accountability

Oklahoma Inc. – Governor Stitt’s Appointment Swamp

Governor Stitt has never had any problem appointing people during his terms.

In fact, the appointments he’s made during his time in the Governor’s chair tell us a story. They tell us that he doesn’t see a government that is Of The People, By The People, For The People, but more a government of the people, for the people, by the people he likes and does business with.

The people he appoints to his positions – and he’ll move people around wherever it suits him for whatever purpose he has – by and large, have worked with him previously, or come from Tulsa, or have donated to his campaign, or have ties to him through the Chamber, or Jeb Bush – they’re not We The People, they’re We The Buddies.

I’m not going to throw in a bunch of links in here to prove the veracity of this statement, a simple internet search on Governor Stitt and his appointments will bring those home for you. It’s all there. It’s not hard to find.

In order to drive the point home, however, here are several examples of my assertion.

Donelle Harder:

Here are Donelle’s stats from her LinkedIn page:

Screenshot of Donelle Harder's LinkedIn page showcasing her professional experience and current roles.

Here’s an article that doesn’t say why she left Stitt’s office in 2020 as his “Senior Advisor”, but the move didn’t hurt her.

She went on to DC (essentially) and started her own Consulting firm, Pliris Strategies, which she then sold to Pinkston (the company where she began her career), during which time she was not only appointed to the Gateway Banking/Mortgage Board, but was owner of Harder Consulting, LLC as well. Talk about landing on your feet.

Prior to that, however, she was

Communications Advisor U.S. House of Representatives May 2010 – Jul 2012

Communications Director U.S. Senate July 2012 – Nov 2016

Vice President Oklahoma Oil & Gas Association Nov 2016 – Dec 2017

Deputy Campaign Manager Kevin Stitt for Governor Oct 2017 – Jan 2019

Executive Team Member Governor-elect Kevin Stitt Transition Team Nov 2018 – Jan 2019

Doubtless, Mrs. Harder has worked very hard and had a very successful career – mostly in government, mostly with Governor Stitt.

As you can tell from the post above, Governor Stitt recently appointed Harder to the position of Secretary of State (after sitting SOS, Josh Cockroft suddenly decided to step down with four other Stitt appointees), only to find that Harder couldn’t serve as Secretary of State – a 4-year appointment that will extend into the next OK governor’s term and be a member of the next Governor’s cabinet whether they want them there or not – because she couldn’t fulfill the residency requirement of 10 years.

But no worries, again, the move won’t hurt her – she’ll now be Chief of Staff – an easy jump since she’s already been his “Senior Advisor”.

I personally think the most telling thing – the most infuriating thing – from Harder’s Facebook post is that she’s all good with her position. She’s giddy that the people she’s working with now – the same ones she’s worked within the past – are all back together and isn’t that grand? She is completely tone deaf to the fact that she doesn’t work for Kevin Stitt in a private business, she works for the people of Oklahoma, which is managed for We The People by Kevin Sitt. Her salary is paid by taxpayers, therefore her duty is to the taxpayers, not to a boss, or the buddies she’s worked with before, as would be the case in private business. But then, this is Oklahoma Inc. thinking for you.

Government is not to be run as a private business. It can’t be. The government of the state of Oklahoma is the PEOPLE OF OKLAHOMA, not the elected and appointed officials. The PEOPLE OF OKLAHOMA elect their fellow citizens to government office to manage the state for them using the dollars that are forcibly taken from them in the way of taxes and fees. Because they are forcibly taken, the employees of the PEOPLE OF OKLAHOMA have a duty to manage those tax dollars appropriately while working continuously to protect their liberty – the only job any elected official has.

Dustin Hilliary:

Notice he’s now Stitt’s “Chief Negotiator”. What is that? Well, we’ll never know because there is no job for that in the Oklahoma Job Catalog. Interesting. How much will this employee make off the back of taxpayers? How could we know?

Hilliary has donated quite a lot of money to Stitt – who appointed him to a 9-year term as an Oklahoma State Reagent (he’s now the Chair) though he never got a college degree. An article in the Oklahoman had this to say about Hilliary and Ostrowe – also included in Harder’s post.

Hilliary is a co-owner of Lawton-based Hilliary Communications, a telephone and broadband service provider that has more than 15,000 customers in Oklahoma, Texas and Iowa. Ostrowe is the president and CEO of O&M Restaurant Group, an Oklahoma City company that operates Taco Bell franchises. Harder has clients through her public relations and consulting work.

All three have donated to Stitt’s campaigns in the past, records show. Hilliary donated $9,000, and Ostrowe donated $8,300. Harder, who has also worked for Stitt’s campaign, donated $1,000.

Abegail Cave, the communications director for the governor’s office, would not say whether the appointees would be required to step away from their non-government work. She also would not say how much each of Stitt’s new appointees will be paid.

What? Can you do that? SHOULD you do that as THE CENTRAL STEWARD OF TAXPAYER DOLLARS? How is this not the perfect example of “he who has the gold makes the rules”?

Benjamin Lepak:

Benjamin is the son of current Representative Mark Lepak.

His sister Sarah Lepak was Governor Stitt’s Assistant General Counsel at Gateway Mortgage Group, LLC, for five years from Apr 2012 – Mar 2017. She also served on the Oklahoma State Board of Education – one of two not fired when Governor Stitt fired Donald Burdick, Kendra Wesson, and Katie Quebedeaux – until Governor Stitt removed she and the other member, Zach Archer quietly on October 2nd. (In their place he has appointed Brian Bobek and Wes Nofire. Both have been appointed by Stitt to other Oklahoma boards previously.)

Benjamin is the current General Counsel to the Governor – since October of 2024. Might it be worth asking how Lepak’s “brilliant mind” didn’t know that Harder couldn’t be appointed SOS? Prior to that, Benjamin was the Executive Director of the State Chamber Research Foundation Oklahoma 21st Century from November 2020 until taking the General Counsel position.

Why Is Any Of This A Problem?

Here’s why. There is a process set up by which We The People may send in application to be appointed to serve on a Board, or a Commission in Oklahoma.

Ideally, qualified individuals from the population of We The People in Oklahoma use this form to submit an application for specific appointments in which they have interest. People from the Governor’s office, then, ideally, look over the applications and move forward those most qualified to the Governor for his selection.

This is clearly not happening – certainly, not at top levels.

Let’s review some of the most controversial of Governor Stitt’s appointments so far.

Shelley Zumwalt – according to her LinkdIn page, Zumwalt graduated from University of Central Oklahoma in 2002 with a BS in Business/Corporate Communications. There is nothing on her LinkdIn that accounts for the years 2002-2012, but in 2012, she became the “Communications Manager” for OMES. After that, it was off to the races with one government job after another; Director of Public Affairs for Governor Mary Fallin, Director of Public Affairs for OMES – then, in 2019, she was appointed “Chief Communications and Strategic Engagement Officer Oklahoma” of the Oklahoma Health Care Authority by Governor Stitt – yet another job not in the Oklahoma Job Description Manager. After that, she was in another made up job – Chief Innovation Officer at OMES – and then an actual job posting, Executive Director, Oklahoma Employment Security Commission and finally Executive Director at the Oklahoma Tourism Department.

Essentially forced out of office after Cindy Bird’s scathing audit about her use of taxpayer dollars during the pandemic – where it was found that she essentially paid her husband’s firm for software work and then told the public it wasn’t a big deal because there was nothing going on.

Jefferey Cartmell – Cartmell got his JD in 2012 from OU, after which he became Governor Mary Fallin’s General Counsel. Gosh. One minute you’re an OU law student and the next you’re the Governor’s General Counsel. Amazing.

After that, it was nearly just one government job after the next for Cartmell; Director and Counsel State of Oklahoma – Gaming Compliance for two years, Associate Attorney Lytle Soule & Curlee, for 2 years, Deputy General Counsel Office of Governor Kevin Stitt (starting from the time he took office in 2019) for 2 years, Counsel to Secretary of State – Oklahoma Secretary of State 2 years, Executive Director – Office Of Juvenile Affairs 1 year, Director, Oklahoma DHS.

Now mind you, Cartmell may be a great attorney, but I see nothing that would make him even eligible to be appointed to the Executive Director of the Office of Juvenile Affairs or OKDHS positions. In fact, after allegations of widespread abuse at the Tulsa Juvenile Center resulted in lawsuits, investigations and at least one person charged for having sex with a minor, Carmell was moved from the OJA to OKDHS. How many people do you know are moved to a larger oversight job when they’ve apparently failed at the lesser oversight job? It’s worth it to ask.

Now Cartmell is in a position over an agency that we know – thanks to the wonderful detective/reporting work of Katy Smith at V1SUT – has – at minimum – trafficked children to pedophiles and taken them away from their parents for forced medical treatment. Unfortunately, swamp creatures are much better at landing other government jobs than protecting We The People from the agencies they head. It is actually disgusting.

I can only hope that Oklahomans have learned valuable lessons from King – sorry – Governor Stitt’s tenure and that they’ll never again fall for a fast-talking businessman with an ethically iffy business background who wants to turn Oklahoma into a business his buddies can run on the backs of We The People.

October 5, 2025 2

Questions And Answers With State Auditor And Inspector, Cindy Byrd

Cindy Byrd Oklahoma State Auditor and Inspector

Wednesday, March 19th at a special time – 10:00am – Michael and I had the privilege of interviewing Oklahoma’s State Auditor and Inspector Cindy Byrd. Cindy is – hands down – one of my favorite interviews because SHE KNOWS HER STUFF! After being an auditor for over 20 years, she’s got the answers to pretty much any questions you can ask. I’ve pulled several short clips from the interview, but you’ll want to watch the full interview on our Rumble or YouTube channels.

We started talking about the Tulsa Public Schools audit that she just recently finished at the request of the Governor. She talks about that – how does Cindy determine what agencies to audit? Is it up to her? Early on she tells us that she doesn’t have the power to independently audit agencies or political subdivisions. At about 14 minutes in, she tells us who has the authority to have her audit – and that includes taxpayers!

As I mentioned, we didn’t just discuss the TPS audit, there were a number of questions that came in from viewers that Cindy was kind enough to take. Additionally, she had a number of points she was interested in making herself – like this one in the clip below.

Isn’t it interesting how the people who make the laws don’t seem to be terribly interested in the topic of how to make state agencies more transparent with taxpayer dollars? How frustrating! But it gets worse! Cindy tells us in the clip below that even if she finds that a person or entity is breaking the law, there are no laws in Oklahoma that actually hold ‘bad actors’ responsible for the gross mismanagement of tax dollars. How can that be? That’s flat crazy and something that an Oklahoma legislator needs to resolve NEXT YEAR for certain!

In this last clip, Cindy tells viewers not to give up hope! If we’ll report what we know, or think, to be wrong and if we’ll stand up and make our elected officials do what’s right – get Cindy’s office to audit – we’ll get the finances of our Oklahoma government back in order! She believes we can do it, but we have to be citizens active in the process, so stayed involved and educated!

March 23, 2025 0

Gov. Stitt’s Commerce Department Gives Multiple MILLIONS Of Taxpayer Dollars To Paycom And Love’s Through Quality Jobs Incentives

Granted, in a recommended appropriation budget of 10,060,793,526 for 2024, a million dollars here and a million dollars there, isn’t that big a deal – it’s chump change.

But then again, every dime of this money is taken by force from a working citizen of the state, ostensibly to provide services to the taxpayer – not to enrich the multibillion dollar corporations of billionaires – even ones that make Oklahoma their homes.

Let’s take Paycom, for example. Paycom is an online payroll company created by Oklahoman, Chad Richison. Here is a bit about Mr. Richison from Forbes.

As you can see, Mr. Richison is personally worth over 1 billion dollars. Here are a few articles about Mr. Richison that pop up in a simple internet search:

Meet the highest paid CEO in S&P 500, Paycom’s $211M man

The billionaire CEO of Paycom just paid $26.5 million for a beachfront Malibu mansion that took 12 years to build and blends into the rocks. Take a look inside.

Paycom CEO Chad Richison donates $10 million to UCO for stadium upgrades

Unfortunately, Mr. Richison is also a liberal who is not at all shy about announcing his thoughts on state policy. For example, during the COVID nonsense, Mr. Richison wrote a letter to Governor Stitt complaining about a lack of leadership on COVID and that further restrictions must be made on business and movement in the state.

Also in 2020, Mr. Richison wrote a letter to OU saying that he was pulling his advertising because the University was essentially racist and didn’t have adequate training to establish an understanding of ‘racial equity’. Not long afterward, OU became a bastion of DEI training. But that’s not all.

In yet another letter written to the Regional University Board of Reagents, Richison criticized their pick for UCO’s University President, former Republican Lt. Governor, Todd Lamb.

Why then, has the State of Oklahoma Commerce Department given Paycom Payroll over ELEVEN MILLION dollars in taxpayer funds during the years of 2024 and 2023 and, beyond that, why has it been granting them funds since 2009?

The information above is from a very useful website called, “Subsidy Tracker” by “Good Jobs First”. If you click on the hyperlink on the left side of the spreadsheet (which can be found here), it tells the origin of the subsidy. Note, on this page, apparently Texas is providing subsidies as well, though very limited. Overwhelmingly, Paycom’s incentives are Oklahoma based.

Note, the origin of the subsidy is the “Quality Jobs Incentive” program. Though the money is dispersed through the Oklahoma Tax Commission, the Quality Jobs Incentive Program is a product of the Oklahoma Commerce Department (OCD). Here’s what the website says about the program:

The Oklahoma Quality Jobs Program serves as an incentive for companies to expand or relocate jobs to Oklahoma by providing a rebate of a portion of newly created payroll in the state. The program induces the creation of well-paid full-time jobs and promotes economic development. Companies may receive benefits during the first three years of participation while working to achieve the required payroll threshold for full qualification.

How are these grants dispersed?

The agency – in this case Paycom – that wants one of the many taxpayer subsidies dispensed though the OCD, must fill out a request. Then, at some point, the OCD Incentive Approval Committee calls them in for a meeting during which the asking business may speak. After that, the Committee adjourns to an Executive Session during which they decide how much of a grant to provide the business.

There are several problems here other than the glaringly obvious:

Who is on the Incentive Approval Committee? Internet search turned up no answers, but a concerning Frontier article – Committee approves request for state jobs incentive money by company founded by Gov. Kevin Stitt. This article states that the Committee consisted (when the article was written in 2020) of Department of Commerce Executive Director Brent Kisling and Oklahoma Tax Commission Chairman Charles Prater – both of whom were directly appointed by Governor Stitt. The third board member was Dan Ross, director of capital assets for the Office of Management and Enterprise Services.
The article mentioned above, also points out the lack of transparency in this process – all of the grants given out through the Quality Jobs Incentive Program are done so through Executive Session of the Committee. The only way to find out how much any company gets is by going to the Oklahoma Tax Commission website and scrolling through the yearly Excel files housing the HUGE number of tax dollar giveaways supported by Oklahoma citizens.
On the website where agendas are stored for the various taxpayer giveaway committees, the only agendas for a program that was created in 1993 (according to the Frontier article), are from 2024 and January 2025. Even then, five months of 2024 agendas are missing. Why?
Every agenda must be scoured to find out the names of the businesses going to the OCD with their hands out asking for taxpayer dollars. There is no searchable list, so each agenda must be read individually – if it’s available for inspection on the website.

Obviously, taxpayer dollars are being provided to certain private businesses and the taxpayer – the people funding these ‘grants’ – have to go through quite a process to find out how much of their dollars are going where. How very transparent. But then, the Frontier article is about how Governor Stitt’s mortgage company was receiving grants from the Committee he peopled to make decisions about how to give away state taxpayer dollars.

Unfortunately, this is the same for Love’s Travel Stops & Country Stores, Inc. According to Subsidy Tracker, Love’s has a large number of ‘grants’ given it by the state of Oklahoma for both 2023 and 2024. In fact, the taxpayers of Oklahoma have given Love’s Travel Stops and Country Stores EIGHT MILLION DOLLARS – $8,074,378 to be exact.

Tom and Judy Love, who together founded the Love’s dynasty here in Oklahoma, have both recently passed away (Tom in March of 2023 and Judy in November of 2024). Both Tom and Judy were tremendously generous with their self-made billions in their home state.

A story in the Oklahoman published just before Judy died, listed her as the second wealthiest self-made woman in America, pegging the Love’s net worth at over 10.2 billion dollars. It also provided a long and varied list of their philanthropy in Oklahoma, including Positive Tomorrows, the Oklahoma Hall of Fame and the Archdiocese of Oklahoma City. The Loves were also famous for their support of the Oklahoma City Thunder.

According to Forbes, the estimated revenues of the Love’s stores across the country is 24 billion dollars. Last April, Love’s announced that it would be making a billion dollar investment in updates to their facilities.

Love’s has benefited from tax credits, TIFs, grants or rebates from the states of Nebraska, Colorado, Mississippi, Virginia., Iowa, Illinois and Ohio. All of these subsidies have been a mere fraction of the 8 million dollars provided by their home state of Oklahoma, however.

In 2022, a subsidiary of Love’s, the Musket Corporation, received a $10,800,000 guaranteed loan from the federal Import/Export Bank.

Love’s is on the Quality Jobs Program Incentive Approval Committee agenda for the Regular Meeting of the Committee September 19, 2024 10:00am, along with Paycom. Again, their ‘grants’ were warded via the Committee in a closed door Executive session.

One last piece of information collected by the Oklahoma Commerce Department, indicates that neither Love’s, nor Paycom is in the top 10 hiring companies in Oklahoma. Which begs the question – why are so many millions given to both multiBILLION dollar private corporations for ‘quality jobs’? Paycom is number 25 and Love’s is even lower at 31. Consequently, taxpayers are paying for job recruitment and retention for two billionaire corporations of Oklahoma billionaires that aren’t even top 10 employers in the state.

The number of tax dollars being dolled out to private businesses via incentives by Governor Stitt’s administration is staggering – and we’ve already reported on the unbelievable amount of tax dollars being given to wind generation companies doing business in the state. One only has to go out and look at the Excel spreadsheets of them on the Oklahoma Tax Commission website and scroll through name after name to get the scope of this Santa Claus list.

Just this week, Governor Stitt has announced that he wants to reduce and eliminate the Oklahoma income tax. That’s wonderful. No citizen of America – let alone Oklahoma – should be forced to give their hard-earned wages to their government to be redirected to private entities and other nonsense that doesn’t benefit them directly. Oklahomans should applaud that idea.

It is a cause for curiosity, however, as to how this miracle can occur until Oklahoma stops handing out the millions upon millions in tax-payer funded incentives for private business we continue to shell out on the back of the Oklahoma taxpayer, yearly.

January 31, 2025 3

Social Media Post Calling Out Gubernatorial Politics Gets Tons Of Pushback – Makes Point Of Post

Recently, Governor Stitt made this ‘bobcat’ post on his socials.

It totally irritated me, so I made the following response and then posted it to ROPE’s Facebook page:

We have a small farm and have had to give countless predators a ‘dirt nap’ because they were killing our livestock. When we do it, we don’t post about it on social media – partly because people are insane and I don’t want to get reported by the PETA peeps – but also because I DON’T LIKE KILLING THINGS. I mean, we raise sheep – for meat and sale – and I hate it when we have to take them to the butcher. It usually makes me feel gross all day. I just don’t like killing things as a rule – even if I’m going to eat them afterward, or if I’m saving my livestock.

I actually like this about me – after nearly a decade of processing chickens and turkeys and taking sheep to the butcher – I still believe every life is important. I’ve not gotten ‘numb’ to death. It still stings. I still remember that even the racoon that ate the heads off 3 of my chickens was made by God just like me.

So there’s that, although that wasn’t the actual reason behind the post.

Immediately, the post blew up with comments about how I was a Karen, or a crybaby, or about how it was well within the Governor’s right to shoot a bobcat on his property whether it was eating his animals or not.

Here are a few selected responses so you can fully digest their flavor.

Look, I’m big girl. I’ve been in this game a long time. I believe in free speech. Everyone who wanted to comment about what an idiot I am got to say their piece without me censoring them in any way. And maybe I did get a bit strident in my response – I certainly don’t think everything I say, or post, or write is the best thing ever all the time. After a 20 year writing career, I’ve CERTAINLY had my duds.

It’s no secret that I’m no fan of Governor Stitt, but trust me when I say I don’t relish this position.

I would LOVE to be able to back the REPUBLICANS I VOTE FOR, but with the glaring exception of former Labor Commissioner Mark Costello whom I 100% respected and thought the world of, I’ve NEVER voted for a Republican who didn’t let me down in some huge way. In fact, that’s why I started ROPE in 2008 in the first place – to try and keep our elected officials on course by pointing out their departures from Republican ideals. I’m used to getting the cold shoulder from legislators and Party officials, or reamed a new one by all measure of commenters on social media – I’m neither a Karen nor a snowflake or I would have quit for good LONG AGO.

My choice to call out the Governor in this post wasn’t about the bobcat – it was about the DISTRACTION the post was meant to be.

After a few hours of watching the commenters pile on, I added the following update to the post:

– Thank you so much for all your comments on the post. For those asking what this has to do with Parental Empowerment – we’ve been posting ALL kinds of information here and on our podcast for nearly two years. Maybe a follow would bring some clarity on that issue.

Disagreement can be instructive and we’re all about free speech here – but our Governor’s post is a distraction from all the problems we have in this state that aren’t being dealt with by his office – and that’s the point of the post. There are plenty of us who have disposed of LIVESTOCK-EATING predators without posting them on social media. Our Governor’s media people know that posts about hunting or sports are nearly universally loved – and defended – by Oklahomans and, hence, a great distraction. It’s important to point out these distractions and attempt to put the focus back on the issues at stake. And that’s what we’ll do here every single time we can. So, agree or disagree, that’s the bottom line.

Our governor has absolutely sat out the fight to have DHS investigated, though he could have called for an investigation himself. Same with the Turnpike Authority which is costing Oklahomans millions and millions of dollars while they continue to ratchet up their tolls.

I could go on with examples of how obvious government malfeasance is simply overlooked by our Governor and his office, but I’ll stop there and end on this; we have the right and the responsibility as ‘the people’ of this state – not to mention taxpayers – to expect our elected officials to do the right thing and to call them out publicly when they don’t. You may not like the way someone does it (ie me), but if we’re going to allow ourselves to be easily distracted by public statements from our officials about hunting, or sports teams, or attracting business and increasing our workforce, that we don’t see how we’re being manipulated to look the other way, our government will NEVER work for us.

And that was the whole point of the post in the first place.

January 6, 2025 0

A Teacher’s Story – Why I Quit Teaching In Oklahoma Public Schools

Becky Pellam, PhD, spoke to Michael and Jenni on Wednesday, October 2nd, 2024, about her teaching experiences in Oklahoma.

Dr. Pellam came from Texas, where she taught in the Dumas district. She loved it there, but she met a man from the Oklahoma panhandle and settled in on a ranch they bought there together. Hungry to teach again, she applied to Guymon PS and was hired as a Teaching Coach.

Before she started, she had great feelings about her time there and what she could do to help the kids – the majority of whom had ACT scores in the single digits. After she began, her experience changed drastically.

During her year of employment in Guymon, she was bullied by the other teachers, many of whom told her she was a ‘plant’ from the central office sent to spy on the other teachers and refused to submit their benchmarks to her. She talked to her superintendent about the situation but she seemed to get nowhere.

She talked to the school board president, who listened intently and believed her report, but asked her to contact the Board’s vice-president. When she did, the long-time, active OSSBA (Oklahoma State School Board Association) member told her that he had heard she was a trouble maker and knew she was the problem, not anyone else.

Needless to say, after she was told by the Superintendent to falsify benchmark data to the school board, she had it in her mind to quit, but then the school essentially fired her anyway.

Here’s Becky’s story about her employment with Guymon in her own words:

After being forced to leave Guymon public schools, she was hired at DOVE Virtual Acadmy (DVA) – an Oklahoma online public charter school.

Dr. Pellam talks about how – just like her experience with Guymon PS – everything started fine, but quickly turned sour.

The Principal almost immediately had Dr. Pellam teaching THE ENTIRE HIGH SCHOOL class of nearly 100 kids to the tune of 12 and 13 classes per week. For those who aren’t teachers, that’s 3 TIMES a ‘normal’ amount of coursework. For each class, there is a certain amount of ‘prep’ that has to happen to develop the course and to assist/grade/monitor the students. This level of coursework would exhaust anyone, but Becky also was helping to run a ranch and raise their daughter at the same time.

In the end, she found that DVA was ALSO cheating the accountability system by enrolling ‘ghost students’ to get their enrollment up (in Oklahoma, schools are appropriated funds via the number of ‘butts in seats’), but then unenrolled over 40% of their students – the ones on the lower end of the academic spectrum – when it came time for state testing.

Here is Dr. Pellam telling the story about her employment with Dove Virtual Academy:

Toward the end of the LIVE 2 hour+ broadcast, Jenni and Dr. Pellam began to talk about what education actually is.

Few people – including teachers and administrators today – know what it means to EDUCATE a child. It’s certainly NOT what we’re doing in Oklahoma right now. Right now, we’re training kids for jobs, not educating them in order to be the people best able to decide what they want to do.

There is method to this madhouse approach of education, however. Uneducated people are compliant people because they don’t know how to think for themselves. They do what they’re told because they’re conditioned to do that. They can’t think for themselves because they’re not educated, they’re conditioned.

Becky and Jenni took several minutes to flesh out this fact so that people could hopefully understand what it is that Oklahoma is doing wrong in public education. And that’s after we spoke about the horrible public school culture – the teacher/administration bullying that goes on against those who want to come in and actually teach and do the right thing.

Here are Becky and Jenni discussing the idea of what REAL EDUCATION looks like:

Dr. Pellam is VERY BRAVE for coming forward in this way.

Jenni had the very same kind of experiences while she was teaching in Oklahoma public schools 25 years ago, so this is not a new thing – THIS IS TEACHER/ADMINISTRATION CULTURE IN MOST OKLAHOMA SCHOOLS. Good Oklahoma teachers simply leave rather than try to do anything because they know nothing they will say will be heard or addressed.

See, no one listens to them because the fixes necessary REQUIRE HARD WORK, not just THROWING DOLLARS AT THE PROBLEMS and no one from public school administration, to our legislature, to our Governor really want to do the work that is required to solve the deeply entrenched problems with public school culture in Oklahoma.

Oklahoman’s shouldn’t BE FORCED TO PROVIDE THEIR TAX DOLLARS FOR THESE UNFUNCTIONAL SCHOOLS. If we really care about kids – and do we really? – we would FIX the broken public school administrative culture, instead of forcing taxpayers to provide private school tuition dollars to people who can already afford a private school education for their kid/s!

October 3, 2024 0

Statewide Charter School Board President Talks St. Isadore And Raising The Bar On Education In Oklahoma

Wednesday, August 28th, Michael and I talked to Brian Shellem (who’s name I KEEP mispelling and changing the second “e” to a “u” – sorry Brian!), who was recently named the Chair of the recently-created Statewide Charter School Board. Once a separate Virtual School Board and a Charter School Board, the NEW board has combined BOTH virtual and brick and mortar charter schools into the one Board.

This was a significant change ordered by the legislature in order to create more taxpayer transparency of the publicly-funded charter school model thanks to the horror show that became EPIC Charter Schools. (I’m not going into all of that here. If you’re unfamiliar with the EPIC mess, just search the interwebs for “Epic” and you’ll get the whole story in a relatively short time!)

Oklahoma charter schools are publicly-funded schools to which any student can apply – many have a lottery system for entry – that function by a “charter”, making them different than a ‘regular’ public school. They are created by private entities, not the state, but are approved and funded with state tax dollars. The job of Brian Shellem – and the rest of the Statewide Charter School Board – is to approve (or disapprove) applications submitted to the Board for charter school renewals and new charter schools attempting to operate in the state.

In the clip below, Brian talks about the fact that, now that the new Board is functioning, they will also have a NEW job – sponsoring a charter school. As Brian explains, it used to be the public school in the immediate area of the proposed charter that could sponsor a charter, but – as you can imagine – the charter schools that were getting sponsorships, were having to get them from public schools of higher education, not k-12 schools, most of which have never been supportive of competition for dollars from charter schools.

This change could allow for many more charter school applications to be made – to a Board full of appointed people. This initially alarmed me because, as you know, I detest the lack of accountability usually had by appointed Boards and Commissions. Hearing Brian talk about the way he intended to have the Board do business and the transparency he was going to expect from the Board made me much less suspicious and more inclined to see the positivity in this change.

Charter schools have private boards though they receive public money, yet if the Board seated to oversee them is doing their job and is transparent about the way in which the schools are functioning, having the same Board sponsor the charter schools over which they are tasked with approving could actually create greater transparency. In the end, it’s still a Board with appointed – not elected – individuals whose job should be overseen and checked by the public to ensure they are correctly performing their duties.

In the short clip above, Brian talks about the fact that public school leadership has fallen down on the job. Brian wants to raise the bar and make sure charter schools are performing to the best of their ability.

Although the full live video went on for 2 hours (!), we had more people watching the whole two hours than we’ve had watch some of our shorter videos all the way through. People are truly concerned about the issue of education in Oklahoma and wanted to hear our discussion. You can find the full video on Rumble and YouTube. I suggest you watch the entire thing when you can.

I don’t agree with Brian on everything – like authorizing religious schools to be funded by taxpayers and offering ‘school choice’ to homeschoolers – but I agree with a whole lot of what he said and the discussion surrounding our disagreements were instructive.

Again, as I’ve said hundreds of times, ARGUMENT IS NOT A BAD THING! It is if you’re going to scream and yell and throw things, but you shouldn’t. We should all be able to talk to one another about our differences calmly and respectfully, because we might just learn something from each other. I think we all did that here.

August 28, 2024 0

Oklahoma Conservative PAC Arguments For “Money Follows The Kid” (Voucher) ‘School Choice’ Option Are Wrong-Headed and NOT CONSERVATIVE

Being a conservative is often a lonely position. Asking people to take responsibility for THEMSELVES to prevent government intervention is not an easy sell in a world where all the creature comforts of human existence are but a moment away. After being attacked personally by OCPAC for an opinion Reclaim Oklahoma Parent Empowerment corporately holds, a rebuttal is in order.

In full disclosure, several members of ROPE met with OCPAC President Bob Linn February 8th to discuss our concerns with SB1647, during which time Mr. Linn admitted he had not read the bill.

Let’s be very clear: NO, ROPE does not support the movement of tax dollars (government money – vouchers) to private or homeschools.

Here are the ways ROPE SUPPORTS PARENT EDUCATIONAL CHOICE:

Individual and family tax credits for home or private school. Oklahoma doesn’t have this option currently, but there are several bills in the legislature this year to do so – SB1471 – and several modifications to increase the EOES (below)
Tax credit scholarships created by private individuals and corporations that make a donation to a scholarship set up for families in need to use for a tax credit (Oklahoma already has the Equal Opportunity Education Scholarship program that fits this bill.) The EOES supports both students in failing schools AND low income families.
Money following the child throughout the public (government) school system from failing schools (open transfers)
Creation of charter and other ‘extra’-public schools of which Oklahoma now has 30 (OSDE charter school report)

Here is the email sent by OCPAC on Valentine’s day 2022, to which I respond using quotes from the email.

“The passage of SB1647 is a must and will give authority to the parent to direct their child’s education.”

This is incorrect. Oklahoma parents have more authority to direct their child’s education than many other states. Parents in Oklahoma can:

constitutionally home school their children in any way they please
send their children to an Oklahoma private school – many of which provide scholarships for needy families on their own (Casady, Heritage Hall, Oklahoma Christian School, Holland Hall, etc.)
send their children to a public online charter school like EPIC, which provides tax dollars to parents who would like to school their children at home using EPIC’s curriculum
send their children to a brick and mortar charter school (link above)
begin saving their money in a state-sponsored 529 program when their children are born to use for either college or a private K12 school
use the EOES mentioned above to attend a private school
transfer to another public school – if allowed by the school to which the transfer would be made
use the Lindsey Nicole Henry scholarship (voucher) for students with disabilities to attend a private school

“Education dollars are fiduciary funds”

The term ‘fiduciary’ comes from the word ‘trust’. A ‘fiduciary’ responsibility imposes a restriction that money given (or taken) is used in good faith and in the best interest of the owner of the money. That’s all that means.

The government has no money it doesn’t forcibly take from citizens (people who don’t pay their taxes go to jail or lose their property), so all ‘government’ dollars are tax dollars, taken from the people. Yes, government has a fiduciary responsibility for those funds, but how many times have those been overlooked and money spent wastefully and fraudulently? Who is NOT familiar with wasteful government spending? Tom Coburn was.

Bob uses Social Security as an example. This is a sad example of ‘fiduciary’ funds. Though I’ve paid into the SS system, it has been raided over and over by government overreach to the point that few of us my age will have funds to use for retirement. What happened to the government’s ‘fiduciary’ responsibility there? Clue: GOVERNMENT DOESN’T CARE ABOUT ‘FIDUCIARY’ RESPONSIBILITY or public schools wouldn’t be the problem they are now. If government cared, they would have appreciated their fiduciary responsibility and made schools responsible for not educating students all along.

TJ Schmidt, an attorney with Homeschool Legal Defense Association (HSLDA), does not agree with Bob’s assessment and says that, because all money comes from taxpayers, any government money taken from citizens but then given back – as in to home or privately school children (voucher) – comes with the need to make those funds ACCOUNTABLE to taxpayers.

Here is a PERFECT example from Arizona, a state where government money is given to homeschooling families. CLUTCHING PEARLS…how could it be that a government audit found $700,000 abused by ‘homeschooling’ parents?

When citizens are ‘incentivized’ to use government money to do something they don’t have the personal responsibility to do on their own, there will be fraud – it’s simply human nature.

In fact, my contention is that parents who want to homeschool do so to ESCAPE government entrapment and don’t want ANY government involvement. Parents who want government money to school at home use a system like EPIC where government money pays for curricula to be used at home. Data from Arizona indicates I’m correct.

Arizona has the Empowerment Scholarship Accounts (much like SB1647) allowing state money to go to numerous types of schooling including private or homeschooling. Please note several things:

parents funding private school OUT OF THEIR OWN POCKETS were the happiest of all
though polling shows 29% of Arizonans would use private school and 14% homeschool, the actual numbers are MUCH LESS – 6% and 2% of Arizonans actually use the GOVERNMENT programs respectively and Arizona was one of the earliest adopters of ‘school choice’ programs

In fact, EdChoice tells us that 23% of Arizona’s students are eligible for vouchers and tax credit programs and 100% of students are eligible for a tax credit scholarship, but ONLY 7% OF ALL ARIZONANS USE ALL PROGRAMS TOGETHER and that’s the best record in the nation!

No data had been collected on the Lindsey Nicole Henry voucher for children with disabilities for 10 years, until last year, providing no previous accountability to taxpayers for the program.

Data for 2021 indicate that after a 31 million dollar investment over the 10 years, only 1,135 students took advantage of the program in 2021 and of those that reported their status (112), only 32% (36) were economically disadvantaged.

“We have denied an equal playing field” to children sentenced to a failing neighborhood school

How have we done that? I just cited 8 ways parents can direct the education of their children and showed that, when offered, most parents don’t take advantage of voucher programs or tax credit scholarships.

But beyond that, since when did a ‘conservative’ talking point become ‘equaling the playing field’?

I searched the term ‘equaling the playing field’ and found this slide show about how COMMON CORE equaled the playing field for all kids. Now that’s great! But, as we said it would for YEARS, Common Core – making every child have the same curricula across the US – FAILED SPECTACULARLY, never amounting to any kind of positive change on student achievement of any kind.

CONSERVATIVES DO NOT USE GOVERNMENT TO ‘EQUAL PLAYING FIELDS’, we want the government to stay in its own lane and allow PRIVATE INDIVIDUALS AND THE MARKET TO CREATE CHOICE.

“Those who oppose educational choice where money follows the child display an arrogant and callous disposition to the less fortunate”

Gosh, I guess, people like Ben Carson, whose single mother worked three jobs to allow Ben and his brother a great education and Mark Robinson (Lt. Gov. of North Carolina) whose family was dirt poor but made sure he and his siblings were well educated have it all wrong. Government should have come in and incentivized their transformation – because government ALWAYS produces programs that work.

I find it sad that a Christian Conservative, would – essentially – call those who want LESS government and more personal responsibility ‘arrogant and callous’.

In Matthew 26:11, Jesus tells us that the poor will always be with us.

Leviticus 23:22 quotes the Lord as saying, “When you harvest the crops of your land, do not harvest the grain along the edges of your fields, and do not pick up what the harvesters drop. Leave it for the poor and the foreigners living among you.”

In other words, INDIVIDUALS, left part of the harvest for the poor to harvest themselves. The Romans taxed the Jews horribly, but their religion told them it was THEIR responsibility to help the poor.

As PragerU said in a recent Instagram post, “Jesus advises us to be of “generous spirit” – to show kindness, to assist the widow and the orphan. But he clearly means this to be our responsibility.”

Conservatives are those who promote LESS GOVERNMENT, PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY, PRIVATE COMPETITION and INDIVIDUAL GIVING.

“More than that, they also fail to understand that no parent should see their educational dollars forced into the government’s failed model of education.”

Nope, we get it – we just want it done THE RIGHT WAY – via tax credit and tax credit scholarship. Both would remove money from public education, but do so BEFORE the money is taken by the government in the first place.

Here’s something Bob doesn’t apparently understand – the legislature appropriates education dollars. Why don’t we ALL advocate that, instead of giving more and more tax dollars to FAILING government education, the legislature use the grade card the State developed to get ESSA funds, to pull funding from failing schools?

Bob acts as though schools just fail by themselves. It’s a cascade of failure from appropriations and over-regulation by the state and federal governments, through parents who have let school boards run amok by trusting they were doing the right thing and never checking up.

Bob complains that government schools are unGodly and parents shouldn’t have to leave their children in that situation.

OF COURSE THEY ARE! THEY ARE PROPPED UP BY SECULAR GOVERNMENT MONEY! Do you honestly think that sending government money into home and private schools WON’T PRODUCE THE SAME RESULTS? It absolutely will. Right now, the only thing staving off an atheistic society are Christian home and private schools. Why do you want to compromise the two things that are working under complete parent control? That makes absolutely no sense!

In fact, schools that participate in the Lindsey Nicole Henry Scholarship – including private Christian schools – are required to comply with the antidiscrimination provisions of 42 U.S.C., Section 2000d, which the Biden Department of Justice has used to force schools into transgender bathroom policies and anti-discrimination policies protecting transgender athletes. I’ll just leave that there.

Why not instead work with churches to create programs like microschools, learning pods or to provide daily tutoring, or even create a school specifically for those below the poverty line? The Biden Justice Department can’t force policy there. Again, why does GOVERNMENT have all the answers? Don’t conservatives think the private sector has those?

In closing, Bob calling me “a bit callous, heartless and cold” for wanting the private sector to do their job instead of allowing government to do that is a bit social justice warrior for me – especially in the face of Conservative principles. Government doesn’t provide choices, the private market does and the more government ‘does’ the less churches and the private market do.

Note this: in 2021, homeschooling and private schools grew and Oklahoma public schooling LOST STUDENTS thanks to parents deciding to homeschool and leave government schools ON THEIR OWN POWER.

Just recently I posted a meme to our social media about how single-parent families could homeschool and was inundated with OTHER ideas as well:

coming together to co-house and afford housing to homeschool
working from home and schooling when able in their schedule
church-created homeschool coops for single parents
teaming up with other families to create a coop so that each day the parents rotate so one is in charge of the children every day
teaming up to hire a tutor to teach all the children each day
homeschool families bringing in children of single parents to school with their own kids (I did this with the child of a single friend. She just became a part of the family and she graduated with my own!)

These are AWESOME ideas that parents came up with all on their own without the ‘benevolent’ hand of the government ‘helping’ them.

CONSERVATIVES, STOP TRYING TO USE GOVERNMENT TO SOLVE THE PROBLEMS WE LET GOVERNMENT CREATE IN THE FIRST PLACE. The only ways to help students out right now (other than making the legislature responsible for their funding of failing schools) is to provide individual family tax credits for home and private schooling and tax credit scholarships for the same. This would help parents and ‘punish’ failing schools without government strings while allowing the free market to work.

February 15, 2022 5

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