Wednesday, July 24th ROPE Report Regular, Representative Sherrie Conley, talked with Michael and I about her new non-profit Broken Trust.
After working with numerous former students who had horror stories about being molested or abused by public school employees, Sherrie decided that something needed to be done and she was going to do it.
The Broken Trust website is a place where people can contact Sherrie with tips and/or reports of abuse occurring within public education.
In the clip below, Sherrie talks about her desires for the organization and shares its first event.
If you would like to attend – or share this event with others who might be interested – click here.
It’s honestly sad to realize that this kind of event is needed today, but it is. So few parents understand what could be happening after they drop their child off at school – and fewer seem to understand what to do if their child comes forward to report abuse.
Sherrie reminds EVERYONE that, according to state law, EVERYONE is a mandatory reporter of abuse any time they find it.
For parents, the very best thing to do, should you suspect abuse, is IMMEDIATELY CONTACT LAW ENFORCEMENT – and that doesn’t mean your school’s School Resource Officer. SROs are employees of the school first and foremost. Their contracts are with schools, not with the police department to which they are attached and certainly not with parents. If school administration is told, the school will investigate – not law enforcement. Consequently, the first call if any parent suspects abuse from a public school employee is to your nearest LAW ENFORCEMENT OFFICE.
In the clip below, Sherrie talks about the abuse taxpayers receive after a school is found guilty of abusing a student or students. In this case, 2 Kingfisher Public School’s coaches were accused of knowingly allowing students to abuse one another in the high school locker room. One family sued and won a judgement of 5 million dollars, of which the Kingfisher school district taxpayer will be required to pay.
As Sherrie explains, the school asks the county assessor to raise their millage rate to cover costs over their budget and this results in higher property taxes for the home owner while the school’s administration and board, get off scot free.
Please take a moment and share this article – and the videos – with others. The only way we FIX this problem is to educate others who can help us demand change!
You can find the FULL video on our Rumble and YouTube channels!
For her regular Wednesday appearance on ROPE Report Live, our V1SUT Vantage blogger, ‘Mary’, Michael and I talked about yet another incident where a public school teacher had molested a child. This time while he and his husband were on vacation on a cruise ship.
How in the world does this happen?
One good piece of news ‘Mary’ gave us, was that State Superintendent Walters had spearheaded an investigation into Ashley Rolan’s sexual assault case, causing at least one of the perpetrators to come forward and VOLUNTARILY relinquish their license. One down. Many more to go.
In the short video below, ‘Mary’ talked about Statute of Limitation laws in Oklahoma and how they must change if we’re to protect children and make abusers pay for their crimes.
Since 2017, the Statute of Limitations on reporting sexual abuse is age 45. That seems awesome until you find out that this date is NON RETROACTIVE – meaning that no DA will file charges against someone who has abused this person IN THE PAST. How can that be? So the abused can REPORT the crime, but the abuser can’t be held accountable if the abuse didn’t happen in the same year?
Watch the short video below to see why.
The only way to solve this problem is by changing the statutes to allow for prosecution of sexual crimes against children even though the victim could be reporting the crime as an adult. Oklahomans should absolutely do all we can to protect our youngest citizens and we’ll be helping where we can on this issue for 2025 in the legislature.
In the next short video, ‘Mary’ talk about how it is that members of the LGBT community seem to have some kind of immunity when it comes to prosecution for crimes involving minors. Check out the short video below to hear ‘Mary’ talk about a situation she’s reported on from Bartlesville involving not one, but TWO children put into foster care with a same sex couple. One child ended up with a broken arm that was never investigated and a subsequent child died. This is simply not okay, yet it continues to happen over and over again.
We must pass on this information to everyone we know. Public outcry could make legislators act, but we need to spread he word so that awareness of these situations grow.
Continued to stay tuned every third Wednesday to hear what ‘Mary’ has for us next and check out her substack as well!
Take an hour or so to watch the full video on our Rumble or YouTube channels. You won’t be sorry. ‘Mary’ is always so informative!
ANNOUNCEMENT: Moms 4 Liberty, Yukon area, is hosting an event in conjunction with Sherrie Conley’s new non-profit Broken Trust called, “A Guide to Protecting Students from Predatory Behavior”, Tuesday, August 6th at 5:30, location to be announced. This event is free, but please sign up so they know to expect you.
Ashley Rolen submitted statements to the Little Axe school district in 2002, describing the sexual abuse that had been perpetrated on her by several coaches employed by the district.
Nothing was done either done to help Ashley, or remove the coaches. Ashley moved on with her life.
But as Ashley tells us in the full podcast (YouTubeRumble), the day she heard about Olympic physician, Larry Nassar, and the stories of the brave gymnasts who told of their sexual abuse while under his care, she knew she had to make it right – for herself and for the other girls to whom this had happened and ones to whom it might be happening now.
As an adult, Ashley filed a complaint with the Oklahoma State Department of Education under Joy Hoffmeister. She was told that they had no investigators for her case and that she’d have to do her own investigation – which she did – and returned it to the OSDE under Ryan Walters.
Still – a full year later – and nothing has been done about the coaches who abused her, nearly all of whom are still employed by the State of Oklahoma in a public school.
In the video below, Ashley talks about what needs to happen for these reports to be taken seriously by school administration and the OSDE – which she doesn’t believe is really happening now.
In the video below, V1SUT Vantage blogger, Mary, Ashley, Michael Grande and I discuss how schools are getting around mandatory sex abuse reporting laws, allowing public school employees who have abused students to just disappear from the school and wind up at another without ever being made to pay for their crimes. The level of protectionism among school staff makes it nearly impossible for reporting to occur outside the school and even then, if a school resource officer shows up to talk to the complaining parties (the student and his/her parents or guardians) with school administration, it appears that school administration feels as though that kind of scenario IS the reporting.
If Ashley’s story teaches us anything, it’s that if we’re to save Oklahoma children from sexual predators operating inside Oklahoma public schools, we have to force schools to properly INVESTIGATE and REPORT and for the OSDE to put actually put parents and students first, by having any claims investigated by the OSDE promptly and teaching certificates removed so that the perpetrators can no longer harm CHILDREN.
What in the world IS Non-Public education? We’ll get to that in a minute, but first a recap…
At the end of the Oklahoma legislative session in 2023, the House and Senate passed HB1934, a bill which created ‘Universal School Choice’ in Oklahoma as described by organizations like The State Policy Network which have long-championed giving public tax dollars to private education.
All of Oklahoma’s Republican legislators voted for the bill (House, Senate; excepting those ‘excused’).
Afterward, the legislators we spoke with about the vote couldn’t understand how we were against the bill since it was a ‘tax credit’ – the form of ‘school choice’ for which ROPE has advocated against the concept of vouchers.
In fact, these legislators either argued with us about how the bill WAS a tax credit, or about how a voucher would – insert ‘school choice’ talking points – like those asserted in our interview with the Executive Director of the Catholic Conference of Oklahoma, Brett Farley.
Farley, who was instrumental in the creation of Every Kid Counts Oklahoma, the school choice organization for which now-state Superintendent Ryan Walters was made head, actually admitted in the interview that yes, school choice advocates want voucher bills. In the ‘school choice’ mantra, the state already funds [failing] public education, so the only way to create the ‘competition’ necessary to make public schools ‘no longer a viable option’ is to divert state money to private schools.
This ‘logic’ has always been a head-scratcher to me, because the state legislature holds the budget appropriation strings and can choose to fund public education or not, yet every year they complain about how awful public schools are and then award them ‘historic’ appropriations (see 2023 and 2024 for example) while refusing to tie public school results to funding. Make that make sense.
After the Universal Voucher bill passed, I did a full breakdown on the associated rules and found that, as Farley described, the first two tax categories listed provide – not a tax credit as the legislature promised – or was lead to believe – but a ‘voucher’; a grant of Oklahoma tax dollars to private schools for children whose parents applied to the program because they couldn’t otherwise afford private education tuition.
One more time, let’s break down the school choice options afforded to parents in Oklahoma even prior to the ‘Universal Choice’ bill:
Public school;
Traditional public schools – Oklahoma has 509 school districts in Oklahoma. None have requirements for entry.
Charter schools – according to the Oklahoma State Department of Education website, Oklahoma had 24 of these in 2022. All are taxpayer-supported. Some have requirements for entry, others are a ‘lottery’ system where if the child’s name is randomly chosen, the child may attend, others have no requirement for entry.
Virtual Charter Schools – the OSDE records six of these schools which operate either solely on the internet, or a combination of in-person and online, such as EPIC charter schools. There is no requirement for entry
Magnet Schools – I could find no information about ‘magnet’ schools on the OSDE website, but an online site called Niche claims there are five in Oklahoma. Magnet schools provide a specific field of study along with ‘typical’ educational requirements for the state. An example would be Classen School of Advanced Studies where students have the opportunity to have in-depth study in the Arts while completing their Oklahoma educational requirements. There are entry requirements for attendance and all are taxpayer-supported.
Private Schools – According to Private School Review, there are 106 K12 private schools in Oklahoma with an average tuition of $7,293. These are private schools because families use their own household dollars to afford the school.
Homeschooling – The Homeschool Mom has an amazing list of homeschool coops and ‘enrichment’ classes available in Oklahoma. This is probably because Oklahoma is the MOST FRIENDLY homeschool state in the union, having written the ability for citizens of Oklahoma to educate their children at home in the state’s Constitution. This is also a private educational form because families pay out of their own pockets to afford this type of education.
So what is exactly the ‘choice’ School Choice proponents are talking about then? Oklahoma has LOTS and LOTS of choices that parents may choose to provide an education for their child/children. What choice did we not have that we had to have last year with Universal School Choice? Oklahoma taxpayer dollars funding private education for parents who can’t afford it – that’s it. That’s all. The ONLY thing our organization has ever objected to in the ‘choice’ menu – publicly-funding private schools.
Last Wednesday (6.5.24), our guest on ROPE Report Live was my friend and fellow homeschooling mom from Broken Arrow, Sarah DeNeui.
Sarah has become increasingly concerned about what would happen to homeschooling and private schooling since the passage of HB1934 and private schools began to receive state money. She talked with us about several of her concerns, mainly that once PRIVATE schools begin receiving PUBLIC money, they would no longer be PRIVATE schools.
Why? Because once tax dollars are involved, the government must maintain some control of the dollars in order to provide accountability and transparency to the public from whom it was taken (by force).
In addition, schools that receive funds from the Federal Department of Education, are required to comply with federal dictates, including, for example, President Biden’s decree that boys enrolled in schools taking federal funds and wanting to be girls, can use the girl’s bathroom. Though many states wrote laws to get around that particular dictate, the Biden Administration then proceeded to write a rule to keep states from placing a ban on the practice. How’s THAT for government control?
The full live video of Sarah’s interview with Michael and I can be found on our Rumble and YouTube channels, but here is the most concerning issue Sarah raised. In this short video segment, she tells the story of reaching out to her contact in the OSDE questioning a press release concerning the creation of an “Office of School Choice” in the Department. She was interested in exactly what the ‘office’s’ duties would entail.
Essentially, when the answer to her question was returned, it included a phrase she’d never previously heard – non-public education. Sarah wanted to know more, so she went out onto the internet to find that the federal government has an Office of Non-Public Education. Here’s their mission:
ONPE fosters maximum participation of nonpublic school students and teachers in federal education programs and initiatives. Since the initial passage of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) in 1965, private school students and teachers have been eligible to participate in certain federal education programs.
So, the definition of ‘non-public education’ then, relates to private schools that take federal (and/or state?) funds.
The Office of Non-Public Schools even has a list of “private elementary and secondary schools, and/or home schools (?!?!) with which the U.S. Department of Education (Department) regularly communicates regarding the participation of nonpublic elementary and secondary school students and teachers in federal education programs and initiatives”.
It might behoove parents sending their children to ‘private’ schools to find out if the organization under which their private school is sanctioned, or accredited, is on the list provided here. And beyond that, to check DIRECTLY with their private school to find out whether or not they are truly PRIVATE – taking only private funds, no tax dollars.
This is HIGHLY problematic. It should go without saying that the more education becomes funded by a governmental entity, the more controlled it is by the government and the less free parents are to decide what is truly best for their child/children’s education. And we’re not the only organization to believe that.
“We don’t want private schools to accept money, no strings attached initially, get dependent on it and then the government starts throwing down these regulations in exchange for the funding. Then they’re stuck having to make a choice of either closing their doors or compromising their values in order to continue to accept the federal and state funding.”
Alex Newman of Liberty Sentinel told us the exact same thing in his interview with ROPE last year.
As did Robert Bortins, CEO of the worldwide homeschool organization Classical Conversations:
So how again then, does a school choice VOUCHER create freedom for parents? How is putting a school under federal ‘rule’ EMPOWERING for parents?
Sarah asks these types of questions and more in the video below. If you are a Republican FOR vouchers before you watch this segment and are still for vouchers afterward, I’m going to suggest you change your political affiliation – none of the questions asked by Sarah here, result in answers that follow the small-government, personal responsibility/liberty model of Republicanism. In fact, they could all be considered LEFTIST ideals, so how are Republicans buying into them?
The idea of every American parent choosing the form of education they want for their child is fundamental to the concept of personal freedom enshrined in the Constitution and I’ll fight with all I have to preserve that ideal.
HOWEVER, the ideal of ‘school choice’ that includes bringing in the government AT ANY LEVEL of a child’s education while asserting that as a ‘free market principal’ or freedom in any way, is a flat out lie and I’ll fight for that lie to be exposed for what it is and the detriment it will become to actual educational freedom in the long run, every day of the week.
I remember a song from the ’60’s whose chorus says, “I fought the law and the law won” (here is a version by the Clash for you younger folks LOL). It reminds me so much of public education in Oklahoma – and probably across the nation, actually. Here’s why.
April 12th, 2022, Brice Chaffin – a taxpayer in the district of Stillwater Public Schools – attended a school board meeting to discuss his concern about allowing boys to use the girl’s bathrooms.
Addressing the Board from the podium, Chaffin began his remarks by discussing the forms of law – natural law, physical law, spiritual law. What happened after that really requires viewing, so check out the original video below. It’s only a bit over 3 minutes.
If you haven’t watched the video by this point in the piece, you really have to. It’s the only way to understand the derision with which Brice was treated by nearly every single member of the Board. As he’s being told he has to actually leave the building, the Board is laughing and carrying on as though Chaffin (not with a long A, but a short ‘a’ as is the correct sound for a vowel before two consonants – but this is a school board, what would they know about English rules?) a piece of gum stuck to their shoe. It’s simply gross.
After this egregious act of silencing a district taxpayer before he had even completed speaking for the time allowed by the Board, ROPE and Maria Seidler of Legal Overwatch for Parent’s Rights, filed a suit against each member of the Stillwater School Board citing the Oklahoma Religious Freedom Act in May.
Please note; all that Brice and ROPE were asking, was for the SPS Board to apologize to Chaffin for the way he was treated. THAT’S ALL. No monetary damages, no compensation for time, no payment of our attorney fees. We asked only for an APOLOGY.
The Judge appointed to the case was Payne County Associate District Judge, Steven Kistler, appointed by Brad Henry (D) to the position in 2008.
In July, Judge Kistler ruled against RFR’s request for dismissal and scheduled a pre-trial hearing for November, that was moved to October.
Unfortunately, Kistler denied Seidler’s motion, but after hearing the arguments of both side’s attorneys, refused to rule from the bench, saying instead that he was going to review the video again and, following, supply a written ruling to the parties through the court.
In April of 2023, Maria Seidler was a guest on our podcast, ROPE Report Live, where she updated us on the case. You can find that video on our Rumble and YouTube channels.
Essentially, Judge Kistler ruled against us and Brice and for SPS, literally providing no support for his decision. It was simply something to the effect of, “I’m ruling for Stillwater Public Schools”, period. If we wanted to have any notion about his thinking as to why, we weren’t going to get it. (You can find that specific information at 33 minutes almost exactly on the live video)
Following Kistler’s (bizarre) decision, SPS’ attorneys then file a lawsuit against Chaffin and ROPE for court costs and attorney’s fees. Because we filed our suit under the Oklahoma Religious Freedom Act, this was a real surprise. The Act does not allow for court costs or attorney’s fees to be collected UNLESS the suit is won and the attorney’s fees and court costs are to be paid by the governmental entity that was found at fault. The private citizen or organization suing the governmental entity is not to pay court costs or attorney’s fees for the other party, even if they lose.
Here are the costs submitted to Stillwater Public Schools by Rosenstein, Fist an Ringold TO KEEP FROM APOLOGIZING TO A COMMUNITY MEMBER!
Yet and again, however, ROPE and Chaffin were back in court with the intrepid Maria by our side, trying to defend ourselves – when we shouldn’t have had to – from paying nearly 45 THOUSAND dollars in attorney’s fees and court costs.
Fortunately, the judge actually HAD read the Oklahoma Religious Freedom Act and ruled against Rosenstein, Fist and Ringold (and SPS) and for Chaffin and ROPE, but it was at that court proceeding that Seidler and Chaffin learned something interesting.
The two were approached by several attorneys who told them they were sorry about the first ruling and that they believed we had a case. In fact, the attorneys identified Judge Kistler as an ‘activist’ judge who would have never ruled with us because of the subject matter and defendants. This information, led Maria to expound strenuously against ‘activist’ judges in this ROPE Report Short from that April’s interview.
We went on to file an appeal in Payne County, but our appeal was lost. Though we thought about filing an appeal to the Supreme Court, the costs are prohibitive and made little sense to any of us (from an AI answer to a search for Oklahoma Supreme Court costs: The total estimated cost of appealing to the Oklahoma Supreme Court can range from $2,750 to $14,000 or more, depending on the complexity of the case and the number of briefs filed.)
So here are your takeaways:
Listen to what Brice says here; Stillwater Public Schools LIED to pastors and other members of the community about the policy of allowing boys in girl’s bathrooms by telling them nothing was going on. They only found out for certain, when a woman went to her pastor and told him what she had personally seen!
If a public school offends your Constitutional – or other – rights, and you decide to sue them, you will pay for YOUR attorneys AND THE SCHOOLS ATTORNEYS because your tax dollars go to the school and the school is PAYING A FIRM OF ATTORNEYS TENS OF THOUSANDS OF DOLLARS TO KEEP FROM HAVING TO APOLOGIZE TO A COMMUNITY MEMBER. We discuss that in this segment:
But it only gets worse. What happens if we had sued SPS for tens of thousands – or millions of dollars? Does the school have to pay that? What about the employees that caused the issues?
A Kingfisher Public Schools family sued Kingfisher Public Schools for some horrible hazing incidents that happened under the watchful eye of the KPS coach. The court awarded the family a 5 MILLION dollar settlement for the case. Will the Coach pay that? What about the school board that hired the Coach and allowed him to continue on in his position after numerous complaints from the community? What about the Superintendent? Nope.
A Daily Oklahoman article sums it up just in the title alone: “Angry taxpayers to confront Kingfisher school board about $5 million settlement of hazing case”. Why are Kingfisher taxpayers angry about a lawsuit that didn’t involve them? “Property owners in the Kingfisher school district are mad because they’re being told their taxes will go up for three years to pay $3.75 million of the settlement. Estimates are the increase could be as much as 12%.” You read it right! Yup.
Kingfisher school district taxpayers will pay the cost of the lawsuit settlement against the district.
Now tell me. Where in the world is the accountability for any public school TO the taxpayers whose money they take – either in property taxes or in appropriations by the legislature?
So let’s discuss that as well. Oklahoma’s academic scores are in the toilet. Across Oklahoma, less than half of ALL students are proficient in English and math, yet the Oklahoma legislature – again this year, after what they termed an HISTORIC INVESTMENT of tens of millions of dollars in education in 2023 – have done it again.
This is the website that contains the budget for Oklahoma for 2024. A total of $13.2 BILLION dollars. Education? Yeah, that’s a NEW appropriation of $45 MILLION dollars to a total $7.9 BILLION dollar budget. Who says public education is underfunded? Why would we fund them at all? We have ZERO control over them and the people we elect to take the reigns of control over them, simply throw money at the problem and move on.
Share this far and wide – every single Oklahoma taxpayer should know exactly where there money is going and what they are, or are NOT getting for it.
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.
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’.
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)
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 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.
“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.
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.
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 UNIVERSITIESor 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.
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.
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.
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.
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
