national think tanks. Many times, though they may work in other states, they are not appropriate for Oklahoma, yet legislators bring them into the capitol because of the hand that offered them.

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.

Ferocious Opposition?

A new Wall Street Journal book review today, sparked an absolutely fabulous response by one of ROPE's new friends, Gretchen Logue. The review, entitled, "Learning the Hard Way; The reformers who want to save the public schools are starting to make a difference, against ferocious opposition", also made me wonder whether ROPE and our allies will now be labeled, "The Ferocious Opposition"!

From the article:

"The reformist agenda includes two key components. First, teachers and principals must be held accountable for their impact on student achievement—rewarded with pay and promotion or punished, at the extreme end, with the loss of a job. Second, the current public monopoly in K-12 education needs to be disrupted, by offering more choices. These include privately operated, publicly funded charter schools—schools that are not bound by the usual public-school rules and regulations—and publicly funded vouchers that can be used to pay for private schools."

This argument for school choice in this reform agenda must be discarded because the two main premises are faulty and/or false.

"Teachers and principals must be held accountable for their impact on student achievement—rewarded with pay and promotion or punished, at the extreme end, with the loss of a job." Great idea in theory! But think about it: you are a 5th grade teacher who faces MAP testing. Your class is made up of 8 IEP students (out of 20) and the majority of your kids are "low average". The majority of them have come to you reading on a 3rd grade level. You bring them up as much as you can and they DO make progress, however, most of them don't make a 2 year learning leap in one year, and don't make the 5th grade MAP benchmark as being "proficient". Is that the teacher's fault? Should he/she be punished because of the make-up of those students? Remember, the benchmark for determining a "highly effective" teacher is for the subgroup to pass, it is not enough for the subgroup to progress. Impossible goals ensure failure. No wonder Arne Duncan declares up to 82% of schools will be failing. They can't possibly meet impossible goals!

The second part of the "reform" agenda includes "schools not bound by the usual public school rules and regulations". Okay. If you truly believe that, then the current multi-million lobbyists for school choice have lied to the public. Charters WILL BE UNDER THE SAME MANDATES as traditional public schools: common core standards and the assessments crafted by the consortia. If you are looking to charters to provide innovation, it's not going to happen. All this "choice" does is to move the children from one building to another and have different teachers. If you think the unions are the only problem in education, you will love this plan. If you believe the problems are multi-layered (think faulty curriculum, indoctrination, lack of parent/student involvement), there will probably not be much difference.

The other statement in that "reform" sentence: "and publicly funded vouchers that can be used to pay for private schools" sounds fabulous, doesn't it? How will the private schools like to be under the same federal mandates if they accept federal money? We all know federal money comes with strings...and this means those schools will probably have to adopt themselves to common core standards and federal mandates, thereby defeating the real "choice".

I wish the lobbyists were forced to tell the truth. This "choice" is false choice and will just transfer the money from the unions to hedge fund companies and venture capitalists. Conservatives believe that's the free market. It's not, though. It's taxpayer money funneled to private companies with little personal financial risk. What kind of capitalism is that? And oh, by the way, the taxpayer is funding a system in which he/she has no voice. I call it "totalitarian democracy".