public school

Kaiser Partners With OK To Fund Birth To Three ‘Early Education’ Collecting Data On Babies For Tax Dollars To Justify Putting Them In Daycare

Friday, Michael and I had Carolyn McLarty on during the first hour of the podcast to talk about citizen lobbying. It was a great show! I really urge you to check out the whole thing on YouTube or Rumble.

After Carolyn had gone, Michael and I talked about numerous issues, but one of those was about the data being collected on students. In the video below, Michael and I talked about how many apps and computer programs students now use at school and how those are often collecting data from their interaction with the program/application.

This article is from our original blogspot and was written in 2014 when we were trying to stop the State Longitudinal Database. I suggest you at least open it and scan it because it gives some pretty good examples as to how classroom data mining is happening through programs and applications used in the classroom.

Here are Michael and I talking about that very thing on Friday’s show.

This morning, I found a message in my Facebook messenger from an old “common core” friend. She sent me a website – the Kids Count Data Center. I remembered having seen that years ago, but I hadn’t looked into it recently. I scrolled through Oklahoma’s collected data categories and was – once again – completely freaked out by what I found.

The data is apparently provided by the Annie E. Casey Foundation (AECF) – a non-profit organization started by the man who created UPS. The AECF credits itself with helping to start the foster care system while moving toward the abolishment of orphanages.

I ran AECF through Data Republican and was not able to find that they take tax dollars of any kind, nor are they granted monies from organizations that take tax dollars. I was able to find some of the organizations they fund, however, and two things are clear; they donate to large organizations that do collect lots of taxpayer dollars and they donate lots of money to leftist, ‘social change’ organizations. This makes me wonder at the reasons for which they are collecting so much data on kids.

From the AECF website I was able to find out that the only grant given in Oklahoma was to the Oklahoma Policy Institute, headquartered in Tulsa. No shock then – after running them through Data Republican – the OPI is funded by a number of leftist organizations including the George Kaiser Family Foundation and the Tulsa Community Foundation.

This is interesting and concerning. Statistics can be made to say whatever the person using the statistic wants them to say. What do leftists want with all this data?

The AECF makes no bones about the fact that they are collecting all their data to influence policy decisions made by legislators.

Here’s a PERFECT example. “The First Eight Years” is a report created by the AECF populated with data collected through the Foundation. Why? To give policymakers reason to FUND early childhood education with tax dollars – tax-funded DAY CARE essentially – on the notion that it’s the “best way to ensure a successful workforce in the future”.

Apparently their strategy has worked in Oklahoma since 2006, when the Oklahoma legislature created OECP – the Oklahoma Early Childhood Program (OECP) – headquartered in…wait for it…TULSA. The OECP is tasked to “improve the quality of early education and expand capacity to serve children from birth through age three statewide.” (bold for emphasis)

According to this 2011 Tulsa Today article, the George Kaiser Family Foundation gave the Tulsa Community Action Project (CAP) 92 million dollars from 2004 to 2011. CAP is an OECP ‘partner’. So is Tulsa Educare – also funded by Kaiser.

Because I was offended by the fact that the AECF would/could collect information on kids NOT IN SCHOOL, I clicked on the data point called, “Young Children Not In School”. This data came from the U.S. Census Bureau, American Community Survey. So, families actually taking this survey, coughed up to the federal government that their kids weren’t in school and that information was entered into the US Census Bureau database – which is shared with the public and across government databases.

This is the reason the AECF gives for collecting this data on babies.

High-quality prekindergarten programs for 3- and 4-year-olds can improve school readiness, with the greatest gains accruing to the highest-risk children. Head Start and the expansion of state-funded programs since the 1990s have greatly increased access to preschool. But many children, especially 3-year-olds, continue to be left out, exacerbating socioeconomic differences in educational achievement.

What is ‘school readiness’? What is high-risk? Whatever the AECF, CAP, OECP says it is – usually based on a definition created by some group in the ‘get money from tax payers to take babies away from their parents’ scam.

At this point, I’d like to point out information from the OECP’s 2024 Annual Report.

Please note, this is supposed to be a state agency, yet George Kaiser funds the majority, while the state of Oklahoma comes in a paltry second. Also note, wages and benefits are the majority of the spending here because all the staff are involved in thinking about things related to how to grade childcare centers and the children inside. Here are two things the staff did last year.

They determined how attached to the caregiver BABIES and TODDLERS were. Shouldn’t we care more about the fact that these babies are in a place where they are NOT becoming attached to their parents?

And then there’s this:

Yes, Oklahoma is measuring the literacy of babies and toddlers and the state of Oklahoma is using tax dollars to do this, while partnering with an Obama donation bundler.

And let’s think on this just a minute. According to the OECP annual report, 3,666 children were ‘served’ by this program. Do the math. That’s an expense of almost ELEVEN THOUSAND dollars a child – for DAY CARE that the state and its private partners have dubbed EARLY EDUCATION.

In closing (for now), I’m going to add the diagrams I created while studying the State Longitudinal Database back in the 20-teens. THIS is why all this data collection is a problem. Once the data is collected, it goes everywhere and everywhere it goes, it populates databases that follow kids throughout their public school and work careers. Hopefully, it’s obvious why this is bad. Hopefully, it’s obvious why we need our lawmakers to protect our kids from this kind of intrusive nonsense that does nothing but build reasons for taking more and more tax dollars from citizens to fund more and more ways to take their tax dollars – and babies.

March 9, 2025 0

Parent Who Posted Now-Viral State-Approved Waurika Psychology Assignment To Her Facebook Page Speaks Out

A truly unfortunate event happened in the classroom of Ashlyn Jade’s niece at Waurika Public Schools Monday afternoon.

According to an interview with Ashlyn this afternoon, Coach Roger Jesse, a teacher/coach with 40+ years in Oklahoma education – and someone with many years of service and an excellent reputation in Waurika Public Schools – gave his 11th grade psychology class an assignment that has now made internet viral status.

Coach Jesse was asked to teach a new extra curricular psychology class at Waurika High School this semester. Ashlyn believes that, in a hurry and under duress from a strenuous teaching/coaching schedule, he downloaded a STATE APPROVED psychology curriculum to use during his class on Monday afternoon, copied it and handed it out without really reviewing it.

Ashlyn’s niece, very uncomfortable with the subject matter, took a picture of the assignment and uploaded it to Snap Chat during class, where it stayed 24 hours – long enough for her 5th grade daughter to see it in her feed in the morning. Her daughter then screenshot the post and sent the photo to her mother.

Immediately upset, Ashlyn put in a call to Waurika High School Principal, Derek Milburn. When Principal Milburn returned her call, Ashlyn explained to him exactly what had happened and that she was very upset that, not only was her 11th grade niece exposed to this kind of assignment, but that her 5th grade daughter had found it on SnapChat.

According to Ashlyn, Principal Milburn seemed rushed and dismissed her by saying that ‘it was already taken care of and that she shouldn’t worry about it. All the parents of students who had been effected had been made aware.’

Ashlyn knew the Snap had gone viral and that a very large number of Waurika Public Schools students had already seen it. She told me she doesn’t believe that Mr. Milburn knew that fact, but because she felt as though the Principal was essentially dismissing her concern that her 5th grade daughter (and other students in the school system) had seen it, she posted the assignment to her Facebook page out of frustration and to make a point.

The post went viral in a short time, with even State Superintendent Ryan Walters posting it – unedited – from his social media accounts.

Not long after the post went viral, so did the accusations from community members pointed in her direction.

Ashlyn says she’s being accused of calling a beloved Coach a predator and she wants to say that this perspective isn’t at all true. During our interview, she called my attention back to her original post, the top of which is posted above. She never mentioned any names, nor even the school system. It only became known that the assignment was from Waurika because someone commenting on her post asked if the incident had happened in Waurika and she answered “yes”.

It wasn’t until Wednesday afternoon that Waurika Public Schools addressed the incident publicly with a letter posted to their Facebook page written by Cody Simmons, WPS’ Superintendent.

According to Ashlyn, Coach Jesse has been put on leave and is being asked to retire. She doesn’t believe that’s fair.

Ashlyn said that she made the post to “shed light on the fact that the teacher used a state approved curriculum. Coach Jesse copied and pasted an assignment that was approved by the Oklahoma State Department of Education. He was not a psychology teacher, he was a coach teaching a psychology class. He copied and pasted the OSDE curriculum and gave it to students without really reading it. He was just overworked.”

She advocates for the return of Roger Jesse and says that she “believes that the responsibility and repercussions for this terrible situation should not fall on the shoulders of the teacher, but on Principal Milburn, Superintendent Simmons and State Superintendent Ryan Walters” because this was part of a state approved psychology curriculum.

Ashlyn has a point. It seems as though the teacher made a really terrible mistake. If you were a hurried teacher and you went to the OSDE website and downloaded curriculum that had been approved for use in high school, would you really worry too much about it being inappropriate for use in state classrooms? I’m not excusing Coach Jesse of all the responsibility for the issue – whether it came from the OSDE or not, he should have really examined what he was using in class – but in light of Ashlyn’s comments, there is some plausibility for his lack of diligence.

In 2021, I wrote an article titled, “Oklahoma State Department of Education Promoting “Anti” Racist (CRT) Propaganda and Risk Behavior Surveys Through SEL and Counseling Services“. After seeing the information and curriculum being pushed under the Hoffmeister administration that was available ON THE OSDE WEBSITE, I totally believe that Coach Jesse downloaded something that should never have been used in an Oklahoma k-12 classroom because it was up on the OSDE website for teachers to download.

Who’s fault is that? Ultimately, it’s our Superintendent’s fault. The buck stops on his desk. He’s had no trouble pounding his dashboard during in-car videos railing (rightly) against discriminatory practices in schools, but he should be doing less pounding/videos and concentrating more on what’s on the state website for teachers to download.

Then, there’s the tepid, dismissive response of the Principal to Ashley. He – and the Superintendent – should have known that students would share that kind of crazy assignment on social media like crazy and be more concerned about ALL the students who could have seen it, instead of just those students in class.

Ashlyn Jade did what she felt like she needed to do as a parent, and an Aunt, and she’s taking a pretty good beating over it in the community. But then, our Superintendent posted an UNEDITED version to his social media. HOW RESPONSIBLE IS THAT? Shouldn’t he have focused on just the part about the investigation?

In the end, there’s a whole lot of blame to go around when it comes to this incident, but I don’t see Ashlyn as a party to that. Parents NEED to speak out when they see this kind of thing – that’s how they protect their children – and they should do that whether anyone else likes that or not.

March 6, 2025 1

Colonel Jim Putnam, Candidate for Edmond School Board – Virtual Presence Is Actual Absence

Edmond school board candidate Colonel Jim Putnam

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!

February 28, 2025 0

The New World Order Needs Compliant Kids, So Government Schools Educate Them To Be Compliant

Julianne Romanello and Public School Indoctrination

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.

If you’re interested in what a great education looks like and you’re interested in homeschooling, I 100% recommend Classical Conversations as a way to start your homeschooling journey because they use the Classical Education model I feel works to provide kids the best education possible. You might also get ideas from a blog I wrote years ago about why I homeschooled my kids.

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.

February 22, 2025 0

Republican Governor Stitt Sides With Democrats To Keep The Education Status Quo By Firing State Education Board Members Engaged In Protecting Oklahoma Kids

(edited after publication)

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.

Ryan Deathridge is a small business owner and the Kingfisher County 911 Director. He has a double major in Agriculture and Finance.

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!

February 12, 2025 1

Usurping Local Control – Cell Phone Restrictions In Oklahoma – NO on SB1389 and HB1276

Here is the cell phone bill, by Senate Education Committee Vice-Chair, Ally Seifried; SB139. There is also a companion bill run by Representative Chad Caldwell in the House, HB1276 which has already passed its first Committee hurdle.

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.

adam.pugh@oksenate.gov, ally.seifried@oksenate.gov, dusty.deevers@oksenate.gov, joanna.dossett@oksenate.gov, carri.hicks@oksenate.gov, kelly.hines@oksenate.gov, mark.mann@oksenate.gov, roland.pederson@oksenate.gov, dave.rader@oksenate.gov, aaron.reinhardt@oksenate.gov, kendal.sacchieri@oksenate.gov

February 10, 2025 0

Community Schools Are The Marxist Solution For Oklahoma Schools – Vote NO on HB1467 by West

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

(2025 BILL IS HB1647)

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)

2. The Biden Administration provided grants for Full Service Community Schools programs (https://oese.ed.gov/offices/office-of-discretionary-grants-support-services/school-choice-improvement-programs/full-service-community-schools-program-fscs/) through President Obama’s reauthorization of ESEA – the Every Student Succeeds Act.

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)

a. Community Schools have an agenda called “Policy by The People” the tenets for which they are lobbying Congress (https://www.communityschools.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/01/2021-01-13_IEL_PolicybythePeopleagenda_FINAL.pdf). Here are a few points from their agenda which essentially involves expanding government programming and funding of every service involving children:

– 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.

dick.lowe@okhouse.gov, danny.sterling@okhouse.gov, chris.banning@okhouse.gov, chad.caldwell@okhouse.gov, rob.hall@okhouse.gov, molly.jenkins@okhouse.gov, ronny.johns@okhouse.gov, cody.maynard@okhouse.gov, ellen.pogemiller@okhouse.gov, jacob.rosecrants@okhouse.gov, mark.tedford@okhouse.gov

February 10, 2025 1

Are Rural Oklahoma Courts Inept Or Corrupt?

Wednesday, January 22nd, our friend “Mary” from V1SUT substack was on the podcast to talk about former Wetumka Public Schools teacher and Coach, Brent McGee. You can find the full live video here on Rumble and also on our YouTube channel.

As Mary talked about in the video clip below the Wetumka Board of Education is NOT protecting kids, they’re protecting Brent McGee’s wife, who also happens to be the Superintendent of Wetumka. I would say I couldn’t believe it, but we’ve heard the same story over and over and over.

But here’s the thing – as we say in the video – it HAS to be up to Wetumka residents and parents to make the Board do the right thing. It’s clear that unless parents and community members are there in force watching everything they do and pushing back, students of the district won’t be protected from sexual abuse.

This fact is illustrated by another story Mary tells, about Cody Barlow, the middle school Principal at Wewoka Public Schools. In fact, despite an eye-witness account of sexual misconduct with Barlow and a 7th grade student and a civil trial in which Barlow was found guilty and the school forced to pay nearly 2 million dollars in restitution to the families of four boys, the outcome of the criminal trial was much different.

How can that be? How can the outcome be so very different? The civil trial was moved out of Seminole County, while the criminal trial was adjudicated in the county.

This should upset every taxpaying citizen who cares about children. This absolutely has to stop.

Again, though it’s really up to parents and taxpayers in these districts to make this stop, so few will speak out in small towns. This is a comment left on our Facebook account under our live video feed that explains:

Small town corruption is nothing new. No one in this small town in that school system will turn on each other because to do do would make them guilty [of] not doing anything. They were there and they knew what was going on. When you are someone who grew up in [this] town, with your mom as a teacher, and your dad as a business owner and, now you are infiltrated into that system, no one is going to believe you are the villain! Just because he didn’t do it to your kid or grandkid, doesn’t mean he didn’t do it to someone else. Teachers are mandatory reporters and if they know and do nothing [they] should be held as accountable as the one who was doing the harm to the child. This should be moved out of the county and prosecuted elsewhere.

There is safety in numbers and beyond that, there’s CHANGE in numbers! DA’s can be unelected and good ones elected, school board members can be voted out, or in – it all depends upon what people in the community set their mind to doing – but no matter what; we must ALL set our minds on PROTECTING KIDS!

January 26, 2025 1

How Oklahoma Property Taxes Are Calculated and Who/What Really Owns Your Property

The most important hour and half you will ever spend is the hour and a half I spent talking to former McClain County Auditor turned Oklahoma Senator, Kendal Sacchieri, about how property taxes are calculated and who really owns your property. You really should take the time to watch the whole live episode of the ROPE Report from yesterday, January 15th (2025). You can find it here on YouTube and on Rumble.

As a citizen of Oklahoma, I absolutely DESPISE the fact that if I don’t pay my property taxes, the county will take my home away from me, sell it and pay whatever taxes I owe. Seriously. I may have a title to my house, but it won’t matter one whit if I don’t make good on my tax bill every year.

Below is the breakdown on the property taxes for a home in northwest Oklahoma City, done by the Oklahoma County Assessor. The property tax bill below that is from the McClain County Assessor’s office. Kendal told me that if your property tax bill doesn’t look like the blue one, you should ask your county Treasurer to break down the county property taxes into mills so that homeowners can better see the distribution of their tax dollars..

Note which entity is FAR AND AWAY the largest tax? Now let me ask two questions; 1. Do you feel your property taxes are too high? and 2. Have you voted on YES on a school bond?

Keep these things in mind when you watch the video below.

Now, watch this video clip. Trust me when I say it will be THE MOST IMPORTANT 7 MINUTE VIDEO OF YOUR LIFE AS AN OKLAHOMA HOME OWNER.

If you’re not throwing things at your video screen and freaking out a bit after watching those clips, we can’t be friends.

Basically, what Senator Sacchieri said was, that you don’t own your own property because of a scam that allows public schools to get more and more and more money every year NO MATTER THEIR OUTCOMES. Can’t teach kids how to read? Get more money. Can’t teach kids how to write a paragraph that makes sense? Get more money? Can’t teach kids to count back change or figure the percentage of something? Get more money. THAT IS NUTS.

Unfortunately, we, as citizens simply haven’t understood the process of property taxation well enough to stop it in the past, evidently. Fortunately, we have the Senator to TEACH us the process. Now, that she’s educated us, we need to do several things.

We need to just drive our legislators crazy asking for a bill to put a state question on a general election ballot to remove the language from the state Constitution that allows counties to collect property taxes. The state has nothing to do with property taxes. Property taxes in Oklahoma are generated at the COUNTY level and go to the COUNTY entities you see in my example above. Once the language is removed, the county has no ability to FORCE property taxes.
Toward the end of the full video, Kendal and I talk about the County Excise Boards. This is an important thing for you to know about. The Excise Board is a group of people who meet after the County Assessor has turned in home valuations and the county entities have decided how much in taxes they must recoup to make their budgets. The decide whether or not the budgets proposed by the entities are sound and reasonable and how much the entity will be allowed to tax your property. They must hold public hearings on the budgets submitted, allowing citizen comment. You can find your Excise Board meetings through your county office. Here is the list of Boards and Commissions for Oklahoma County. In Kingfisher, after a multimillion dollar lawsuit against a football coach for ‘hazing’ (physical abuse), the school added the lawsuit burden to their budget, expecting the taxpayers to foot the bill. The Kingfisher Excise Board members rejected the budget, forcing Kingfisher to cut their budget to pay the lawsuit. This was HUGE. This kind of thing almost never happens, but then I would imagine there are few – if any citizens – that would go to a meeting to protest a budget that would increase their property taxes. Learn about your Excise Board.
Your School Board is VERY IMPORTANT. Go to these meetings. If your school proposes a school bond – PROTEST. They MUST have open meetings and they MUST allow citizen comments. If they won’t, band together and send out literature to the district warning residents of what a vote on the bond can do to their property tax rates. As my neighbors and I found out, it was much cheaper to band together to stop a school bond by creating a flier and splitting postage and copying costs and sending it out to district voters, than it was to have our property rates jacked up.

BOTTOM LINE: Citizens have the ability to stop property tax increases through the means above. We also have the ability to have our lawmakers act on our behalf by proposing legislation for a state question to remove the ability for counties to collect property tax. If we do neither, we simply can’t complain.

PASS THIS INFORMATION ON TO FRIENDS, FAMILY and NEIGHBORS!

Everyone needs to know this information!

January 16, 2025 1

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