Education

Oklahoma Hiding Failing Test Scores Behind “Academic Achievement” Indicator, V1SUT Blogger Tells ROPE

Wednesday, May 14th, author “Mary” of the Substack V1SUT Vantage joined Michael Grande and me on our ROPE Report LIVE podcast – which broadcasts live on YouTube, Rumble, X, LinkdIn and Facebook every Wednesday and Friday at 9am – to talk about test scores vs academic achievement in Oklahoma public education. Just the week before, “Mary” had written an article, “OK School Performance & Deceptive Data: Parents & School Board Members Untrained to Assess Student Outcomes“, and we wanted the chance to discuss the data she had uncovered on the state’s School Report Card website.

Many years ago – 2016 to be exact – the OSDE under the leadership of then-Superintendent Janet Barresi, created the “A-F school report card”. ROPE was so against it, we wrote a blog about it (Oklahoma’s A-F Grading System Get’s An “F”), we wrote letters to the Governor and Superintendent and Jenni spoke before the State School Board warning them about the adoption of the grade card.

Our primary objections were 2: 1) the only REAL reason to create the grade card was to get President Obama’s end-around No Child Left Behind. As a Conservative organization, we objected to President Obama’s notion that he could ignore the Constitution and go around Congress to make his own law (waiver) simply because he believed Congress would not act to reauthorize the NCLB and 2) because the measurements used meant nothing and could disguise poor student test results.

Sadly/oddly/not shockingly, the school grade card today is essentially the same as the one from 2016. Here were the categories and their percentages: Student Achievement (33%), Individual Student Growth (17%), Growth of Bottom Quartile (17%) and Whole School Performance (33%). If you don’t believe me, check out the categories and POINTS (now) of the updated grade card. Not much difference there, just a whole lot of words to describe how it is that the State isn’t really being transparent with taxpayers and parents – I’d imagine so they can continue to get money from the feds as when the whole grade card thing started.

Here’s a short clip of Mary talking about what she found when she wondered why Achievement Scores are so high in schools housing primarily failing kids.

This is, of course, nonsense, but I pointed out in this other clip from the podcast, that since at least the mid-70’s, public education has been dumbing down education and then trying to cover their tracks. In the clip below, I show how the ‘recentered’ ACT scores made it look like students were doing very well, when in reality, they were doing MUCH WORSE on the test than 2 decades before.

If you’d like to see the whole video, you can find it on our YouTube or Rumble channels.

Just for grins and giggles, as I close out this piece, I thought I would include a section from a blog post in 2014 called, “Is Common Core MEANT to Blow Up the American Educational System?” It describes the way I see the PLANNED DESTRUCTION OF PUBLIC EDUCATION by the Marxists who began stepping up the whole program under President Obama. You can also find more information in these two blogs from the same time frame (2012-2014), “Governor Fallin says, “Stop whining or you’ll get no more education funds.” and “ROPE Approves Democrat Disapproval“.

If you got anything out of the podcast or the research – PLEASE SHARE!

…there are those who believe “ObamaCare” was made to be so difficult to navigate in an effort to crash America’s current health care system. The thought here is that if it becomes too hard to get health insurance, the public will clamor for SINGLE PAYER and just let the government handle the whole ball of wax – none of these silly exchanges – no, we’ll just move America over to the same side of the abacus as England and Canada and nationalize health care. After all, we’re of socialist stock (eye roll).

I believe this is exactly what is happening to public education in America today when I look at the recent history of education ‘reform’.

First; you claim America education is failing.
Second; from the start, you act as the hand of benevolence by reaching out to states in their time of monetary need with ‘free’ money to keep education programs running (State Fiscal Stabilization Funds) where you hook states into a four pillared education reform system that includes national standards and state longitudinal databases.
Third; you play on America’s competitive spirit by offering states a grant where you can Race to the Top of education accountability and results, providing money through a program that continues to perpetuate the four pillars of education reform.
Fourth; you do NOT re-authorize the existing ESEA, but instead, go around Congress completely to create waivers for the worst parts of the law (such as the part where ALL children must be ‘proficient’ in English/LA and Math by 2014). This, in essences creates your own ala cart law menu that keeps states hooked into the all-important four pillars, but also adds something called “accountability measures” for schools such as Third Grade Reading Retention programs, A-F grading scales and teacher accountability measures.
Fifth; you spend 6 years selling the plan to legislators while managing the whole scheme from behind the curtain of private, non-profit organizations within which taxpayers have no representation, propping up the system with huge infusions of cash from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and big business such as Exxon/Mobile and ‘happy to help’ players such as the US Chamber of Commerce.
Sixth; after you have states on their nationalized educational track through your promoted “pillars”, you scare states into keeping all their ‘accountability’ measures by threatening their Title 1 funding. Though states/districts have no idea what will really happen to them if they don’t go along, states take the waivers and in exacting the instructions, districts self-destruct trying to figure out how to keep pressing the bar for their money like a lab rat for its pellet. *Teachers are afraid of having test scores held against them to the point of losing their jobs so they turn on administration. *Administrators turn on parents who are told they must implement ‘reform’ measures and that they can’t opt out of state tests the A-F grading system utilizes scores to create school grades (page 9) without forcing complete ruination of their school;
- Schools are expected to test 100 percent of eligible students enrolled in that school during the testing window for every OSTP exam for which they are eligible, regardless of FAY status.
- Schools that do not test a sufficient percentage of eligible students will be penalized as follows (all percentages are rounded to the nearest whole number):
- The school’s Overall Letter Grade will be reduced by one whole letter grade if fewer than 95 percent of all eligible test records have valid scores.
- The school’s Overall Letter Grade will automatically be reduced to an “F” if fewer than 90 percent of all eligible test records have valid scores.
Seventh; you collect lots and lots of data by digitizing the Common Core State Standards states had to take to get an RTT or Waiver, then, you pay two testing “consortia” to create digital online test questions that will align so perfectly that everyone who looks at the scores will be able to tell which standard the students got right and wrong on their exam. Since we so admire the European system of everything including schooling, can’t you believe this will imagine an end result that sounds like, “Sorry Johnny, you can’t be an engineer because you missed several math-related test questions indicating you are not engineer material.” You also collect all kinds of miscellaneous data for federal programming such as the “Safe and Drug Free Schools” that includes very detailed information on discipline incidents (that, by the way, don’t just fall off the internet when your child needs a clean record for college and career applications!). You then use this information against schools when they decide they are dumb enough to come crawling back for more money and or ‘waivers’ from existing unconstitutional federal education laws to further put the screws on them to get what you want.

(Sadly, a whole lot of the links in the original piece above from 2014, are no longer working)

May 16, 2024 0

Oklahoma Representative Sherrie Conley Talks to ROPE About Student Communications Bill and What Comes Next

Friday, May 10th, Jenni and Michael spoke with Representative Sherrie Conley about the passage of her bill HB3958 and what she’d like to see happen with the bill after she’s out of the legislature at the end of the session.

You can find the FULL video on our YouTube and Rumble Channels.

There are two clips from the full live video that we’d love for you to see.

First, Representative Conley talks about the number of lawsuits being filed in the state regarding school employees who have sexually or physically abused their students. Many of these lawsuits are settled for MILLIONS of dollars, but public schools don’t ‘make’ money. Public schools are appropriated tax dollars to function.

Consequently, if a school employee is ‘allowed’ (see the story of Shawnee Coach, Ron Arthur) to continue working at a public school with allegations of sexual impropriety that were never investigated and the school is sued for damages by the child/children involved, that school has to pay out a settlement to the students and parents which consists SOLELY of tax dollars. If the settlement or lawsuit damages exceed the amount of money the school has on hand, it must go to the taxpayers and force them to pay more taxes to pay for the lawsuit/settlement.

Taxpayers, then, have a vested interest in making school officials do the morally right and ethically thing by their students.

In the next short, Representative Conley makes it clear that, because Oklahoma has mandatory reporting laws for child endangerment, the Superintendents and Principals who know/knew that children are/were being sexually abused by school employees, should be brought up on criminal charges once investigations have been completed and school employees formally charged with child predation.

May 10, 2024 0

Installing Chaplains In Public Schools: The Road To Hell Is Paved With Good Intentions

May 30th, Oklahoma legislators debated a bill that would allow public schools to “employ or accept one or more volunteer chaplains”.

SB36, a bill by Senator Nathan Dahm, was originally a bill dealing with the Freedom of Information Act – allowing the public access to audio and video footage collected by law enforcement from drones or other video and audio sources. It was heard and passed in the Senate on March 1st.

The bill was then introduced as a Committee Substitute in the House General Government Committee (4.9.24) where the original House author (Rep. Jon Echols (R) was removed and Rep. Kevin West (R) was added. The title and all previous language of the original bill was struck in the Committee Substitute and new language added allowing the addition of Chaplains in public schools.

The bill was then heard on the floor of the House (4.24) where it passed 54 to 37.

This process is not at all transparent, firstly. There are many deadlines and rules that control the ways in which bills are introduced into the legislative process and bill language is to be in place prior to the opening of the legislative session. To change the filed language – especially after it has already passed one house of the legislature – creates confusion in Oklahoma citizens that fouls transparency – a process that should not be encouraged by our elected representatives.

This bill is also an excellent example of the ever-blurring line between church and state.

About the bill, Democrat John Waldron remarked:

“The quickest way to kill and erode the value of religious faith in Oklahoma is to cloak it in the coercive power of the state.”

What exactly does he mean?

For America’s Founders, the Establishment Clause in the Constitution was so important that it was listed as number one of all the Amendments. We have only to study the plight of the Pilgrims – who found tremendous religious persecution in their home country of England – to understand why this was such an important issue to our country’s framers.

The foundation of the idea that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof”, was that, if the federal government was unable to establish a national church – as England had with the Church of England – then its people would be free to worship as they chose. Additionally, if the state could tell people who, what or when to worship, again, the people could not be free to worship as they chose.

There are also laws regarding religious discrimination in the United States to help make sure no individual is favored, or denigrated, for their belief system in any way.

So, not only can governments within the United States not dictate the religious practices of its citizens, it can’t discriminate among the religious practices of its citizens either for any reason. One individual can’t be allowed to keep a Christian Bible on their desk, while another is fired for wearing a Hijab to work, for example.

According to SB46, “…a chaplain shall be a person who obtains an ecclesiastical endorsement from their faith group certifying that such chaplain is…A minister, rabbi, priest, imam, lay leader, or similar functionary of the faith group…”, and “Sensitive to religious pluralism and able to provide for the free exercise of religion by all students…”

Herein lies the issue; there is a very large difference between the practice of religion privately and the practice of religion inside an government institution.

For example, as a practicing Christian and a citizen of the United States, I would never consider violating the bounds of religious tolerance for those who practice Islam privately. As I have written in another article, however, because Islam has an historic, practiced, hatred of Christianity, I strenuously object to having state tax dollars devoted to the religion in any way. Yet, if a parent who signs up for the ‘school choice’ voucher in Oklahoma chooses to have state money used for their child to be educated in a Madrasa, it will be. If SB46 passes the Senate, an Imam could counsel children in a government school.

And then there’s this.

Lucian Greaves, the head of the Satanic Temple also threatened to establish a school of Satan in Oklahoma after the ‘school choice’ voucher bill was signed. At that time, I mined that matter with several legislators as a reason to vote NO on the voucher bill, but was simply told, “That will never happen in Oklahoma.” Yet, Iowa had to house a Satanic alter in their state capitol building thanks to anti-discrimination measures employed by the Satanic church after several types of Christmas displays were allowed.

Apparently the legislators I spoke to were unaware that After School Satan Clubs are ‘exploding in popularity‘ thanks to free speech lawsuits filed by supporters in response to Christian Good News Clubs allowed to be held on public school campuses. Satan Clubs now have chapters in Pennsylvania, Ohio, California, and Connecticut.

Here is the video from the After School Satan Club page advertising the club.

Many well-meaning Christians now see public schools for what they are – indoctrination centers for all kinds of un-Christian values – and wonder why they can’t combat the religion of Climate Change, LGBTQIA+, or SEL by inserting Christian values instead. After all, US public schools were infused with Christianity until 1962 when the US Supreme Court decided that prayer in schools created an establishment of religion (Engel vs Vitale). Why not work to bring that back?

As a Christian, I get it, but Christianity in America isn’t the same today as it was in the 1960’s, and any way used to pump Christianity into ANY public institution will cause an output of taxpayer resources for an equal amount of anything from Islam to Satanism. Is that really what Christians want?

So do Christians just give up on the idea of our mission to bring others to Christ? Absolutely NOT.

First of all, we need to do everything we can to make sure schools are focusing on their abysmal proficiency scores ONLY. Toward that end, we should lobby to get any after school social clubs removed from government schools altogether.

Then, Christians could concentrate on creating private organizations to pick up kids and transport them to churches for after school Bible lessons and tutoring help. Many parents would appreciate the ability to work later hours and have their child get help in their studies – their child’s exposure to Christianity would just be a bonus.

Yes, a return to Christ would help all society, but we must not allow ourselves to fight that battle in government schools. We must absolutely realize that if we do, we’ll open the door to taxpayer supported religious messages from groups that will warp the minds of students to their own ends – including turning them against Christianity – no matter how pure our intentions.

May 8, 2024 1

Home Education Bills Oklahomans Need To STOP NOW.

Jenni White 2.11.24

Last week, we had our friends Jana Belcher and Carrie Bertrand from the Constitutional Home Educators Alliance, to talk about some REALLY HORRIBLE bills that have been filed which would adversely effect home education here in Oklahoma.

Below are a couple of video clips from that interview, with captions so that you know what was discussed in each. Bottom line, you may or may not homeschool, but homeschooling in Oklahoma is the freest form of education not only in our own state, but in much of the country as well. If Oklahoma homeschool freedom goes – individual freedom will eventually go too as we’re all funneled into government schools.

If you want to read about each bill after you watch the videos, you can find all the information on the CHEA website here.

See what bills CHEA opposes and how to find them on their website. Also, don’t forget the Legislative Impact Day at the State Capitol, Monday, February 12th.

Legislators need to protect the rights of ALL Oklahomans – including homeschoolers! Tyranny for homeschoolers can become tyranny for everyone…

February 11, 2024 0

Swope’s Swoop: An Oklahoma Legislator’s Attempt to Make Homeschoolers into Children of the State

Guest Post By Ann Kerr

swoo͞p: v. 1. To make a rush or an attack with a sudden sweeping movement. 2. To seize or snatch in a sudden sweeping movement.

So long homeschooling parents! We don’t need you anymore. You do not know what is best for your kids, and we are going to tell you what is best. Until further notice, all of your children’s future will rest with the State. If you still want to try to direct their education and act as their parent – EVEN though the State knows best – then you can put in a request. We promise not to send it to File 13. We will look it over, look you over, look all of your children’s various teachers over and then we might look a little more deeply. We really want to get to know you before we would allow you to teach your own kids.

We want a file on you.

If this seems a little onerous…well…you know, you don’t really have to go through this. We have some other options already in place, and we will even pay you to use them. We have those old-fashioned brick and mortar learning centers (or the more recent version – [sheet metal and bolts), we have those more modern public (charter) schools that are not bound by local school boards, which many people believe are actually for homeschoolers, (eh, eh) and now we even have private schools under our wings. Our money is flooding their pockets – and you know what that means. (Or, at least you should.)

We want total control of your children. If you won’t give it to us, we will take it.

This is the power that is hoisted by House Bill 4130, filed by Representative Amanda Swope, Democrat, District 71.

Here are some of the tidbits in the Swoop.

Rep. Swope is classifying all homeschooling children as deprived or potentially deprived children, simply by injecting her proposal into a bill filed to amend the law regarding “Children and the Juvenile Code.” More specifically, right in the middle of a lot of definitions regarding child neglect and abuse, Rep. Swope plops in some terms to define pod schools and microschool, which completely ignore Oklahoma Constitutional law and contradict the definition of students learning “by other means.”
To make this clear, Rep. Swope takes Oklahoma’s Constitutional Right to educate “by other means,” changes it name and puts it in a child abuse and neglect law. This is a sudden and significant departure from the rule of law and from parental rights in Oklahoma.
Even more staggering is Rep. Swope’s next move to re-write the Juvenile Code section regarding records for deprived children. In an added section, Rep. Swope, evidently hopes to pass the following and make it the law of the land in Oklahoma:
- Require parents to submit a letter of intent to the Department of Human Services in Oklahoma in order to homeschool, pod school or micro school per the new, added definitions.
- Require parents to give not only names, but also Social Security numbers, children’s names, addresses, everyone else who lives in the home, everyone who might teach the children, and a statement regarding homeschooling.
- Require parents to submit subsequent letters of intent with any change of schooling.
- Require parents to submit to criminal background checks.
- Require others in the home to submit to criminal background checks.
- Require anyone else associated with the child’s schooling to submit to background checks and, guess where all of the information from this gross invasion of your privacy and your family goes? Rep. Swope has it covered. It will not go missing.

Rep. Swope proposes that the government be required to compile a Database of individuals, facilities and organizations that perform or assist with homeschooling, pod schooling, or microschooling.

That’s you, homeschool parents.

Rep. Swope wants all of the information on you. Meanwhile, it will just sit in an encased, secure database preserved for posterity with your beautiful signature on it, or will it? If you learned your history, you will remember that more than one country has decided that its Uncle Sam or variation thereof is better enabled to raise children than the parents.

And, what has happened, as a result?

Children were cut off from families. Children were cut off from religious training. Parents were denied any rights to raise their children according to their values.

These results are hallmarks of a communist society.

As Karl Marx and Engel’s said in the Communist Manifesto –

Communists: “Abolition of the family! …
Citizens: But, …[communists] destroy the most hallowed of relations, when we replace home education by social [education].
Communists: “The…clap-trap about the family and education, about the hallowed co-relation of parents and child, … [is] all…disgusting…”

And, so is Rep. Swope’s swoop.

February 4, 2024 0

Neither The Oklahoma State Department of Education DEI Rules Or Gov Stitt’s Executive Order Will Stop DEI In Oklahoma Education – Here’s Why

Jenni White – 1.25.24

GOVERNOR STITT’S EXECUTIVE ORDER (EO-31) FOR DEI IN OKLAHOMA HIGHER EDUCATION

December 13, 2023, Governor Stitt signed an Executive Order 2023-31 (EO) that has been referred to as BANNING DEI by the general media. Heritage Foundation (a center-right think tank that also promotes School Choice, but was loudly vocal against Common Core) referred to the Executive Order as “condemning DEI” – a big difference from “banning DEI”.

EO-31 DOES prohibit Oklahoma’s Executive Branches from using “state funds, property or resources” to promote DEI via any of 6 different ways listed, including “(2) Mandate any person to participate in, listen to, or receive any education, training, activities procedures or programming to the extent such education, training, activity or procedure grants preferences based on one person’s particular race, color, sex, ethnicity, or national origin over another’s”.

It also orders the heads of the Executive Branches to “initiate a review” of any DEI programs or activities under their purview and bring them into compliance with the parameters of EO-31 if not already.

Here is a listing of Oklahoma’s Executive Branches:

Attorney General
Governor
Lieutenant Governor
Oklahoma Secretary of State
Oklahoma State Auditor and Inspector
Oklahoma Superintendent of Public Instruction
Oklahoma Treasurer
Oklahoma Agriculture Commission
Oklahoma Insurance Commission
Oklahoma Labor Commission
Oklahoma Corporation Commission
Oklahoma Wildlife Conservation Commission

To be clear, according to EO-31, I can’t be hired by the Insurance Commission and have them give me training out of their budget that includes a DEI component. That is good and I do not want to overlook the GOOD part of this EO.

Now, though, let’s look further down in the Executive Order and note that the Oklahoma State Regents for Higher Education is NOT an Executive Agency. EO-31 is clear in the first statement of the EO, “Executive state agencies shall not utilize state funds, property or resources to:”. It says NOTHING about anything outside the agencies listed above.

Thinking in that vein, note the underlined in red below:

Let’s stop here. This paragraph says that EO-31 will not apply to COLLEGES and UNIVERSITIES or any of the executive agencies SUPPORTING them – INCLUDING THE STATE DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION – if they apply for a GRANT or to comply with ACCREDITATION requirements. Unfortunately, GRANTS and ACCREDITATION are where so much of the DEI in higher education arises. If you don’t believe me, internet search “DEI in higher ed accreditation” and you will find article after article about how, the only way to really advance DEI principles in higher education is THROUGH ACCREDITATION.

Here, in fact is an article from the Chronicle Of Higher Education titled, “The New Accountability: How Accreditors Are Measuring colleges’ diversity, equity and inclusion efforts“.

So what about grants? Well, we ALL know Higher Ed takes federal government grant money. Check this out:

And that’s just FEDERAL grants. There are other grants from non-Federal sources in abundance, like this group.

Now let’s look even FARTHER down in EO-31. It says:

Alright. Let’s think about that. The order says the EO DOESN’T apply if a federal law supersedes. Here’s a Fact Sheet from the Feds that talks about how Title VI law CAN PROMOTE DEI. And not only that, President Biden also has his OWN EO mandating DEI in schools, so NO, EO-31 STILL DOESN’T STOP DEI in higher ed.

We could go on, but EO-31 won’t stop higher ed DEI scholarly research either and a friend just sent this to me. Not only will EO-31 not stop, creepy research, it won’t stop “a student organization registered with or recognized by an institution of higher education”. This research is in conjunction with the BGLTQ+ Student Center and we all now know that the alphabet sex brigade and DEI go together like furries and cat boxes.

RYAN WALTERS PROPOSED DEI RULE FOR K-12 SCHOOLS

Here is the set of rules proposed by Walters to be heard by the Board on Friday, February 16th.

The rules for K-12 actually do more than those for higher ed, but they still do not stop DEI.

Walters’ rules FOLLOW THE GOVERNOR’S EO-31 EXACTLY (with the exception of the removal of #2 and #3 under letter (f) of the Governor’s EO that apply only to higher ed). In point of fact, they would have to, as the OSDE is an Executive Branch and it must follow the Governor’s EO-31.

But herein lies a bit of a problem.

Accreditation of Oklahoma public schools are done by the OSDE using their accreditation standards. So, as long as those standards don’t allow DEI, that window is closed – unlike with higher ed and Oklahoma private schools which can be accredited by the OSDE, or a myriad of other accrediting agencies.

Unfortunately, however, we still have the issue with GRANTS.

Here, Edmond Public Schools Foundation is thanking those donors who are helping to raise OVER ONE MILLION DOLLARS for SEL programs inside Edmond schools. Unfortunately, SEL is intricately tied to DEI in a million ways and any grant that comes into a school for SEL will ultimately bring in DEI as well. George Lucas’ educational non-profit Edutopia, has a whole page devoted to ways in which k-12 schools can obtain grants to push out SEL.

Also unfortunately, we still have the problem with FEDERAL LAW being exempted as well as student organizations, with both of those issues similar in K-12 to my discussion on higher ed.

An article from OETA entitled, “D.E.I. In Oklahoma Schools“, quoted OCU’s DEI coordinator as saying:

Yet LGBTQ clubs such as this one from EPIC Charter Schools, is exempted from the new DEI rule because it’s a student organization recognized by the school.

To close out, since data collection is ALSO exempted, DEI also can come in through THAT door. I’ve written numerous times about how horrible some of the surveys being given by Oklahoma public schools are today. Here’s an article about Success Highways and its link to DEI. Here’s another about the Oklahoma Prevention Needs Survey.

And worse, here’s an exchange I had with a teacher on social media that shows that it’s often teacher training and teacher mindset that bring DEI ideals into the classroom on a daily basis without even needing a private or federal grant, or anything else.

Additionally, Oklahoma uses school counselors from the American School Counselor Association an organization DEDICATED to bringing DEI into every school and with every child. So there’s that.

Consequently, since we still have DEI coming into schools through data, teachers and counselors, whether or not Walters’ new rule on DEI is passed by the Oklahoma State School Board members or not

the bottom line here is this: BOTH THE HIGHER ED EO and the K-12 RULES ARE BETTER THAN WHAT WE HAD BEFORE – WHICH WAS NOTHING – but it’s important to remember that NEITHER STOP DEI. Really, the surest way to keep your child from being influenced by DEI ideology is to:

Educate your child/children at home – not even private schools are ‘sure things’ in terms of rational, classical, non-ideological education anymore
Monitor your child’s social media and internet access closely and lock down problem apps and sites
Talk to your children constantly about your moral values and ethics – your worldview
Make sure you’re clear with your children about what you as a parent – or guardian – expect from them in terms of their behavior
Prevent as much government entanglement as possible, including the use of tax credits or vouchers for private school as these have strings that can bring unwanted influences in through the regulation

January 28, 2024 0

Oklahoma Private Schools To Answer To The Feds? New OSDE Rules Appear To Say Just That.

Jenni White

Today I’ve been going through the NUMEROUS new rules that have been uploaded to the Oklahoma State Department of Education website in the last week.

Midway down the page I found this:

Subchapter 17. Federal Programs complaint procedures
210:10-17-1. Complaint Procedures [AMENDED]

Text of proposed rule
Rule Impact Statement

This is HUGE.

You can click on the link above to bring up the changes to the rule. Remember, that rules are like legislation. Sentences that have been stricken with a line through them are going away and new sentences being added to the rule are underlined.

Note that most of the rule changes here appear to be simple ones made to the procedure for filing a complaint based on the Federal Title (rule) structure. Our OSDE accepts federal funds for things like Title 1 programming that allows children to be fed at school on the public tax dollar – and much more. I’ve written much about federal education law and how it takes away local control from parents on many fronts, one only has to search our previous blog linked in the right sidebar.

If a public school parent believes their child is not getting services required by federal funding – such as that required for disabled children – they can file a complaint with the state and with the federal government. This rule above was originally written to make provisions for how to file such complaints.

What is HUGE is this: Under (b) covered programs, all the existing categories are revoked and new ones placed. NEVER was this listed under covered programs previously, making it an entirely new category – (12) Part F, section 7881 of Title VIII (Participation by Private School Children and Teachers).

WHAT? Haven’t we heard Superintendent Walters say numerous times that he wanted to get away from taking federal funds? In fact, in November of last year, here he is saying that he wouldn’t take federal funds that run counter to “Oklahoma values”.

So, is it an Oklahoma value for an Oklahoma PRIVATE SCHOOL TO ANSWER TO THE FEDS?

What’s going on? According to this rule, the OSDE must plan to take and disperse federal funds to private schools. Why would there be a specific rule added so that private school-associated families can complain about private schools not following federal dictates if that weren’t the case?

Unfortunately, this could make sense considering the Oklahoma Parental Tax Credit, because state tax dollars are going to pay tuition at private schools. It’s NOT taxpayers getting their money back (in the vast majority of cases) these are public dollars going to enroll Oklahoma (hopefully) kids in private schools.

Consequently, if public money is going to the private school, the private school would then fall under Federal education Title jurisdiction like a public school – especially if they choose to ask the OSDE to provide them federal funds.

And what’s great about Private schools getting public funds? Here’s a screenshot from the Federal Department of Education Title regulations page.

So, while Ryan Walters wants to change OSDE rules to make sure prayer is acceptable in public schools, he apparently also accepts the plan to provide private schools with federal dollars, making them secular, neutral and nonideological in the process. So what is the point of having private (religious) schools then?

I hope we will hear from the OSDE and Secretary Walters on this issue and somehow I will be proven completely wrong. Until then, however, I think Oklahomans can only see this as an assault on the independence of our Private schools being allowed by our state through our Oklahoma State Department of Education.

FYI: A public hearing will be held at 10:00 a.m. on Tuesday, February 20, 2024, in Room 1-20 (State Board Room) at the Oliver Hodge Building, 2500 North Lincoln Boulevard, in Oklahoma City for the following rules. Also, you can write rules@sde.ok.gov to let them know what you think of the rule.

January 21, 2024 1

Representative Jacob Rosecrants Files Bill To Force Accountability For Education Tax Credit Dollars

1.16.24 – Jenni White

File under ROPEtoldyaso. In fact, thanks to this, ROPE and homeschoolers across Oklahoma will take the prize for “prophets of the year” already for 2024.

Yesterday, Oklahoma’s Channel 9, interviewed Representative Jacob Rosecrants who had the following to say about Oklahoma’s Parental Tax Credit for private school tuition.

Woah… Weird… Sounds exactly like what we’ve been saying could happen since nearly the beginning of the “Parental Choice” movement, right?

Yes. All one has to do is search this site to find out how many articles have been devoted to attempting to educate people about this specific issue.

“But Jenni, Rosecrants is a DEMOCRAT! This will NEVER happen here!”

Well picture me as Santa Clause in this quote from the movie Elf:

I’ve watched the legislature for nearly 15 years now and I’ve seen Republicans do some super UNRepublican stuff – the biggest example here being jumping on the Common Core bandwagon, where a majority of Oklahoma Republicans wanted a national curricula for Oklahoma kids until we began going to them individually with facts that showed how harmful such a program would be (and now we know – for the states who used it – how harmful it was).

In fact, one would have HOPED that Republicans – people whose platform indicates them to be bastions of smaller government and private enterprise over public control – would have spotted the whole tax credit/VOUCHER scheme from a mile off. Yet, how can we forget that there wasn’t a single Republican lawmaker who voted AGAINST the tax credit/VOUCHER – scheme last session. Not one. Here are the votes for the HOUSE. Here are the votes for the Senate so you can check me up on that.

So ask yourself…how did not a single Republican Senator or House member think it wouldn’t be problematic to give private schools public tax dollars?

Frankly, that’s a great question, and if we can’t answer that question, how in the world could we trust our legislature not to simply double-down on the whole thing and then turn around and tell us it’s a good thing – which is what they did with the tax credit/VOUCHER scheme in the first place.

“This is a tax credit, not a voucher”, they said.

“This is to help underserved/underrepresented kids”, they said.

Already, however – not even two months into the program – nearly every Republican talking point for the program has been debunked.

Not only is the program over budget 4 million dollars by using the globalist data collecting vendor MERITS INC. to administrate the program instead of the Oklahoma Tax Commission as stated in the bill, but there’s more.

In this video, I make the point that out of the 4 income categories proposed for the “tax credit”, only the upper two income categories are a true tax credit – and that’s only for one child – the lower 2 income categories are 100% VOUCHERS. So it’s just a boldfaced lie to have sold the program as a tax credit right there. Why were none of the Republicans crunching the numbers to find this out for themselves? This was easy info to find.

Oklahoma Parental Choice Tax Credit Act (OPCTCA)

Then we have the idea that it’s to help disadvantaged kids/families.

According to Carmen Forman at the Oklahoma Voice:

The Tax Commission has received more than 30,000 applications for the tax credits approved by the GOP-led Oklahoma Legislature last year. About 45% are from priority applicants and 55% are from families earning more than $150,000 annually, Haxton said.

So, there you go. If you have a household income of $150k and you can’t put your own kids in private schools, OTHER PEOPLE SHOULDN’T BE SENDING YOUR KIDS TO PRIVATE SCHOOL FOR YOU. That’s 100% socialism – especially when I just showed that you don’t even get ONE KID as a tax credit at that level. Our household is near that income level and we had one kid at Oklahoma Christian School for two years, scrimping and saving and homeschooling the others. Why should I pay for YOUR kid when you didn’t pay for mine?

Meanwhile, back in Arizona, School Choice Inc’s MODEL for school ‘choice’ legislation – including full universal vouchers like Oklahoma’s Governor signed into law just last year – Democrat Governor “Katie Hobbs unveils plan to rein in Arizona school voucher program“. Yup, regulation of private schools on even a WORSE level than Rep. Jacob Rosecrants has suggested, including the following:

A requirement that private schools provide the accommodations and services in a disabled student’s Individualized Learning Plan or Section 504 Plan.
Require manual approval of any ESA purchase over $500. That should ensure the taxpayer dollars that fund ESAs are spent on academic purposes, Hobbs said. She also called for an end to ESA awards for items such as ski passes and luxury car driving lessons, although it’s unclear how those “luxury” items would be defined.
Give the state Auditor General authority to review and report on how ESA money is spent by private schools. This is a standard practice for Arizona’s public schools.

So, how in the world did a REAL threat that private schools be regulated for purposes of accountability and essentially turned into public schools over a tax credit bill rear its ugly head? How does this happen in Oklahoma? Aren’t we smarter than that?

Whelp…NO. According to EdWeek, Oklahoma was 49th in education in 2021. So, maybe we aught to be putting more effort into MAKING public schools actually educate kids instead of growing government to the point that it becomes the blob that ate private schools.

January 17, 2024 1

Parent Choice Voucher Program Not Ready December 1st As Promised, Treat Frustrated

Without spending a lot of time re-hashing our stance on the Parental Choice voucher program – the state should NEVER, ever, ever, EVER, allow tax dollars to be used as tuition to a private school – no matter how hard you have to work to find the ‘right’ words to make it sound palatable to the plebes. More on this later this week.

Friday, December 1st, the Parental Choice voucher program was supposed to be open for enrollment. Next thing I know, there’s a communication in my inbox from Senate Pro Temp Greg Treat:

Interesting. KOSU reports that the vendor MERIT is to blame for the delay.

KOKH reports that MERIT is a vendor for the voucher picked by the Oklahoma Tax Commission from a list supplied by OHMES. It wasn’t a competitively bid job. The job of collecting applications wasn’t done inside the OTC, it was farmed to an out-of-state vendor. (Remember when that happened with Federal educational funds dispersed to Oklahoma during COVID? If you’re not sure, look here and here.) All that local Oklahoma student data – to an out-of-state vendor that uses a data warehouse called SNOWFLAKE that functions in the cloud. All one needs to do is look at this page on the Merit site where you see the term “digital wallet” and there’s no way a parent SHOULDN’T wonder where the data associated with their family’s application will go.

Julianne Romanello has done a very large amount of research on Merit and the tax credit/voucher and has found that this whole scheme – vouchering private schools under the government umbrella while collecting huge amounts of data on students – is just another way to connect students to the global education workforce pipeline. She’ll be the first guest on the FIRST ROPE Report after the holidays (Wednesday, January 10th – so mark your calendars NOW!) BEFORE our legislature goes into session, to talk about this. In the meantime, please find our video about all the data collection pathways and the State Longitudinal Data Base on YouTube. Parents, it’s time to OPT OUT of these systems of tracking your children. That’s all I’ll say for now.

In addition, it’s important to note that the tax credit/voucher program started out in the hole. The deal struck with MERIT was for nearly 4 million dollars, yet the legislature had only appropriated one million dollars for set up. Imagine that, the government over-budget on something. But then, imagine the government actually doing the job the legislature intended them to do.

So, Jenni, you gripe and moan but offer no solutions. Well, not exactly. For years our mantra has been, “don’t tax us for failing schools” or alternatively “don’t tax us for public education we don’t use”. So, instead of providing a blanket voucher to people to take government tax dollars to a private school where they’ll then be subject to government regulation, just let us keep our money – period. Don’t take it, make it government property and then return it to me with strings (or to a private organization or individual with strings), just let me keep my own money. If you want to argue that these dollars are not tax dollars, that they’re yours, you’re just getting them back, watch these two short videos culled from interviews we’ve had on the ROPE Report.