Search

ROPE Report

Open Search
Tag

public education

Michael And Jenni Talk, Public Education and Green Energy

Friday (1.17.25), Michael and I had a guest slated to appear for our podcast that wasn’t able to come on. Consequently, we did what all good LIVE podcasters do – we scrambled!

Fortunately – and unfortunately – there’s never really a lack of anything to talk about in Oklahoma politics, so we began by discussing our previous podcast with Senator Kendal Sacchieri. If you haven’t seen that yet, I highly recommend it. It created the MOST IMPORTANT 7 MINUTE VIDEO YOU’LL EVER SEE. The Senator is absolutely invaluable when it comes to explaining complicated things like property tax – which she did amazingly well.

At any rate, we replayed the 7 minute video and had Kendal on for a few minutes to clarify a few things and then we moved on to talking about education.

It was during this segment that Michael said the following about the teachers he talked to when he was running for school board. Suffice it to say, his comments were extremely distressing to a former teacher like me who LOVED the autonomy of my classroom.

We had heard this about teachers during the Common Core years. It’s astounding and, frankly, horrifying that we let this continue.

Next stop, AI teachers with your kids plugged into Skynet all day. Don’t scoff or laugh. We’re so close to there.

After that, we discussed the green agenda.

It’s my contention that people have no idea what nature is anymore and therefore don’t even really know what’s good for it or not, what it looks like raw and wild, or how to appreciate it in that state. Hint: A park is a tiny microcosm of nature that is usually trimmed and watered and fertilized – it’s not really nature. We’ve gotten so plugged into the web and so unplugged from outside, we don’t understand that our idea of what’s green and what’s not, is super skewed.

I talked about an article I wrote for the Federalist several years ago, “How Living In Chaos Makes It Impossible For Us To Run Our Lives And Government“. In the article, I wrote about our family’s move to our farm and how weird it was for all of us to leave the city. I advanced my thesis about nature by way of three paragraphs from the forward – written by one of his sons – to one of my favorite books, “Witness“, by Whitaker Chambers. It’s a very long book, but WELL worth the time it took to get through it.

As I say on the podcast frequently, I read, via earbuds and a subscription to Audible because I have so many chores in the growing season that it’s the only way I can actually “read” written material! Sometimes, when the book is very good, I buy it and add it to my ever-expanding research library – the one I hope my children fight over when I’m gone!

I read these three paragraphs on the podcast as we were talking about the green agenda. I feel them so deeply, I actually got choked up, so if you want to see me cry on the podcast, definitely check out the full live version on YouTube or Rumble! Please, read these paragraphs and tuck them in your heart. We’re having our humanity stolen from us daily, certainly don’t give it up voluntarily.

“The farm was your kingdom, and the world lay far beyond the protecting walls thrown up by work and love. It is true that comic strips were not encouraged, comic books were banned, the radio could be turned on only by permission (which was seldom given or asked), and you saw few movies,” he says, addressing his children. “But you grew in the presence of eternal wonders. There was the birth of lambs and calves…There was also the death of animals, sometimes violent, sometimes slow and painful – nothing is more constant on a farm than death.”

“Sometimes, of a spring evening, Papa would hear that distant honking that always makes his scalp tingle, and we would all rush out to see the wild geese, in lines of hundreds, steer up from the southwest, turn over the barn as over a landmark, and head into the north. Or on autumn nights of sudden cold that sent the ewes breeding in the orchard, Papa would call you out of the house to stand with him in the now celebrated pumpkin patch and watch the northern lights flicker in an electric clouds on the horizon, mount, die down, fade and mount again till they filled the whole northern sky with ghostly light in motion.”

“Thus, as children, you experienced two of the most important things men ever know – the wonder of life and the wonder of the universe, the wonder of life within the wonder of the universe. More important, you knew them not from books, not from lectures, but simply from living among them. Most important, you knew them with reverence and awe – that reverence and awe that has died out of the modern world and been replace by man’s monkeylike amazement at the cleverness of his own inventive brain.”

0

Oklahoma Government Is Turning Our Kids Into Commodities – The Women Of Broken Trust Speak Out

For our return to LIVE podcasting after Christmas and New Year’s break, we invited three board members from the new nonprofit, Broken Trust – former state Representative Sherrie Conley, and two Moms For Liberty chapter leaders, Dayna Mooney and Roberta Lewis – to speak with us about the work they are focusing on for the upcoming year.

The conversation didn’t disappoint. As usual, I’ll suggest you watch the entire LIVE video on either our YouTube or Rumble channels, so you can get the full picture of the conversation, which was wide-ranging, but solidly focused on how absolutely horribly our state is caring for our kids and families.

In the clip below, Sherrie started off by telling us that she believes that Oklahoma is now to the point where Oklahoma government is just turning our kids into commodities rather than educating or protecting them. The state keeps throwing money at education, but it seems to go everywhere but the classroom and here we are at the bottom of the heap on the national educational scale with maybe 20% of kids proficient in reading and math.

Just in case we didn’t believe Sherrie’s assertions, Roberta told us the story of how no less than 4 Oklahoma government branches essentially ‘kidnapped’ her son into a mental health facility. It harkens back to the story TS Smith shared with us on the podcast.

Seriously, if you can watch this video and not be scared of what could happen to your child, please watch it again and re-think your position.

In closing, we reiterate the notion that kids in Oklahoma have been reduced to little more than dollar signs for vendors. If the state continues to throw tax dollars at education while getting as little bang for their buck as they’re getting, it makes you wonder if the majority of the body is essentially either corrupt, or stupid. Whatever the cause, it has to be stopped. We’re literally helping NO ONE at this point but the people who make money off the endless ‘educational’ crap that’s being shoveled into classrooms as fast as they can buy it.

This year, please pay attention to what’s going on at the capitol and get involved. It’s the only way to save our state and its kids.

1

Speaker-Elect Hilbert’s Legislative Priority Personifies Everything Wrong With Oklahoma Government

According to the Oklahoma Voice this morning, our new House Speaker-Elect, Kyle Hilbert has declared;

“In this upcoming session, if we pass two bills, a state budget and a bill reducing the usage of cellphones in public schools, it will be one of the most substantial legislative sessions that I’ve experienced.” 

Full stop.

During the fight to repeal Common Core from state law and remove it from Oklahoma classrooms, the talking points invariably used by legislators to stiff-arm our pleas included “we don’t like education mandates” and “we’re a local control state”. No joke. But then, during those years, one history teacher-turned legislator told me that Oklahomans send legislators to the capitol to “write bills”.

What The Bill Says

Here is the cell phone bill, created by Senate Education Committee Vice-Chair, Ally Seifried; SB139.

According to the press release sent out by Senate Media, the bill, “empower[s] schools to adopt ‘bell to bell’ cell phone policies”, yet the bill summary says, “An Act relating to schools; requiring school district boards of education to adopt a policy prohibiting use of cell phones while on campus during certain time period”. Requiring and ’empowering’ do not have the same meaning – the first includes force.

In fact, the bill goes on to say that it will require schools to set discipline policies for students who break the school’s required policy on cell phone use (the force part). It also allots up to 2 million taxpayer dollars (“if available”, whatever that means) to be granted to middle and high schools so they can buy something to STORE cell phones during the day.

Problems With The Bill

  1. What is the point of a school board? According to state law, individual local school boards have the right and ability to set policy – including policy over cell phones. This bill actively usurps local school board authority. On one hand, we expect parents to execute control over their minor children, yet so much of what the state does actually removes parental executive control in favor of a government policy, rule or law. How can a parent execute parental control if we keep removing their executive function?
  2. This is NEW LAW. How many laws do Oklahomans need to restrain them – or, in this case, their children? What about schools? Could an argument be made that part of the reason public schools in Oklahoma are failing is that they are constrained by state laws that may not have been needed at the local level?
  3. This law forces schools to create disciplinary actions to be meted out when students break cell phone policy. What happens if a school DOESN’T create a cell phone policy? What happens if they don’t create a discipline policy? How many times has state law required schools to create a policy, but then never forced the school to write the policy when they don’t? Tulsa attorney Maria Seidler has told us numerous times, for example, that public schools don’t adhere to all of Oklahoma’s Parental Rights law, but there isn’t an enforcement mechanism in the law to make them, forcing parents to use their own money to sue schools while schools use taxpayer dollars to fight them. How many times has the state forced schools to follow the policies they DO create – about bathrooms, free speech, bullying, or student safety, for example? This law, then, would be meaningless, just like so many others our legislature creates, because there isn’t a mechanism of enforcement.
  4. Schools can apply for a grant to create a place/places for student cell phones to be kept. Two million dollars will be pulled from taxpayer pockets to supply grant ‘winners’. Is there a reason cell phones can’t be turned off as students come into class, dropped into a basket on the teacher’s desk and collected before they leave the classroom? Two million dollars is needed for that?

What Our Constitution Guarantees

The Oklahoma Constitution says the following in Section 2-1: Political power – Purpose of government – Alteration or reformation:

All political power is inherent in the people; and government is instituted for their protection, security, and benefit, and to promote their general welfare; and they have the right to alter or reform the same whenever the public good may require it: Provided, such change be not repugnant to the Constitution of the United States.

How does any of the nonsense written in our Speaker-Elect’s priority bill match with the wording of our state Constitution?

In fact,

  1. It usurps local control of government – which removes the security citizens should have in control of their government and removes any benefit to them by taking the issue out of their hands.
  2. It creates a NEW law, removing power from the people and giving it to government. The more laws government creates, the more individual liberty is constrained and the less benefit or security ‘the people’ receive.
  3. This law is meaningless because it accomplishes nothing. Meaningless laws cause ‘the people’ to suffer. Even if prohibitions were added to the bill that FORCED schools to create policy on this issue, it would do little more than once again remove the power from “the people”/parents to deal with the issue and give it to government.
  4. Taking MORE dollars from taxpayers to buy unnecessary items is burdensome to the liberty of ‘the people’. The economy is hard. Parents need to KEEP THEIR OWN MONEY and decide how to spend it. Interestingly, if parents choose not to pay their taxes so they won’t be used for government frivolity, government will fine them or send them to prison. THAT is how out-of-whack our government is compared to what our Constitution says our government must do or be.

What The Legislature MUST Prioritize Instead

The legislature MUST:

  1. Prohibit PRIVATE BUSINESSES from receiving public funds to do business in the state; ie – remove ALL tax credits and incentives for private business. This would restore free enterprise and a fair economy, creating a benefit for all citizens and security of an even playing field for those who own their own businesses. As example; we spent at least one million taxpayer dollars on a fledgling electric car maker that has never lived up to its promises.
  2. Prohibit taxation of property and income (which is also property). Our state constitution says in Section 2-2 on Inherent Rights; “All persons have the inherent right to life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness, and the enjoyment of the gains of their own industry“. The bolded terminology refers to property and income. The taxation of such flies in the face of our Constitution’s requirement for the government to provide us protection, security and benefit. The legislature should write a state question to enable the people to change the Constitution to prevent the use of property taxation and start to phase out income tax ASAP (see Rep. Jay Steagall).
  3. Prohibit eminent domain for turnpikes, solar installations, wind turbines or any desire of PRIVATE INDUSTRY to conduct business in our state. Taking the property of ‘the people’ should only be done in VERY DIRE need that would benefit ‘the people’. A private wind turbine company – Invenergy – shouldn’t be able to take property from Oklahoma citizens to create an electric transmission corridor that would allow them to ship Oklahoma wind energy to out of state customers.
  4. Stop giving money to public schools that do not educate children. We are 49th in education and most children in the state aren’t proficient in either reading or math. Uneducated students remove our security and provide little benefit to the state or it’s citizens and taking tax dollars from citizens to support failure removes their security. Public schools often have multi-million dollar sports stadiums full of high school kids who can’t count back change. Stop allowing taxpayers to be robbed for failure.

What “The People” Must Do

  1. Contact your legislator. Remind them of the guarantees our State Constitution provides Oklahoma citizens. When legislation is promoted that does NOT agree with these guarantees, immediately call and/or email and explain why the bill must be voted down.
  2. Until we Oklahomans understand the function of our state government, we can’t educate our elected officials. At least read the Bill of Rights of our Constitution. Then, educate those around you including your legislators. It’s the only way to put government back in the hands of ‘the people’ and out of those who think only of lobbyists, public school bullies and elevating their power quotient for another job in government when they’re through at the legislature.
  3. Track legislation through the legislative website and/or Legiscan and/or follow OKHPR, OK2A, Save Oklahoma Farms And Ranches and ROPE, in order to know what laws are being introduced during the session and how they affect you.

2

Critical Thinking And Protecting Children – Two Very Different Perspectives

This morning I read an opinion piece in a local internet news media outlet, The Voice, called, “As reality stars take center stage in Trump cabinet, Oklahomans will have to think critically“.

It was written by Dr. John Thompson, a writer/researcher, education activist and former classroom teacher from Oklahoma whom I met during the Common Core debacle back in the 20-teens. Thompson and I heartily agreed on the problems with Common Core and we still agree on the pitfalls of standardized testing, but his opinion piece highlighted our differences in a pretty striking way.

Thompson’s thesis is that because Trump was once a reality TV star and his picks of Linda McMahon (Department of Education), Dr. Mehmet Oz (Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services), Sean Duffy (Secretary of Transportation), and Pete Hegseth (Defense Secretary), all have had some kind of media profile (mainly FOX news), everyone had better be very careful and suss out everything these people say for truthfulness and accuracy because media influencers are so influential to people – especially young people.

Okay. First; the world would be a much better – and saner – place if people would look at policies instead of personalities as a rule. So yeah, everyone should ALWAYS think critically about what people say to them, what they see in the media, or what a celebrity or social media influencer puts out on their ‘channels’. I’ll even argue that those with some kind of power over our lives – like elected and appointed members of government (no matter their party affiliation) – should be even more highly scrutinized on a regular basis.

But here’s where Thompson and I diverge.

I don’t remember reading cries for “critical thinking needed” by Thompson – or any Democrats for that matter (other than maybe Tulsi Gabbard) – during the COVID years, or over January 6th. Where was this critical thinking notion when people with opinions different than those of the ‘media’ were literally shut out of all discussion in any forum on these topics while being called names like “COVID deniers”, “misinformation spreaders” or, lest we forget, “insurrectionists”? In fact, Thompson himself – after lecturing us about the evils of parroting – actually parrots PBS on Oz in his piece. Though not actively using the pejorative “COVID denier”, he totally quoted a section relating to his medical treatment protocol preference for the disease – the one not preferred by the media. Was that decision critically thought out?

But then, where is any kind of reasonable discussion or critical thinking surrounding the “facts” of climate change? There are definitely two sides in this discussion, but only one which is widely fed to kids on their cell phones and through the media on a constant basis and also through curricula and testing, yet those of us with differing scientific viewpoints are called names like “climate deniers”? At what point do I find the critical thinking part of the influencing part here?

Does no one remember the endless commercials run in the media endorsing Kamala Harris run by EVERY Avenger, or the group of Hollywood B-listers and old guys who called themselves “White Guys For Harris” (as though if anyone on the ‘other side’ of the isle would get away with saying something like that)? What about the Kamala Harris endorsement by EVERYONE’S favorite “influencer” Taylor Swift – gosh, I’ll bet that didn’t influence one young person at all. I wonder how many classrooms had teachers leading their students through a critical thinking critique of her announcement, or any of the others?

But, since Thompson was specific in his comments toward Trump cabinet picks, let’s turn our attention to a few of Biden’s.

What about Biden pick Deanne Criswell (head of FEMA) who spent days in front of Congress trying to assure them that not ALL her hires were denying Trump supporters of FEMA assistance during times of crises? Many of the displaced were families with children, but I’m sure it’s okay to leave ‘Trump children’ cold, starving and covered in mud, right? They don’t deserve protecting?

And what about Rachel Lavine – the transgendered person second in command of Biden’s HHS who is being sued by a medical watchdog group for pressuring an international organization into lowering the age at which children could have gender reassignment surgery. So how does this protect children again, knowing that many adults eventually seek to be regendered?

Or what about Sam Brinton (a Biden-appointed Department of Energy Assistant Secretary for Spent Fuel and Waste Disposition) who had no real experience for the role, and spent a lot of time as a social media influencer wearing beautiful dresses only to be arrested for stealing some of those designer dresses from a suitcase at an airport – only to be arrested twice more for the same offense. What’s the critical thinking strategy there? But then I’m sure there were no children being influenced by Sam Brinton on social media.

Clearly, there’s a big difference in the way Dr. Thompson and I see the world.

In fact, Thompson’s article adjuring us to be more mindful of developing critical thinking in young people as Trump takes office, doesn’t apparently concern the changes President Biden made to Title 9 legislation that effect Oklahoma children.

Allowing boys to use girl’s bathrooms at school has caused at least one girl to be injured in Edmond and countless other girls to feel unsafe doing the one thing they physically can’t wait to do at home. Girls (those who have XX chromosomes) being forced to compete against boys (those who have XY chromosomes) who think they are girls, have crushed the dreams of countless high school girls. How does any of that protect young people – especially young women? But what about the #metoo movement? What about ‘girl power’? Aren’t we supposed to be protecting kids – girls – women’s rights? How am I missing the critical thinking part here?

People are as different as their opinions. Either we’re going to be okay with that or we’re not, but whatever standard we choose has to apply to everyone, or no one. Students can’t develop critical thinking until BOTH sides of an issue are heard, yet Dr. Thompson seems to believe that only one side really merits critical thinking police.

I’m very classically liberal in my views on speech – people should be able to say what they think, in any forum they want to say it, whether I like it or not.

You may not like Trump, but those who believe in censorship, those who believe that critical thinking only applies to someone else’s candidate or issue, are those who need to be thanked for his election. When the other side is shut out of the discussion, you’ll find that the polls will swell with those who are sick of being silenced. This is why balance – especially in media – is important. The only thing many of us have are our opinions and once those don’t count, all bets are off.

0

Guest Post: Dove Charter Schools Manipulate Test Scores And More, While Ryan Walters Practices Political Pandering

Guest Post by Becky Pelham, PhD

Dear Jenni and Michael,

Thank you for rerunning my October 2 podcast episode (11.27.24). Since our initial discussion, I’ve gained additional insights that I believe are critical for your audience to understand the depth of the challenges in Oklahoma’s education system.

Following the podcast, I was provided with extensive evidence tying Dove Schools in Oklahoma to the Gulen movement, a network with troubling ties to questionable financial practices and allegations of supporting terrorism. While I had previously noticed smaller concerns, such as H-1B visa abuse and inadequate instruction, the broader picture is far more alarming:

  • H-1B Visa Exploitation: Dove Schools heavily rely on foreign hires rather than qualified local teachers, mirroring practices seen in other Gulen-affiliated schools. These teachers are often expected to “donate” portions of their salary back to the foundation, with reports indicating up to 40% of their paychecks being funneled back.
  • Cosmos Foundation Connections: Financial ties to this Gulenist organization suggest that Oklahoma taxpayer dollars are being redirected to entities with global political motives.
  • Curricular and Cultural Alignments: Participation in events like the Turkish Olympiads and field trips to Raindrop Turkish House, both Gulen-affiliated activities, further demonstrate misplaced priorities that detract from meaningful education for students.

Despite raising these concerns with Brian Shellem and the Oklahoma Charter School Board, their focus remains primarily on the St. Isidore Catholic Charter School initiative. While the intersection of church and state warrants scrutiny, this singular focus has allowed significant issues in other areas to persist unchecked.

The approval of private school vouchers last year already opened the door for families to choose religious education on their own terms. If proponents of St. Isidore wish to create an online school teaching Catholic doctrine, the solution is straightforward: establish it as a private school. There are many schools operating successfully under that model, free to teach as they wish without taxpayer entanglement.

Yet here we are, with the Charter School Board using taxpayer dollars to fight a legal battle that has already failed in Oklahoma’s courts. The push for a federal Supreme Court ruling appears motivated by the current Court’s sympathy toward religious institutions, but this comes at a cost. Resources and energy are being wasted, while the failures of virtual charter schools remain unaddressed.

Take DOVE Schools, for example—a network openly funneling taxpayer dollars meant for education into a global organization tied to terrorism and foreign political agendas. Their ties to the Gulen movement—including misuse of H-1B visas, financial connections to the Cosmos Foundation, and participation in Gulenist cultural events—are well-documented and deeply troubling. The state school boards know, Ryan Walters knows, Kevin Stitt knows, and a majority of the Senate and House know. These schools operate under the guise of education while delivering substandard instruction and contributing to a larger global agenda.

And what is Ryan Walters doing? Instead of addressing these glaring issues, he panders to political bases with symbolic gestures like distributing Bibles in schools, ignoring the fact that 3 out of 4 Oklahoma students cannot read proficiently. He continues to turn a blind eye to DOVE Schools’ questionable practices, perhaps because their success helps pave the way for his self-serving agenda with St. Isidore. This mismanagement of priorities erodes Oklahoma’s already fragile education system and betrays the trust of both taxpayers and students.

Which is sad, because he continually trumpets that Trump was given a mandate, while ignoring the fact that Ryan Walters was given a mandate by the people of Oklahoma to fix our schools. Instead of addressing the glaring issues plaguing our education system—such as literacy rates, teacher shortages, and classroom resources—he’s chosen to focus on superficial initiatives like distributing Bibles to classrooms and touting his stance on cultural and political flashpoints. Meanwhile, he’s manipulating test scores by adjusting benchmarks and lowering standards, ensuring they’ll look artificially improved next year. This will allow him to present a façade of progress as he likely pivots toward higher political ambitions. These tactics do nothing to help the students who are falling behind, the teachers who are leaving the profession in droves, or the schools struggling to provide quality education. It’s deeply disappointing to see that, in terms of improving academic success, he has actually done worse than Joy Hofmeister.

Thank you again for the opportunity to share these updates. The work you’re doing at ROPE is invaluable in exposing these systemic failures and pushing for meaningful change.

Sincerely,
Rebecca Pellam, Ed.D.

Editor’s note: While on the podcast (links in the opening sentence above), Becky showed how Dove Charter Academy was manipulating test scores by refusing to give state tests to certain individuals in order to improve their scores.

Additionally, while Dr. Pellam provided no research to back up her claims about Dove Charter Academy and the Gulen movement, all one has to do is internet search the terms “Gulen charter schools” to find NUMEROUS pieces of information. Below are a few places to start.

Gulen Schools: One of America’s Largest and Most Controversial CMOs

Turkish Gülen Schools in America: Interactive Map and More

U.S. charter schools tied to powerful Turkish imam

What is the Gulen Movement and why is it dangerous for America?

120 American Charter Schools and One Secretive Turkish Cleric

Gulen Schools

0

Oklahoma Must Have A Pass The Trash Law To Protect Public School Students

Thursday, November 21st, Michael and I had V1SUT Vantage author, Mary, on with us again, this time to talk about Dr. Aaron Espolt, the Superintendent of Shawnee Public Schools (SPS).

The same Shawnee Public Schools where coach Ron Arthur was sentenced to 5 years in prison for molesting a student his senior year of high school, though allegations indicated that there were multiple victims over multiple years and districts.

Mary took us through her latest V1SUT Vantage substack article about Dr. Espolt – the current superintendent of SPS and how he has a record of alleged sexual misconduct during his time at Little Axe PS and Boone-Apache PS and that he has been employed with 7 districts in Oklahoma during his career so far.

In the video below, Mary talks about “pass the trash laws” – laws that prevent school districts from hiring employees at any level – who have had a history of sexual misconduct allegations at a previous employer. Oklahoma does not have a pass the trash law.

In the video below, Mary talks about Shawnee Public Schools and the odd circumstances under which Dr. Espolt came to Shawnee and some of the circumstances surrounding his employment.

The full live video, which you can find on our YouTube and Rumble channels has much more information! Check that out when you have time! Also, like share and subscribe to our channels! The more these videos are shared, the greater the chances that something will be done about these issues! Pass them on to your legislator as well!

1

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!

0

Ageism Dominates Comments On OKC FOX Reporter Payton May’s Post From August State School Board Meeting

I swear, I shouldn’t be surprised by absolutely ANYTHING today, but this one got me.

This was a Tweet from reporter Payton May during Thursday’s (8.22.24) state school board meeting.

I can’t see the comments on the post anymore. I’ve apparently been blocked for repeatedly commenting, but if you go through them, you’ll see a pattern – older people need to sit down and shut up about what’s going on in schools.

Here are the specific comments to which I actively replied:

My predictive text decided to use “funded” for “fined” and I hit sent before I saw that…

This guy actually responded that, yes, he was an ageist, but he hadn’t said anything about drag queens or kindergartners. SMH, RME…

I believe I’ve made my point (and not always nicely, but my dander was up) but I have to say – not that Twitter is an indicative replica of all Americans – we’re in trouble.

The people who commented about the age of the people there for Walters were ugly about it. I mean, why even say something like that? They obviously have absolutely no idea how property taxes work (you don’t own your property because the state forces you to pay taxes on your property that fund local public schools, libraries and technical schools and if you don’t pay them, the state comes in and takes your property from you to pay the bill for those things) and that people on fixed incomes (many collect only Social Security having been propagandized to believe that would take care of them in their old age) are more susceptible to having their property confiscated for lack of funds to pay their property taxes.

More than likely, these people live in apartments and take money from the government for different things on a regular basis, so they could care less what happens to people who don’t pay their property taxes, but I think there’s a bigger issue here.

Democrats/leftists, want abortion on demand – they always have. I can’t make a case for it because it’s never made any sense to me why anyone would want to kill a pre-born infant – not even when I was a young moron who thought she was an atheist. You either don’t have sex, or you use birth control if you’re gonna have sex – you don’t kill babies because YOU were too much of an idiot to protect yourself from getting pregnant.

Soon, it will be old people.

I could wax on about why and how and all of that, but it’s been reported for many years – especially since COVID and so many old people were simply put on ventilators and left to die. The important part of even putting this into a blog for public consumption is to understand that AGEISM – like so many other horribly destructive social trends – is here in Oklahoma.

We must push back against the Democrat death cult. We do it with abortion, but we’ve ignored the looming specter of ageism.

When you hear or see this kind of conversation on social media, or anywhere else, remind people how school funding and property ownership works. Remind them that old people have more skin in the game than the young. Remind them that older folks should be cared for and how much we still have to learn from those who are older.

Don’t let the young demonize the old, because if we do, we’ll end up with the same problem we have with the pre-born now – we’ll be having to figure out how to stop euthanasia programs like those invented by the Nazis to get rid of the medically infirm. It’s happened before, it’s happening in other countries now, it can happen here too.

0

OK Rep. Sherrie Conley Talks Broken Trust – Her New Non-Profit

Wednesday, July 24th ROPE Report Regular, Representative Sherrie Conley, talked with Michael and I about her new non-profit Broken Trust.

After working with numerous former students who had horror stories about being molested or abused by public school employees, Sherrie decided that something needed to be done and she was going to do it.

The Broken Trust website is a place where people can contact Sherrie with tips and/or reports of abuse occurring within public education.

In the clip below, Sherrie talks about her desires for the organization and shares its first event.

If you would like to attend – or share this event with others who might be interested – click here.

It’s honestly sad to realize that this kind of event is needed today, but it is. So few parents understand what could be happening after they drop their child off at school – and fewer seem to understand what to do if their child comes forward to report abuse.

Sherrie reminds EVERYONE that, according to state law, EVERYONE is a mandatory reporter of abuse any time they find it.

For parents, the very best thing to do, should you suspect abuse, is IMMEDIATELY CONTACT LAW ENFORCEMENT – and that doesn’t mean your school’s School Resource Officer. SROs are employees of the school first and foremost. Their contracts are with schools, not with the police department to which they are attached and certainly not with parents. If school administration is told, the school will investigate – not law enforcement. Consequently, the first call if any parent suspects abuse from a public school employee is to your nearest LAW ENFORCEMENT OFFICE.

In the clip below, Sherrie talks about the abuse taxpayers receive after a school is found guilty of abusing a student or students. In this case, 2 Kingfisher Public School’s coaches were accused of knowingly allowing students to abuse one another in the high school locker room. One family sued and won a judgement of 5 million dollars, of which the Kingfisher school district taxpayer will be required to pay.

As Sherrie explains, the school asks the county assessor to raise their millage rate to cover costs over their budget and this results in higher property taxes for the home owner while the school’s administration and board, get off scot free.

Please take a moment and share this article – and the videos – with others. The only way we FIX this problem is to educate others who can help us demand change!

You can find the FULL video on our Rumble and YouTube channels!

0

Blog at WordPress.com.

Up ↑