For those of you who have followed ROPE since the days (2008-2014) when we were called Restore Oklahoma Public Education (ROPE), you’ll recognize the flowchart, that Lynn Habluetzel (former ROPE Board member) and I created together to show how Obama’s Race To The Top grant program was fueling ways in which the government would track YOUR CHILDREN all under the guise of ‘helping’ them. What did Reagan say, “The nine most terrifying words in the English language are ‘I’m from the government and I’m here to help”?
This session, our ‘helpful’ legislature – particularly Representative Chad Caldwell and Senator Ally Seifried – have decided to add to the State Longitudinal Database System (SLDS) so loved by former REPUBLICAN State Superintendent Janet Baressi. Here is the text of the bill. In addition, Seifried and Dick Lowe (SB141) are directing the OSDE to issue RFP’s for a “statewide student information system”. I guess, we’re the only ones that remember the information below apparently.
I was going to publish a list of reasons why this bill shouldn’t even be considered, but I’ll just say this – WE ALREADY HAVE A STATE LONGITUDINAL DATABASE (aka Statewide Student Information System) and according to everything we learned years ago, it was set up to do all the same stuff outlined in the bill by the person responsible for setting the whole scheme up by the Obama administration in the first place, John Kraman – now the Chief Information Officer for the Mississippi State Department of Education.
STOP COLLECTING DATA ON KIDS! THERE IS NO NEED FOR THIS UNLESS THE IDEA IS FOR THE GOVERNMENT TO EDUCATE STUDENTS FOR JOBS LIKE THE EU DOES.
And if there’s still any concern that Oklahoma needs more excuses to collect data on kids, below is the presentation I made to the House Admin rules, Government Oversight and Repealer Committee during October of 2013. It’s a MUST WATCH because it contains the flowcharts I prepared that show how the state – and the feds – collect student data.
Here is the paper that contains all the LIVE links to all the research Lynn, Julia Seay (former ROPE Board member) and I did on the SLDS during the time Oklahoma was implementing that monster.
PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE share this information with every parent and grandparent you can and IMMEDIATELY contact your Representative and Senator and tell them that they MUST vote NO for SB224 and SB141 and any other data collection bill in the state legislature.
Michael and I had so much fun talking to Colonel Putman on the show Wednesday (2.26.25). I swear, that man had some of the best stories about his military career with the Air Force – and one of them is below. Just take a few minutes to watch this because it is guaranteed to make you giggle – although you can watch the entire live program on YouTube and Rumble.
But, among the stories, the Colonel had quite a bit to say about education in our state and I, for one, was bowled over by his thoughts and ideas. At one point, we were discussing ‘distance learning’ – learning out of school and what he thought about that. “Virtual presence is actual absence“, was the comment the Colonel made. How perfect is that? And no, he’s not a fan of learning on a computer in general. Just like Michael and I, the Colonel believes that learning is more functional with a paper and pencil and a teacher in a classroom.
In the clip below, we were talking about what Michael heard from teachers when he was running for school board. So much of it was about how micromanaged they were. The Col. talks about micromanagement and also about the student surveys that the district gives to students. These bother him for the same reason they’ve always bothered Michael and I – most of these surveys actually instill ideas in kid’s heads because they’ll introduce something they’ve never heard about or even thought about. That kind of thing has to stop. It’s a waste of education time and dollars because they don’t provide any real educational opportunities for students they’re just a way to collect data.
In the last clip, we talked a bit about the culture of the public schools and how many good teachers are frustrated by that. The Col. made the most common sensical comment – you don’t quit your job, you quit your boss. He then goes on to talk about how he is a huge supporter of teachers because they are on the front lines and in the classroom with the students and how they need to be supported by administration.
After Col. Putnam ‘retired’ from the podcast (lol), Michael and I start talking about some news for the week (1:15 on the video timer) and there was a lot of pretty interesting stuff there. You’ll want to check out the full video for that and I’ve embedded it below so you can.
Please – if you’re in the Edmond area, or you know someone who lives in the Edmond area – look up Colonel Putnam’s website. Get to know him and share these videos and his website with others in the area. School Boards are the most important thing in a school – they set the tone for the entire school. Let’s concentrate on getting good candidates elected to these positions all over the state!
Friday, February 21, our ROPE Report Regular, Julianne Romanello joined us to talk about the New World Order and the School To Work Pipeline. You can see the full LIVE video on our YouTube and Rumble channels.
So what does all this mean? That’s a whole lot of jargon.
The fact of the matter is that public schools were not created to teach students to learn and excel, they were created to teach students to be compliant. Think back to the industrialists like Carnegie and Rockefeller and Ford. They needed workers. Prior to the Industrial Revolution, families had been eking out a living on a family farm. Now, business is booming in town and parents are leaving their family farms for the promise of a good wage in the city. These people weren’t highly educated and were used to working. They made wonderful workers for the Industrialists, but what about their kids? Why not create a system where they could be taught to be compliant?
Sadly, it gets worse. Here, Julianne tells us how the one thing that the rich and powerful can count on is the ‘resiliency’ of human beings and how that ‘resiliency’ can be fostered in government schools to provide the one thing they really need – a way to adapt to changing workforce needs.
This is the article Julianne references in the video. You can see by just a cursory review of the article how people are using computer programs, for example, to mold students into ‘resilient’, ‘adaptable’ people who can ‘take on any job’. The article lists out why Impact Investing is so bad all the way around – not just for student autonomy.
In the video below, Julianne, Michael and I all talk about how education – as done by government schools – is completely off base. How it functions to create compliant students and not students who can really think about things critically.
Luckily, some parents have seen this and are already homeschooling their children. Those of us who have, should work as hard as we can to get other parents to remove their children from the system before its too late for them and for society.
As always, if you have questions, please reach out to me and I’m happy to do what I can to help you get started on YOUR journey toward fully educating your kids! Just email me at jenni@rope2.org.
Wednesday, February 19th, Michael and I welcomed back our friend ‘Mary’ with V1SUT to talk about a couple of items. Check out the full LIVE video on our YouTube and Rumble channels. We always have some great discussions and the only way to catch those is watching the full video.
First, we talked about the fact that – with the onset of DOGE – we’re learning how USAID has funded billions of dollars in research and social activism to undermine the Republic and the way citizens think about America.
One of the ways this has occurred is through the financing of grants to organizations such as Oklahomans for Equality which has then used the funds to push out messaging and other support for LGBTQIA+ issues in Bartlesville. Mary has written several articles about the influence of this group on the town and how this has effected residents. So controversial has been their methodology, that Bartlesville’s last city council elections saw 3 out of 5 city councilman ousted by the citizenry over the issue of allowing public drag shows sponsored by Oklahomans For Equality.
Mary’s blog on the topic at V1SUT Substack is quite good. You should check it out.
We also discussed HB1937 a bill to essentially undo the bill written last year (HB3958) by Sherrie Conley that prevents public school employees from having conversations with students through any medium without a parent present on the thread to overwatch.
Chairman and Vice-Chairman of the House Common Education Committee, Dick Lowe and Danny Sterling (respectively) wrote HB1937 because they believed it was too cumbersome for parents and coaches to have to see every conversation with students, essentially UNprotecting students. The bill passed the Common Education Committee 8-5 with the Speaker of the House voting.
Take a very hard look at who voted YES WITH THE DEMOCRATS. Below, Mary talks more about the bill and the vote and how this bill puts children at risk because parents may feel pressured to opt out, leaving their kid unprotected. Lowe and Sterling appear to be more for the status quo than protecting kids.
In the video below Mary talks about how educators are doing a great job at covering for other educators, but not protecting children – which is really their FIRST RESPONSIBILITY. Mary also mentions that maybe one or both Sterling or Lowe had been involved in ‘passing the trash’ before, as she asked them for a comment on that very issue and neither responded. Find out more in her Substack.
This bill has yet to have a hearing in the Education Oversight Committee, but those are ad hoc committees that only require a 24 hour agenda notice (for some reason), so PLEASE, email the members of the Education Oversight Committee and ask them to VOTE NO on HB1937.
Rep. Kerbs, Chair (R) District 26
Rep. Caldwell, Chad Vice-Chair (R) District 40
Rep. Hasenbeck, Toni
Rep. Kane, John
Rep. Lowe, Dick
Rep. Provenzano, Melissa
Rep. Waldron, John
Rep. West, Tammy
Rep. Wolfley, Max
Copy and paste the block below into your email ‘to’ line.
So interesting today to see that Governor Stitt has fired three members of the state school board because, “…it’s clear that our education infrastructure has fallen prey to needless political drama.”
Political drama. What does that actually mean? But then the Governor loves to use catch phrases – you know – like political animal – the term he used when he was out in Chairman of the House Appropriations and Budget Committee, Representative Kevin Wallace’s district, trying to get him re-elected over the grassroots, common family man the people preferred, Jim Shaw?
Seriously. What political drama? Literally. What exactly was the DRAMA the Board was engaging in?
I never saw a one of them talking about their jobs outside the Board in a way that invoked DRAMA. None of them were going before a camera to talk about their jobs or to condemn the Superintendent or the Governor or creating MAGA videos in their cars. SO WHAT DRAMA?
I think he means the DRAMA of removing the teaching certificates of taxpayer-supported public school employees who were preying upon children. THAT drama!
Seriously, does anyone realize that we’ve had a drag queen principal with a drunk driving and child pornography charge – who only went away because of outside pressure by local media outlet V1SUT – and a Superintendent in Shawnee and a coach in Shawnee and incidents in Kingfisher and Ninnekah and Salina and Perry and Wewoka where districts are being sued because NO ONE WOULD PROTECT STUDENTS FROM EMPLOYEES WHO WERE HURTING CHILDREN? THAT kind of drama Mr. Stitt?
Kendra Wesson – one of the removed Board members – is one of the most transparent, hard-working, smart, committed women I know. She was always prepared for a meeting and truly had a heart for kids – a not-so-surprising-fact when you find out that she has eight of her own. Her removal is absolute NONSENSE. She wasn’t engaged in any kind of political drama in any way. All she was trying to do in her position was go over and above to help Oklahoma kids.
WHO IN THE HELL FIRES SOMEONE LIKE KENDRA WESSON????
She and this Board were actively involved in attempting to remove teachers and other public school personnel who were a danger to children – and now all of them but two – Governor Stitt’s attorney at Gateway Mortgage, Sarah LePak – and Zach Archer – who, like Governor Stitt, works in the financial industry – are left. What do they know about education? Apparently, they know how to be an attorney and a financial analyst – but, dang it – that is the kind of person our Governor admires!
So what about these new Board members?
Michael Tinney is the husband of Ginger Tinney of Professional Oklahoma Educators. Mr. Tinney is an oil and gas attorney with Ames, Ashabranner, Taylor, Lawrence, Laudick & Morgan in Oklahoma City. I guess we should be happy that he’s at least CONNECTED to someone who knows about education, ‘cuz at this point, we’re 0-2 there.
If he is from Kingfisher, he is resident of the Kingfisher Public School system where the district was slapped with a $5 million dollar lawsuit over charges of abuse by Kingfisher Football Coach Jeff Myers. Myers, who was banned from any further activity with the team and whose contract was not to be renewed by the Board, was still employed as of December, when Kingfisher had to let go 22 positions to pay the settlement from the suit after the Kingfisher County Excise Board refused to pass the settlement cost on to tax payers.
And then we found this:
Apparently, in the 20-teens Deathridge was associated with the electric ‘car’ tax credit craze. And yes, there were federal income tax subsidies taken for the vehicles.
What an interesting choice for the State School Board. He has no education experience either.
And then there’s Chris VanDenhende who is listed in the Governor’s press release as being from Tulsa. According to VanDenhende’s LinkdIn page, he is from Stroud, Oklahoma, in Lincoln County, where he is Chief Financial Officer at Southwest Fuel Systems, LLC. and Mint Turbines.
Interesting choice Mr. VanDenhende. Apparently, he is friendly with Mr. Stitt’s friend, Kevin Wallace.
In a Lincoln County News Herald “Report From Kevin Wallace” on April 6, 2022, Mr. Wallace says, “I was fortunate to be invited to dinner on the eve of this event with many representatives from the industries. Chris VanDenhende, chief financial officer and chief strategy officer for Southwest Fuel Systems and Mint Turbines in Stroud, also attended. VanDenhende spoke recently at the Stroud Chamber banquet. It was a pleasure to get to see him again and to discuss his company’s growth in our House district.”
But, that’s not all (I feel like Monty Hall). Mint Turbines has been collecting Oklahoma Quality Jobs Incentive Payments since 2020. In 2024, his company got a ‘shout out’ from the Oklahoma Commerce Department, that included the following text:
Strategic Public/Private Partnerships and Industry Engagement
With nearly 72,000 square feet of factory and warehouse space, Mint Turbines is one of the few certified MRO facilities in North America. Known for its commitment to quality and customer service, the company serves both commercial and military sectors, ensuring top-tier turbine engine performance and reliability. Mint Turbines has partnered with ACES at numerous trade shows to boost their visibility within the aerospace industry and showcase their capabilities to key industry leaders.
They also received about $100,000 in training reimbursements from Department of Career and Technology Education and a 2 MILLION DOLLAR Federal Loan from the Export Bank.
So, no one on the State School Board has ANY EDUCATION EXPERIENCE at all and only attorney Mike Tinney is involved with someone who does. I’m sure that will be SUPER helpful to Oklahoma’s kids and will put us well on the way to improving our NAEP scores.
What’s even more interesting, is that Senator Julia Kirk put out THIS press release shortly after the “shake up” occurred.
Followed shortly by Senator Mark Mann.
Well thank God the DEMOCRATS are happy! That’s certainly why we elected another Republican Governor – to make Democrats happy!
The only other thing that sounds SUPER FISHY here, is that the Governor would decide TODAY, the day that Auditor Cindy Byrd was to make her audit of Tulsa Public Schools public, to make this School Board ‘shake up’ announcement based on the stupid premise of “political drama”. The Governor just had Bixby Superintendent Rob Miller stand with him for his state of the state address – touting the equally stupid cell phone bill (even funnier…Supt. Miller created his district’s policy without a law, yet the Governor pointed to him for support of the bill) and, as we all know, the Governor is from Tulsa.
Interestingly (I know, I keep using that word), Auditor Byrd was unable to release the findings because a truckload of lawyers working for TPS invoked an obscure law to halt its release. At her press conference she said the findings are significant and that she wasn’t allowed to provide the results to the public because of a law that no one had ever used in her 28 years as an auditor.
People, this state is in trouble. The people who run it do NOT HAVE OUR BEST INTERESTS AT HEART.
In fact, did you know that Governor Stitt still had financial interest in Gateway Financial Services and other Gateway entities as of 2019? Did you know that Oklahoma has given Gateway First – the fusion of Gateway Mortgage and Farmers Exchange Bank of Cherokee – hundreds of thousands of dollars in Quality Jobs Incentive Payments since 2019?
This State Board of Education ‘shake up’ was WRONG. Dead WRONG. It won’t help our NAEP scores, but I guarantee it’ll help score political points with someone somewhere – and that has to be what ALL of this is about. So, make no mistake, none of this was about helping Oklahoma kids!
According to a press release sent out by Senate Media, the bill, “empower[s] schools to adopt ‘bell to bell’ cell phone policies”, yet the bill summary says, “An Act relating to schools; requiring school district boards of education to adopt a policy prohibiting use of cell phones while on campus during certain time period”. Requiring and ’empowering’ do not have the same meaning – the first includes force.
In fact, the bill goes on to say that it will require schools to set discipline policies for students who break the school’s required policy on cell phone use (the force part). Originally, it had allotted up to 2 million taxpayer dollars (“if available”, whatever that means) to be granted to middle and high schools so they can buy something to STORE cell phones during the day. Because a basket can’t hold cell phones in a classroom and we need a cabinet (or something) for THE SCHOOL to hold EVERY STUDENT’S cell phone.
Problems With The Bill
What is the point of a school board? According to state law, individual local school boards have the right and ability to set policy – including policy over cell phones. This bill actively usurps local school board authority by forcing them to create a policy. On one hand, we expect parents to execute control over their minor children, yet so much of what the state does actually removes parental executive control in favor of a government policy, rule or law. How can a parent execute parental control if we keep removing their executive function?
This is NEW LAW. How many laws do Oklahomans need to restrain them – or, in this case, their children? What about schools? Could an argument be made that part of the reason public schools in Oklahoma are failing is that they are constrained by state laws that may not have been needed at the local level? How many laws does Oklahoma actually need – especially when this one has no teeth, making it a suggestion.
This law forces schools to create disciplinary actions to be meted out when students break cell phone policy. What happens if a school DOESN’T create a cell phone policy? What happens if they don’t create a discipline policy? How many times has state law required schools to create a policy, but then never forced the school to write the policy when they don’t? Tulsa attorney Maria Seidler has told us numerous times, for example, that public schools don’t adhere to all of Oklahoma’s Parental Rights law, but there isn’t an enforcement mechanism in the law to make them, forcing parents to use their own money to sue schools while schools use taxpayer dollars to fight them. How many times has the state forced schools to follow the policies they DO create – about bathrooms, free speech, bullying, or student safety, for example? This law, then, would be meaningless, just like so many others our legislature creates, because there isn’t a mechanism of enforcement.
Our state has real problems with school employees who misuse and abuse children in their care. We have only to look at the number of multi-million dollar lawsuits being settled by schools in the last several years like Kingfisher and Ninnekah and Salina and Perry and Shawnee and Wewoka… Yet, parents who suggest CCTV for classrooms are confronted with an uproar like a tsunami from certain teachers and administrators against such a thing. Now, we want to remove the only way students have to ‘catch’ a school employee doing something they shouldn’t be doing. Just this thought should be concerning.
So much learning is now done on computers but somehow the kid’s cell phones are causing distraction? How does that work? Countless studies have shown that computer learning isn’t the best thing for students, but not only do we still do it, there are real problems with students accessing porn and other sites, as former Oklahoma resident Denise Roberts told us during an interview on our podcast – but cell phones are the problem?
This is a national movement. Why? Why we are attempting to do what so many other states are doing? Why do we play Follow The Leader so often in Oklahoma when we’re an individual state. What about, “I don’t care what the other kids do”. What about being an “laboratories of Democracy“?
Each and every teacher could create their own class rules about cell phones, but we’re not letting them – “Put the phones in the basket on my desk until the end of class everyone”. We’re telling teachers that we don’t trust them with a policy over a cell phone, but you trust them to educate the kids in their class? How much sense does that make? This is all talk out of both sides of the mouth of the legislature – here, have more money teachers – but you can’t manage your own classroom.
Bottom line. This is a bill in search of a problem that already has a solution. This isn’t even a bandaid for the horrible educational results we have in this state. This bill is vanity, not good governance.
Contact the Senate Education Committee and ask them to say NO to SB1389.
Wednesday of this week (2.12.25) Representative Tammy West’s bill to “authorizing the State Board of Education to assist in establishing Community School pilot projects” is once again being heard in the Common Education Committee.
This is a national move to create schools that are all things to all parents – they would include everything from health care to psychological counseling. Here is a screenshot from the front page of their website.
Below is a one-pager I wrote when this bill first came up in 2022. In fact, that should say something in and of itself. Representative West keeps introducing this bill and it keeps getting voted down. Is it because our schools are already socially Marxist? Why does she keep bringing this up?
But then what do we know? When we wrote to the Common Education Committee members to ask them to vote against the bill, Former Senate author for West (and no longer in the senate) Dewayne Pemberton, assured members that he had been to a Community School in Tulsa (which made one of our points by the way) and that he hadn’t seen Karl Marx hiding behind the shrubs.
What Are Some Concerns With Community Schools?
HB3374 – Tammy West and Pemberton (Senate) – Community schools; authorizing the State Board of Education to assist in establishing community school pilot projects
1. President Obama placed Full Service Community Schools into the Elementary and Secondary Education Act in 2016. They are called “full service” schools because they provide every need for a child that a family/parent would including education, counseling services, healthcare and nutrition. (https://www2.ed.gov/programs/communityschools/index.html)
3. There are two national organizations which help support the Community Schools model – Community Schools (communityschools.org) and the National Center For Community Schools (nccs.org)
– Prioritization of populations that have historically experienced systemic racism, discrimination, and/or disinvestment
– End the school to prison pipeline/school pushout crisis through stronger enforcement of civil rights protections and incentives for a restorative approach including restorative justice, trauma-informed practices, and hiring additional school counselors, social workers, and psychologists
– Raise the minimum wage to $15/hour and/or establish a universal basic income
b. National Center For Community Schools follow three principles: Transformation, Equity and Excellence. The ‘Equity’ portion of the website says the following: Strong community schools counter systemic racism, increase opportunity, and move society toward equity and justice. Too many children are expected to overcome structures designed to diminish them. Schools should model anti-racism, not perpetuate systems that divide us and limit opportunity. We want students to feel not just welcomed, but valued for their race, religion, identification, origin, family, and community.
4. Community Schools follow the model proposed by John Dewey (a socialist with Marxist views often considered the father of modern education) of a ‘democratic school-based social center’ where the school provided every possible need for students. An article in the AFT’s American Educator Magazine in Summer of 2009 – “The Enduring Appeal of Community Schools” – provides a quote from Dewey’s 1902 address, “The School as Social Centre”, “The conception of the school as a social centre is born of our entire democratic movement. Everywhere we see signs of the growing recognition that the community owes to each one of its members the fullest opportunity for development.” This, a quote which can’t help comparison to the quote of Marx, “From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs”.
5. Enshrining a Community Schools pilot program in law while allowing the OSDE to create rules for that program is a recipe for creating further progressive, leftist inroads into the education of our children.
6. Oklahoma communities HAVE BEEN creating their own Community Schools independent of state law. The only reason to pass a state law, then, would be to allow the growth of the Community Schools movement throughout Oklahoma and provide the necessary validation for the Federal Government to provide tax dollars for these schools. Federal/State tax dollars should NOT be provided for socialist, progressive education efforts in this country, let alone this state.
Please write the members of the Common Education Committee and ask for their NO vote on HB1467 by West. Just copy and paste the block of addresses and put them into your ‘to’ field.
Below are the bills which would affect homeschooling families in one way or another. The RED are not supported by home educators and the GREEN are supported by those who educate their children at home without government assistance. This list was compiled by homeschool educator Robert Scott.
In order to help you read this list better, you can click in the document and it will take you to our SCRIBD site. You may also print out this PDF. Below is a list of just the bills.
Also, HJR1010 by Jim Shaw which would provide constitutional protection for homeschools and private schools. A Joint Resolution directing the Secretary of State to refer to the people for their approval or rejection a proposed amendment to Section 4 of Article XIII of the Constitution of the State of Oklahoma; stating certain parental and legal guardian rights; limiting certain school regulations; providing ballot title; and directing filing.
All one has to do is type in the two-word phrase “school choice” in our website’s search box to know that I’ve thought the idea of ‘school choice’ to be a scam for a very long time. Oklahoma HAS already has school choice. We have a Constitutional provision for homeschooling, we have charter schools and magnate schools and neighborhood schools and private schools and online schools – OKLAHOMA HAS IT ALL. Every Oklahoman has the ability to make whatever ‘choice’ they want by which to educate their children.
The part of the ‘school choice’ idea I DESPISE, is the part where government tells taxpayers that they’ll take our money by force and then give it to other taxpayers who ‘can’t afford’ to put their kids in a private school because public schools are so bad – the Oklahoma Parental Choice Tax Credit Program.
Why do I hate this plan? Well, again, you can always search the website to get the full scope and picture, but this post is going to include a few screeds I’ve posted to my Facebook page in the past couple days.
This is the original post. There are lots and lots and lots of comments on this post, so I suggest you peruse it. Lots of good discussion. And I’ll remind you – you may not agree with me – and that’s okay, but we’ve GOT to have discussion on this topic before it gets any further out of hand. Don’t forget, REPUBLICANS – supposed bastions of limited government – are pushing this concept hard and have been for over a decade. This is a HUGE problem.
But here’s the post for today (1.28.25) copied below. It’s based in part on the conversations we were having on that post.
I’m going to go ahead and try this one more time. And I’m not being ugly here, I’m simply being stoic and direct. Some of you will think I’m ‘mean’ – and that’s fine – everyone is entitled to their opinions, however, thinking I’m ‘mean’ doesn’t invalidate my argument or the personal observations that spawned them.
It’s not up to taxpayers to ‘fix’ public schools – it’s PARENTS. Parents have all control over their own children – and I’ve argued that when legislators come in to try and ‘fix’ schools, they end up removing parental control which makes parents and their children, more wards of the state than they are already. The more the government parents parents, the less they’ll parent themselves. It’s simple human nature.
If parents were really interested in their children’s educations because they believed they could give their children something better than the education they’re getting in government schools, there would be few government schools with large student populations at this point.
For those who are compassionate about parents who are poor and have no real choices other than government-funded education – (BTW; government should be completely immune from ‘compassion’ – that’s a perspective for individuals, not governments who operate solely with money taken by force from its citizens) – then you need to be compassionate with your own dollars. You should start a school in your community that you fund – either yourself or with enough individuals willing to help out of private pocketbooks – so that poorer community members have the opportunity to attend a government school alternative.
Here’s what will happen with the majority of attendees to this school (because I found the exact same thing when I moved from being a ‘regular’ school teacher to a ‘charter’ school teacher); parents will be very motivated/active for a short time, then, they’ll stop coming to meetings and will only be reachable when their child has problems. At that point, they’ll find a way to blame you – or the school – for their child’s actions because their child wouldn’t ______ (fill in the blank). (Incidentally, I also found this at my youngest son’s homeschool co-op as well. A parent would bring their child who had been kicked out of government school to the co-op – they’d just open the car door and drop them off – when most parents would stay. There, the kid would cause problems for everyone else in the classroom and eventually be removed from the co-op too.)
Most parents today don’t want CHOICES – they want someone to take care of their children for them – they want a babysitter and/or a bankroller. Oh, they’ll fight that statement tooth and nail and scream and holler about how mean it is to say something like that, but actions speak louder than words. Why are government schools (even those in expensive neighborhoods) stuffed with parents that won’t take even a night out of their schedules to go to their school board meetings or attend a parent/teacher night? Why? Because by and large, parents are happy with whatever is going on in the school until something goes bad – their child is failing, or is being sidelined on a sports team, or is creating issues in the classroom – and once there is a problem, it suddenly becomes the school’s fault, or the teacher’s fault and SOMETHING HAS TO BE DONE.
Everything goes back to FREE WILL. We all have it – and as Christians, we should be pointing to that fact over and over and over again. If people want to do things, they do them. If they don’t, they won’t. The ‘compassion’ of using tax dollars (someone else’s money) to send kids to private schools won’t fix that.
As Jesus said in the New Testament – the poor will always be with us (Mark 14:6). Jesus knew that some people won’t make good CHOICES and that some people are too lazy, uncaring, or improperly educated enough to make good choices. Taking tax dollars from one person (maybe a person like me who homeschooled their kids and still had to pay for public schools too) and giving it to another (to do the same thing I did without ‘government help’) won’t make them CARE for their children any more than they already do. It doesn’t work, but by creating and perpetuating this system, one of the things you will do – is violate my religious conscience by sending my tax dollars to a Madrasa or a Satanist school. I’ve read the Bible. My God is a jealous God. Is it right for me to pay for the teaching of another religion?
In fact, isn’t this the same argument people (Christians?) use against the giving of public tax dollars to Planned Parenthood to perform abortions? Yup. It’s the same argument and people should realize that there is no difference in philosophy between paying for abortions and paying for people to send their kids to private schools – people just don’t want to confront the ugly truth; a large percentage of parents aren’t willing to make more of a commitment to their children’s education than what is found in their local public school. Period. That’s not an excuse for government intervention at any level.
So, look, the bottom line is this – we Republicans are either going to follow the path of limited government like has been embedded in our Platform since its near inception – or we’re going to abandon the idea of Party altogether. Right now – in my opinion – saying I’m a Republican is meaningless. I believe in the Constitution – as written, not as litigated in a court of law – and LIMITED GOVERNMENT. I also believe that any legislator who believes that taking money from citizens by force and then giving it to other taxpayers to fund an activity they could work out for themselves without access to my tax dollars is WRONG. Period. Sadly, this puts me out of sorts with so many people who believe themselves to be Republican – but that’s a problem for ALL Oklahomans – not just me.
