Governor Kevin Stitt

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

(edited after publication)

So interesting today to see that Governor Stitt has fired three members of the state school board because, “…it’s clear that our education infrastructure has fallen prey to needless political drama.”

Political drama. What does that actually mean? But then the Governor loves to use catch phrases – you know – like political animal – the term he used when he was out in Chairman of the House Appropriations and Budget Committee, Representative Kevin Wallace’s district, trying to get him re-elected over the grassroots, common family man the people preferred, Jim Shaw?

Seriously. What political drama? Literally. What exactly was the DRAMA the Board was engaging in?

I never saw a one of them talking about their jobs outside the Board in a way that invoked DRAMA. None of them were going before a camera to talk about their jobs or to condemn the Superintendent or the Governor or creating MAGA videos in their cars. SO WHAT DRAMA?

I think he means the DRAMA of removing the teaching certificates of taxpayer-supported public school employees who were preying upon children. THAT drama!

Seriously, does anyone realize that we’ve had a drag queen principal with a drunk driving and child pornography charge – who only went away because of outside pressure by local media outlet V1SUT – and a Superintendent in Shawnee and a coach in Shawnee and incidents in Kingfisher and Ninnekah and Salina and Perry and Wewoka where districts are being sued because NO ONE WOULD PROTECT STUDENTS FROM EMPLOYEES WHO WERE HURTING CHILDREN? THAT kind of drama Mr. Stitt?

Kendra Wesson – one of the removed Board members – is one of the most transparent, hard-working, smart, committed women I know. She was always prepared for a meeting and truly had a heart for kids – a not-so-surprising-fact when you find out that she has eight of her own. Her removal is absolute NONSENSE. She wasn’t engaged in any kind of political drama in any way. All she was trying to do in her position was go over and above to help Oklahoma kids.

WHO IN THE HELL FIRES SOMEONE LIKE KENDRA WESSON????

She and this Board were actively involved in attempting to remove teachers and other public school personnel who were a danger to children – and now all of them but two – Governor Stitt’s attorney at Gateway Mortgage, Sarah LePak – and Zach Archer – who, like Governor Stitt, works in the financial industry – are left. What do they know about education? Apparently, they know how to be an attorney and a financial analyst – but, dang it – that is the kind of person our Governor admires!

So what about these new Board members?

Michael Tinney is the husband of Ginger Tinney of Professional Oklahoma Educators. Mr. Tinney is an oil and gas attorney with Ames, Ashabranner, Taylor, Lawrence, Laudick & Morgan in Oklahoma City. I guess we should be happy that he’s at least CONNECTED to someone who knows about education, ‘cuz at this point, we’re 0-2 there.

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

If he is from Kingfisher, he is resident of the Kingfisher Public School system where the district was slapped with a $5 million dollar lawsuit over charges of abuse by Kingfisher Football Coach Jeff Myers. Myers, who was banned from any further activity with the team and whose contract was not to be renewed by the Board, was still employed as of December, when Kingfisher had to let go 22 positions to pay the settlement from the suit after the Kingfisher County Excise Board refused to pass the settlement cost on to tax payers.

And then we found this:

Apparently, in the 20-teens Deathridge was associated with the electric ‘car’ tax credit craze. And yes, there were federal income tax subsidies taken for the vehicles.

What an interesting choice for the State School Board. He has no education experience either.

And then there’s Chris VanDenhende who is listed in the Governor’s press release as being from Tulsa. According to VanDenhende’s LinkdIn page, he is from Stroud, Oklahoma, in Lincoln County, where he is Chief Financial Officer at Southwest Fuel Systems, LLC. and Mint Turbines.

Interesting choice Mr. VanDenhende. Apparently, he is friendly with Mr. Stitt’s friend, Kevin Wallace.

In a Lincoln County News Herald “Report From Kevin Wallace” on April 6, 2022, Mr. Wallace says, “I was fortunate to be invited to dinner on the eve of this event with many representatives from the industries. Chris VanDenhende, chief financial officer and chief strategy officer for Southwest Fuel Systems and Mint Turbines in Stroud, also attended. VanDenhende spoke recently at the Stroud Chamber banquet. It was a pleasure to get to see him again and to discuss his company’s growth in our House district.”

But, that’s not all (I feel like Monty Hall). Mint Turbines has been collecting Oklahoma Quality Jobs Incentive Payments since 2020. In 2024, his company got a ‘shout out’ from the Oklahoma Commerce Department, that included the following text:

Strategic Public/Private Partnerships and Industry Engagement

With nearly 72,000 square feet of factory and warehouse space, Mint Turbines is one of the few certified MRO facilities in North America. Known for its commitment to quality and customer service, the company serves both commercial and military sectors, ensuring top-tier turbine engine performance and reliability. Mint Turbines has partnered with ACES at numerous trade shows to boost their visibility within the aerospace industry and showcase their capabilities to key industry leaders.

They also received about $100,000 in training reimbursements from Department of Career and Technology Education and a 2 MILLION DOLLAR Federal Loan from the Export Bank.

So, no one on the State School Board has ANY EDUCATION EXPERIENCE at all and only attorney Mike Tinney is involved with someone who does. I’m sure that will be SUPER helpful to Oklahoma’s kids and will put us well on the way to improving our NAEP scores.

What’s even more interesting, is that Senator Julia Kirk put out THIS press release shortly after the “shake up” occurred.

Followed shortly by Senator Mark Mann.

Well thank God the DEMOCRATS are happy! That’s certainly why we elected another Republican Governor – to make Democrats happy!

The only other thing that sounds SUPER FISHY here, is that the Governor would decide TODAY, the day that Auditor Cindy Byrd was to make her audit of Tulsa Public Schools public, to make this School Board ‘shake up’ announcement based on the stupid premise of “political drama”. The Governor just had Bixby Superintendent Rob Miller stand with him for his state of the state address – touting the equally stupid cell phone bill (even funnier…Supt. Miller created his district’s policy without a law, yet the Governor pointed to him for support of the bill) and, as we all know, the Governor is from Tulsa.

Interestingly (I know, I keep using that word), Auditor Byrd was unable to release the findings because a truckload of lawyers working for TPS invoked an obscure law to halt its release. At her press conference she said the findings are significant and that she wasn’t allowed to provide the results to the public because of a law that no one had ever used in her 28 years as an auditor.

People, this state is in trouble. The people who run it do NOT HAVE OUR BEST INTERESTS AT HEART.

In fact, did you know that Governor Stitt still had financial interest in Gateway Financial Services and other Gateway entities as of 2019? Did you know that Oklahoma has given Gateway First – the fusion of Gateway Mortgage and Farmers Exchange Bank of Cherokee – hundreds of thousands of dollars in Quality Jobs Incentive Payments since 2019?

This State Board of Education ‘shake up’ was WRONG. Dead WRONG. It won’t help our NAEP scores, but I guarantee it’ll help score political points with someone somewhere – and that has to be what ALL of this is about. So, make no mistake, none of this was about helping Oklahoma kids!

February 12, 2025 1

How To Know Carbon Capture Is a Scam

So, before I was an education activist – and now a liberty activist – I was a biologist.

I actually have a BS (yes, I’m full of that! LOLOL) in Biology and a Master’s in Biology, both. In fact, I had intended to go on to get a Doctorate and teach, but once I found out that – in my experience – college professors were a bunch of big jerks I decided that wasn’t for me. Instead, I taught college as a TA and then after graduation, high school, middle school, my own kids and homeschool COOP kids.

Thus, I’ve been able to be fairly knowledgeable about issues we’ve covered that include science topics, like the Climate Change scam and all its universe of associated garbage.

Recently, I found out that Oklahoma had the second largest carbon capture facility in the world and the largest in the United States. I also found, as I asked around, that no one in Osage County (where the facility is located) seemed to know anything about it. This forced me – and our new writer Shane Smith – to do some research on carbon capture policy and what we found is that there really isn’t any policy other than no policy for green businesses, which doesn’t protect Oklahoma citizens at all. If you haven’t read our blog on the topic, you really should.

Last Friday, NeeAnn Clinton of Enid, in Garfield County, was on our podcast to tell us about a lawsuit residents have had to file against their Metropolitan Planning Commission for not upholding zoning laws in the case of a proposed 5000 acre solar facility just north of the city.

Though we kept trying to talk about solar, I kept inserting information about carbon capture because there were so many overlapping issues – mainly the lack of regulation.

At one point in the conversation I brought up a bit of biology…have a listen.

The slides embedded in the video came from the NOAA fisheries website. Go figure. I had learned about phytoplankton and blue-green algae when I was a student in college. So what? Now we don’t know this anymore? We’ve dumbed down our students so far in biology that not only do they NOT know the Carbon Cycle, but they don’t know what green plants/organisms do at all?

The schematic below shows specifically how oceanic environments SEQUESTER CO2 all by themselves without any help from carbon capture facilities.

In addition, just think of this one thing. What does the second largest carbon capture facility in the world run on? Electricity. Where does electricity come from? In Oklahoma, coal-fired electrical plants. So. Make sense of that. You can’t. It’s stupid.

This writer says, in an article actually titled, “The Great Carbon Capture Scam“,

Running a carbon capture system is incredibly energy-intensive, essentially requiring building a new power plant to run the system. This obviously creates another new source of air and carbon pollution since the U.S. no longer builds nuclear plants and even when it did never built them that small. This extra energy use undermines the whole goal of capturing carbon in the first place. Indeed, while the U.S. emits roughly 5 billion tons of carbon into the atmosphere every year, removing 1 billion tons of that through direct air capture would require nearly the entire electricity output of the nation, according to research published in Biophysical Economics and Sustainability.

In fact, the carbon capture scam is SO BAD that Rex Weyler of GREENPEACE FOR PETE SAKES, though he believes that Climate Change is a thing, and big oil is the devil, he does believe this:

The swindle appears simple: Pretend to help solve a problem, while making the problem worse, socialize the costs and liabilities, and privatize the profits. Clever.

Weyler’s article is really very good – lots of great information on all the failed CO2 capture attempts through today – but people won’t like it because it points to big oil as the generator of the scheme for regeneration of spent oil fields and our Governor won’t like it because it basically echoes what Michael says in the clip above – it’s all about the Benjamins. Period.

Oklahoma shouldn’t perpetuate scams on the back of their citizens and taxpayers, so you’d better let your legislator know you won’t put up with giving these private companies carte blanche to wreck your back yard and kill you with a CO2 pipe break and you’d better do it NOW!

October 27, 2024 0

Make It Stop! Oklahoma’s Managed Care System Hurting Exactly The People It’s Supposed To Help

Families who need health care the most in Oklahoma – foster and adoptive families and those in low income brackets – are having an impossible time getting it since our previous system – SoonerCare – was uprooted to implement a managed care system – SoonerSelect – but how did we get here and what do we do?

HOW DID WE GET HERE?

In 2020, Oklahomans decided (by a very narrow vote on SQ802 and although they had rejected Medicaid expansion as far back as 2016) to provide Medicaid to 200,000 more people in the state than were being served at the time. In bi-partisan opposition – that included Governor Stitt – it was argued that making more Oklahomans eligible for Medicaid would cost Oklahoma tax payers millions of dollars at a time when Oklahoma’s budget was in the red and that patients would receive significantly worse care on a system which would become overburdened by costs and bureaucracy.

Millions and millions of dollars were devoted to convincing Oklahomans to vote ‘Yes’ on the measure by the ideological left and the Hospital Association – the members of which stood to receive federal and state dollars for treating Oklahoma Medicaid patients. Because millions in one-time federal funds were available to help start managed care via President Obama’s Affordable Care Act (dubbed ObamaCare), proponents of the question argued that Oklahoma would be turning away millions in federal funding because of partisan disdain for the HCA and disadvantaging from health care those already financially disadvantaged.

October of 2020, The Oklahoma Health Care Authority (HCA) put together an RFP (Request for Proposals) to institute a ‘managed care’ system in place of the current SoonerCare program.

January 2021, Governor Stitt announced that he would create a new managed care plan for Oklahoma’s Medicaid patients called SoonerSelect. During that month, the HCA awarded 2.2 billion dollars worth of contracts to four companies for administration of SoonerSelect – Blue Cross Blue Shield of Oklahoma, Oklahoma Complete Health (aka Centene), Humana Health Horizons and UnitedHealthcare, though the Oklahoma legislature – the voice of the people – was never consulted on either the RFP, or the selection of the insurance managers.

During early 2021, Oklahoma Health Care officials were told the state would also qualify for approximately 520 million dollars in Federal funds under the American Rescue Plan Act (instituted to ‘help’ Americans with the burgeoning costs of everything during the ‘pandemic’) to help the expansion of the Medicaid program along for two years.

After finding that the Governor and HCA had created an RFP and awarded contracts, the legislature began to push back on the SoonerSelect plan.

March 25th, 2021, several associations representing various Oklahoma medical providers filed a lawsuit against the state arguing that SQ802 didn’t allow the OHCA to award contracts for SoonerSelect to private insurance companies.

June 1st, the Supreme Court upheld the argument of the plaintiffs.

Meanwhile – though the legislature hadn’t gone into the 2021 session believing Oklahoma would institute Medicaid expansion – SB131 was created to put “guard rails” on the creation of a policy should it be brought to the legislature. SB131 was meant to prevent managed care administration of the SoonerSelect program because the legislature preferred – overwhelmingly – for the OHCA to administrate the expansion directly (as it had done with the SoonerCare program) without allowing private insurance organizations to serve as middle men between the HCA and the provider. The bill became law without Governor Stitt’s signature.

Consequently, the 2021 legislative session ended without passage of any specific legislation regarding the SoonerSelect program.

This led the OHCA to try and pass ’emergency rules’ based on SB131 at their board meeting in September, in order for the SoonerSelect managed care process to continue, but the rules were tabled by a 7-1 vote.

Several days after the vote to table, the ONLY physicians appointed to the OHCA by Governor Stitt, Dr. Jean Hausheer and Dr. Laura Shamblin, were removed – also by Governor Stitt – without explanation.

When the legislature resumed in February of 2022, SB1337 – a 44-page version of the Governor’s managed care plan – was introduced via floor substitute, passed after a very lengthy process, and signed by Governor Stitt in May, all to provide the needed legislation for the change to the SoonerCare system that should have been provided from the beginning. This put many legislators who were against managed care from the start in an unenviable position, as they felt they had to vote for SB1337 in order to provide some of the ‘guard rails’ SB131 was to have provided for a managed care system.

SB1337 recognized the three private insurance companies identified in the schematic above, who would act as the middle men between OHCA and healthcare providers. One of these – Centene – has been under investigation and embroiled in lawsuits in multiple states for setting up shell corporations, increasing costs to the state and diverting millions from health care delivery to their own pockets.

WHAT IS GOING ON

Since the implementation of managed care last year, foster families, adoptive families and others qualifying for Medicaid, have been unable to get the services that they had gotten under SoonerCare.

Several Oklahomans have reached out to us about this, so we called Senator David Bullard – a stalwart against the managed care system – to talk about the issue. We also included Salome Vaughn, an adoptive mother to her special needs grandson, who has not been able to receive services for him since the program began.

In the clip below, Senator Bullard describes what managed care is and some of the problems he’s seeing with the program, especially in RURAL AREAS – patients not being seen, doctors leaving the SoonerSelect program because they aren’t being paid, clinics literally going out of business – including an obstetric clinic that helped to deliver babies in the rural area around Hugo, Oklahoma. Everything so many Oklahoma Republican lawmakers said would happen BEFORE Governor Stitt forced this program.

HOW TO MAKE IT STOP

In the clip below, Senator Bullard tells Oklahomans how they can help stop managed care and revert it back to the previous OHCA-administrated system. Oklahomans banded together to remove a large number of moderates from the Senate and House this primary season, we just need to stand together and demand that the legislature STOP the SoonerSelect program and revert to the SoonerCare system in 2025.

As Senator Bullard said, doctors and PA’s need to send emails to, or call, their Representatives and Senators (find them here at the bottom of the page if you don’t know who they are) and ask them to ROLL BACK MANAGED CARE.

And as Salome said, parents with children on SoonerSelect, should do the same thing.

If you would feel better about it, send emails directly to david.bullard@oksenate.gov, but MAKE YOUR VOICES HEARD! WE CAN ROLL BACK MANAGED CARE, BUT ONLY IF YOU STAND UP AND SPEAK OUT NOW before the 2025 session starts.

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October 27, 2024 0

Governor Stitt Calls Us “Political Animals”, The Oklahoman Calls Us “Far Right-Wing” – Who Really ARE HD32 Jim Shaw Supporters?

It is a very sad thing to have to say, but we’ve come to a point in our country when the basic values held by so many in America – particularly rural Americans – of hard work, faith in Jesus Christ, love of family, patriotism, being neighborly and pulling yourself up by your bootstraps without bending the knee and kissing the ring of government, are being out right demonized.

And not just demonized by a media many Americans today have begun to realize merely manufacture government propaganda rather than reporting actual news, but by their own elected representatives and fellow citizens.

This primary season, a young man from HD32 – a district which bumps up against the border of eastern Oklahoma county where I live – decided he had great concerns about what was happening in his backyard.

Plans are being enacted by private ‘green energy’ companies (which get American tax-payer subsidies and couldn’t exist in the free market without them) to create wind generation installations in the back 40’s of these Oklahomans – some of whom have maintained family ownership of their properties since statehood. Most landowners don’t want that, yet absentee owners have sold out for the promise of the dollars they think they can collect while ruining the health and vitality of the land of their on-site neighbors with giant, bird-killing, non-compostable, oil-leaking monstrosities and they’re nervous about keeping their land intact. [If you’re interested in the problems with this ‘technology’, you can find a full podcast on the issue here.]

His own Representative, Kevin Wallace (Chairman of the House Appropriations and Budget Committee – a very powerful position in state government because it holds the purse strings to how Oklahoman’s tax dollars are spent), admitted to dumping human waste on his property as fertilizer twice and then defended it by saying that it was legal in Oklahoma to do so.

Biosludge is a nightmare. It smells so badly that neighbors who live downwind of an application often can’t take full breaths outdoors, it draws flies and it contains everything that goes down the sewers in Oklahoma county from pharmaceuticals to industrial chemicals. Like many of his neighbors, this young man had developed great concerns about what this substance could do to the health of his family and his neighbors, but also the health of the aquifer from which we ALL draw in this region. [If you’re interested in the problems with biosludge, you can find a full podcast on the issue here.]

And these are just a few of the concerns residents in the district have had for years.

After realizing that no one – including Wallace – seemed to be confronting the issues that affected them beyond giving them lip service, entrepreneur and family man, HD32 resident, Jim Shaw, decided he needed to run against his politically powerful representative to try and do something about these issues for his neighbors and himself, running on a platform of Land, Livelihoods and Legacies.

The incumbent conducted his campaign abysmally. Wallace called Shaw (a political newcomer and a neighbor) a liar and a hypocrite via social media, direct mail and video ads nearly daily, and – late in the campaign – posted a Google Earth photo of Shaw’s farm with his address clearly labeled for the public to see, calling him a hypocrite for coming out against ‘green energy’ initiatives when he used a small solar panel bank for personal sustainability. According to one writer, Wallace’s construction company has undertaken numerous state jobs, “raising questions about whether Wallace’s legislative position has intersected with his business interests”. But then, Wallace is no stranger to public money, having accumulated about $68,000 in disaster and commodities subsidies over the last 10 years.

Donors to Wallace’s campaign – during which he spent over $440K just in the pre-run off period – read like a “who’s who” of lobbyist, special interests and PACS. In fact, frequent ROPE contributor Karmin Grider found that – over his entire career in the House – Wallace had collected less than 1% of his campaign funds from people in his district.

One of Wallace’s campaign issues centered on a bill to stop foreign ownership of private land in Oklahoma. Shaw researched and found the touted bill did nothing to stop foreign ownership of private land. When he challenged Wallace on the issue, Governor Kevin Stitt produced an off-the-cuff video supporting Wallace, the bill and Wallace’s role in passage of the bill while calling Shaw supporters “political animals”. (But Wallace did vote for a bill to protect people who put biosludge on their farms from possible EPA fines over ‘forever’ chemicals.)

During the run-off election, House Speaker Charles McCall, Governor Kevin Stitt, Marathon PAC Chairman Thomas Tillison (a PAC which contributed $5k to Wallace in the run-off and whose family contributed $7,600 during the primary), Senator Grant Green and Speaker-elect Kyle Hilbert all came to the district to stump for Wallace. (Photos taken from public posts to Kevin Wallace’s Facebook page)

I awoke this morning to a video in Facebook Messenger and a headline from the Oklahoman.

The article in the Oklahoman labeled those of us who supported (and still support heartily) candidate-now-Representative, Jim Shaw, “far right-wing”.

The video (below) was from a man I’ve become friends with while supporting Jim Shaw for election. He lives on his family’s long-held farm in the district, is wildly intelligent and salt-of-the-earth as they come. This is a timeline he created from pictures he’d taken from start to finish of the campaign featuring all the neighbors, friends and now-friends who came together wanting a leadership change in the district.

THESE are the “political animals” – the “far right-wing” people who overturned a powerful member of the Oklahoma legislature when they believed he didn’t have their best interests in mind.

Call us what you will, but we’re God-fearing, loyal, patriotic, self-sufficient and loving. We’re proudly American. We’re your neighbors. We’re everything all Americans USED to be.

So as the propagandists seek to minimize us, demonize us and destroy us, they should just understand one thing with every fiber of their being;

WE’RE THE FOUNDATIONS OF RURAL AMERICA AND WE’RE NEVER GONNA TO CHANGE.

Video audio: Sturgill Simpson Coal Miner Family From Kentucky.

August 29, 2024 3

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

Jenni White – 1.25.24

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

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

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

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

Here is a listing of Oklahoma’s Executive Branches:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

RYAN WALTERS PROPOSED DEI RULE FOR K-12 SCHOOLS

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

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

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

But herein lies a bit of a problem.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

January 28, 2024 0

Is Jeb Bush Behind Oklahoma’s Plan To Insert The Benevolent Hand Of Government Into Homeschooling? It would appear so.

Few ideas for ‘big’ legislation DON’T come as boilerplate ideas from national think tanks. Many times, though they may work in other states, they are not appropriate for Oklahoma, yet legislators bring them into the capitol because of the hand that offered them.

[Position Statement: ROPE firmly supports Parental Choice in Education as personified by charter schools, online learning, homeschooling and private school. We also support tax credits and tax credit scholarships to help families who need assistance with finding the education that is right for their child/children. We do not, however, support vouchers – money provided by the state injected into the private solutions of homeschool and private school.]

During my daily research reading, I recently stumbled onto an article; “Alaska legislators’ education bills include one to give state funds to some students in homeschool and private school“. Here is a paragraph that interested me:

Another bill would provide public funding for students who are homeschooled or in private school. Students would be eligible for $5,930 per year in scholarships if they have disabilities, attend a “low-performing school” or have a parent in the military, among other criteria.

Followed by this:

Gillham said he got the idea for that bill from a summit he attended last November in Florida, held by ExcelInEd, an organization started by former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush.

Here’s the ENORMOUS problem with this: Jeb Bush pushed Common Core throughout the nation and Oklahoma though it was a decided federal takeover of state schools. In fact, Bush’s Common Core Problem was thought to be but one of the reasons Bush fell so far behind former President Trump in the 2016 elections – well that, and his firm position as a member of the Republican establishment – the very team Trump was sent onto the field to beat.

THE JEB BUSH OKLAHOMA LEGACY

Throughout the tenure of former State Superintendent Janet Barresi, Bush was a prominent figure in Oklahoma education ‘reform’.

In 2013 Bush sent a letter to legislators (while ROPE, other organizations and parents worked hard to push back against the nationalization of state standards under one umbrella), saying:

“There is a lot of misinformation flying around about Common Core State Standards. Below is a roundup of recent articles, opinion pieces and posts by policy advisors, debunking Common Core myths and highlighting voices in the transition to these new standards. You’ll also find quotes from teachers weighing in on Common Core and see how state and business leaders are supporting the higher standards.”

Yes, what in the world do parents know Mr. Bush, when state and business leaders support Common Core? Ever the elitist, Bush has always been about POLICY over PARENTS – wining and dining legislators as he works to help ‘the little people’ he loves so much.

That same year, as a result of FOI requests by In The Public Interest, it was shown that Bush, Chiefs For Change and Governor Fallin’s office essentially colluded to ram Bush-driven policy down the throats of Oklahomans – many of whom were simply parents trying to protect their kids from having to dumbed-down standards that have now been shown not to have produced any meaningful increase in test scores in the states where the program was adopted.

During 2014 (though Common Core was repealed from state law that year), while Governor Mary Fallin was head of the National Governor’s Association and Superintendent Baressi was a member of Bush’s organization “Chief’s For Change”, Baressi, a State Board Member and then-Senator-turned-current-candidate-for-State-Treasurer Clark Jolley (a co-author of Oklahoma’s Common Core bill) all attended Bush’s National Summit in Boston. {Incidentally, as an aside, it is a bit interesting that Senator Treat’s SB1647, money is to be dispersed through a department inside the treasury…}

BUSH’S ORGANIZATION EMBRACES LEFTISTS RIGHT, AND WELL, LEFT

Granted, education policy should necessarily be bipartisan in a perfect world, but an organization who invites people like Melinda Gates, former Obama Education Secretary Arne Duncan (who attributed opposition to the Common Core to “white suburban moms” upset that their children weren’t as “brilliant” as they thought they were) and David Coleman (the author of the Common Core pictured below in a slide from one of my videos on Common Core) to speak at their conferences and colludes with states to override the will of parents on education policy, should NOT be in a position of INFLUENCE WITH OKLAHOMA LEGISLATORS.

Unfortunately, it seems as though we’re seeing near repeat of the Common Core battle here this session (2022) over Governor Stitt’s desire to increase school choice by offering vouchers (state money) to PRIVATE EDUCATION SOLUTIONS (home and private schools).

GOVERNOR STITT INVITED JEB BUSH TO SPEAK TO LEGISLATORS ABOUT EDUCATION REFORM

In May of 2021, Governor Stitt invited “his friend” Bush to visit with members of the legislature and others – including Robert Ruiz of Oklahoma’s Choice Matters and Secretary of State Ryan Walters, who is also the Executive Director of an organization called Every Kid Counts – about ‘education reform’.

Apparently, the feeling is mutual for the Governor’s friend, who touted the Governor’s recent State of The State Address on his ExelInEd website.

Here’s an even more frustrating thing. While visiting the ExelInEd website, I found a piece from late last year which says this:

Look at Oklahoma. The state stands out in the NAPCS analysis for having the largest growth in charter school enrollment by both percentage gains and by absolute number. The number of new charter students in Oklahoma alone accounts for 15 percent of all new charter students in the nation.

It then goes on to say this:

When families face huge challenges they don’t wait for solutions. Again, look at the homeschool numbers from the US Census Bureau. Families didn’t wait for policymakers to adjust the boundaries or enrollment caps in 2020. They created their own path forward. Such policies as arbitrary enrollment caps and exclusive school boundaries carry a heavy irony. By protecting a system that limits flexibility and mobility, policymakers encourage families to create their own solutions outside the system, thereby endangering the very system they are trying to protect.

WHAT? Maybe I’m reading this wrong, but it sounds to me like this policy article from ExelInEd basically says that LEGISLATORS SHOULDN’T WANT FAMILIES CREATING THEIR OWN EDUCATIONAL SOLUTIONS OUTSIDE THE SYSTEM because it endangers the choice systems they’re trying to create!?

WHAT IS GOING ON HERE?

So, let’s think on this. If the government infuses money into PRIVATE education solutions, the entire enterprise ceases to be private – homeschoolers (and private-schoolers alike) who ‘use’ state-provided money for homeschooling will – at a minimum – be pulled into the state data collection system when there’s likely NO DATA ON THEM IN THE SYSTEM PREVIOUSLY.

Gosh – to put the old tin foil hat on here – if the state’s elitists do away with ALL private education solutions by inserting the hand of government to the point where all students become part of the system like they began with Common Core – how close are we to the Great Reset and One World Government?

Yes, that was a leap, but let’s look at some facts:

Jeb Bush is a member of the BIG GOVERNMENT Bush “Legacy”. His father gave us Agenda 21 and his brother gave us The Patriot Act (government surveillance means nothing if you’re not doing anything wrong).
Bush has always stood firmly on the side of government-backed national standards (ie; Common Core). Just internet search “Jeb Bush and Common Core”. You’ll find pages and pages with the same theme.
Jeb Bush has a 10-year legacy with Michael Bloomberg, owner of Bloomberg media which is a partner in the World Economic Forum – the organization peddling the Great Reset.
And then there’s this: “The 3rd largest FEC fine in history was just levied and it’s against someone you might not expect. The Jeb Bush Super PAC that eventually morphed into a prominent Never Trump effort, “Right to Rise,” has been caught red-handed accepting an illegal $1.3M donation from a Chinese corporation.”

Truly, why in the world would anyone in Oklahoma government billing themselves as a conservative hear a word Jeb Bush has to say?

What does it say that Oklahoma legislators and elected officials seem to have such a love affair with this man?

Why would Oklahoma Republicans put ‘blinders’ on and go along with ANY bills/laws/ideas simply because ‘Republicans’ say it’s a great idea – especially without researching first?

Hopefully, these questions are really good wake up questions for us all to ask ourselves NOW.

February 27, 2022 0

ROPE Report

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