All one has to do is type in the two-word phrase “school choice” in our website’s search box to know that I’ve thought the idea of ‘school choice’ to be a scam for a very long time. Oklahoma HAS already has school choice. We have a Constitutional provision for homeschooling, we have charter schools and magnate schools and neighborhood schools and private schools and online schools – OKLAHOMA HAS IT ALL. Every Oklahoman has the ability to make whatever ‘choice’ they want by which to educate their children.
The part of the ‘school choice’ idea I DESPISE, is the part where government tells taxpayers that they’ll take our money by force and then give it to other taxpayers who ‘can’t afford’ to put their kids in a private school because public schools are so bad – the Oklahoma Parental Choice Tax Credit Program.
Why do I hate this plan? Well, again, you can always search the website to get the full scope and picture, but this post is going to include a few screeds I’ve posted to my Facebook page in the past couple days.
This is the original post. There are lots and lots and lots of comments on this post, so I suggest you peruse it. Lots of good discussion. And I’ll remind you – you may not agree with me – and that’s okay, but we’ve GOT to have discussion on this topic before it gets any further out of hand. Don’t forget, REPUBLICANS – supposed bastions of limited government – are pushing this concept hard and have been for over a decade. This is a HUGE problem.
But back to my screeds. WordPress will not let me embed the post, so you’ll just have to click the link and navigate to the post. Sorry. Stupid WordPress.
But here’s the post for today (1.28.25) copied below. It’s based in part on the conversations we were having on that post.
I’m going to go ahead and try this one more time. And I’m not being ugly here, I’m simply being stoic and direct. Some of you will think I’m ‘mean’ – and that’s fine – everyone is entitled to their opinions, however, thinking I’m ‘mean’ doesn’t invalidate my argument or the personal observations that spawned them.
It’s not up to taxpayers to ‘fix’ public schools – it’s PARENTS. Parents have all control over their own children – and I’ve argued that when legislators come in to try and ‘fix’ schools, they end up removing parental control which makes parents and their children, more wards of the state than they are already. The more the government parents parents, the less they’ll parent themselves. It’s simple human nature.
If parents were really interested in their children’s educations because they believed they could give their children something better than the education they’re getting in government schools, there would be few government schools with large student populations at this point.
For those who are compassionate about parents who are poor and have no real choices other than government-funded education – (BTW; government should be completely immune from ‘compassion’ – that’s a perspective for individuals, not governments who operate solely with money taken by force from its citizens) – then you need to be compassionate with your own dollars. You should start a school in your community that you fund – either yourself or with enough individuals willing to help out of private pocketbooks – so that poorer community members have the opportunity to attend a government school alternative.
Here’s what will happen with the majority of attendees to this school (because I found the exact same thing when I moved from being a ‘regular’ school teacher to a ‘charter’ school teacher); parents will be very motivated/active for a short time, then, they’ll stop coming to meetings and will only be reachable when their child has problems. At that point, they’ll find a way to blame you – or the school – for their child’s actions because their child wouldn’t ______ (fill in the blank). (Incidentally, I also found this at my youngest son’s homeschool co-op as well. A parent would bring their child who had been kicked out of government school to the co-op – they’d just open the car door and drop them off – when most parents would stay. There, the kid would cause problems for everyone else in the classroom and eventually be removed from the co-op too.)
Most parents today don’t want CHOICES – they want someone to take care of their children for them – they want a babysitter and/or a bankroller. Oh, they’ll fight that statement tooth and nail and scream and holler about how mean it is to say something like that, but actions speak louder than words. Why are government schools (even those in expensive neighborhoods) stuffed with parents that won’t take even a night out of their schedules to go to their school board meetings or attend a parent/teacher night? Why? Because by and large, parents are happy with whatever is going on in the school until something goes bad – their child is failing, or is being sidelined on a sports team, or is creating issues in the classroom – and once there is a problem, it suddenly becomes the school’s fault, or the teacher’s fault and SOMETHING HAS TO BE DONE.
Everything goes back to FREE WILL. We all have it – and as Christians, we should be pointing to that fact over and over and over again. If people want to do things, they do them. If they don’t, they won’t. The ‘compassion’ of using tax dollars (someone else’s money) to send kids to private schools won’t fix that.
As Jesus said in the New Testament – the poor will always be with us (Mark 14:6). Jesus knew that some people won’t make good CHOICES and that some people are too lazy, uncaring, or improperly educated enough to make good choices. Taking tax dollars from one person (maybe a person like me who homeschooled their kids and still had to pay for public schools too) and giving it to another (to do the same thing I did without ‘government help’) won’t make them CARE for their children any more than they already do. It doesn’t work, but by creating and perpetuating this system, one of the things you will do – is violate my religious conscience by sending my tax dollars to a Madrasa or a Satanist school. I’ve read the Bible. My God is a jealous God. Is it right for me to pay for the teaching of another religion?
In fact, isn’t this the same argument people (Christians?) use against the giving of public tax dollars to Planned Parenthood to perform abortions? Yup. It’s the same argument and people should realize that there is no difference in philosophy between paying for abortions and paying for people to send their kids to private schools – people just don’t want to confront the ugly truth; a large percentage of parents aren’t willing to make more of a commitment to their children’s education than what is found in their local public school. Period. That’s not an excuse for government intervention at any level.
So, look, the bottom line is this – we Republicans are either going to follow the path of limited government like has been embedded in our Platform since its near inception – or we’re going to abandon the idea of Party altogether. Right now – in my opinion – saying I’m a Republican is meaningless. I believe in the Constitution – as written, not as litigated in a court of law – and LIMITED GOVERNMENT. I also believe that any legislator who believes that taking money from citizens by force and then giving it to other taxpayers to fund an activity they could work out for themselves without access to my tax dollars is WRONG. Period. Sadly, this puts me out of sorts with so many people who believe themselves to be Republican – but that’s a problem for ALL Oklahomans – not just me.
