republicans

1.16.24 – Jenni White

File under ROPEtoldyaso. In fact, thanks to this, ROPE and homeschoolers across Oklahoma will take the prize for “prophets of the year” already for 2024.

Yesterday, Oklahoma’s Channel 9, interviewed Representative Jacob Rosecrants who had the following to say about Oklahoma’s Parental Tax Credit for private school tuition.

Woah… Weird… Sounds exactly like what we’ve been saying could happen since nearly the beginning of the “Parental Choice” movement, right?

Yes. All one has to do is search this site to find out how many articles have been devoted to attempting to educate people about this specific issue.

“But Jenni, Rosecrants is a DEMOCRAT! This will NEVER happen here!”

Well picture me as Santa Clause in this quote from the movie Elf:

I’ve watched the legislature for nearly 15 years now and I’ve seen Republicans do some super UNRepublican stuff – the biggest example here being jumping on the Common Core bandwagon, where a majority of Oklahoma Republicans wanted a national curricula for Oklahoma kids until we began going to them individually with facts that showed how harmful such a program would be (and now we know – for the states who used it – how harmful it was).

In fact, one would have HOPED that Republicans – people whose platform indicates them to be bastions of smaller government and private enterprise over public control – would have spotted the whole tax credit/VOUCHER scheme from a mile off. Yet, how can we forget that there wasn’t a single Republican lawmaker who voted AGAINST the tax credit/VOUCHER – scheme last session. Not one. Here are the votes for the HOUSE. Here are the votes for the Senate so you can check me up on that.

So ask yourself…how did not a single Republican Senator or House member think it wouldn’t be problematic to give private schools public tax dollars?

Frankly, that’s a great question, and if we can’t answer that question, how in the world could we trust our legislature not to simply double-down on the whole thing and then turn around and tell us it’s a good thing – which is what they did with the tax credit/VOUCHER scheme in the first place.

“This is a tax credit, not a voucher”, they said.

“This is to help underserved/underrepresented kids”, they said.

Already, however – not even two months into the program – nearly every Republican talking point for the program has been debunked.

Not only is the program over budget 4 million dollars by using the globalist data collecting vendor MERITS INC. to administrate the program instead of the Oklahoma Tax Commission as stated in the bill, but there’s more.

In this video, I make the point that out of the 4 income categories proposed for the “tax credit”, only the upper two income categories are a true tax credit – and that’s only for one child – the lower 2 income categories are 100% VOUCHERS. So it’s just a boldfaced lie to have sold the program as a tax credit right there. Why were none of the Republicans crunching the numbers to find this out for themselves? This was easy info to find.

Oklahoma Parental Choice Tax Credit Act (OPCTCA)

Then we have the idea that it’s to help disadvantaged kids/families.

According to Carmen Forman at the Oklahoma Voice:

The Tax Commission has received more than 30,000 applications for the tax credits approved by the GOP-led Oklahoma Legislature last year. About 45% are from priority applicants and 55% are from families earning more than $150,000 annually, Haxton said.

So, there you go. If you have a household income of $150k and you can’t put your own kids in private schools, OTHER PEOPLE SHOULDN’T BE SENDING YOUR KIDS TO PRIVATE SCHOOL FOR YOU. That’s 100% socialism – especially when I just showed that you don’t even get ONE KID as a tax credit at that level. Our household is near that income level and we had one kid at Oklahoma Christian School for two years, scrimping and saving and homeschooling the others. Why should I pay for YOUR kid when you didn’t pay for mine?

Meanwhile, back in Arizona, School Choice Inc’s MODEL for school ‘choice’ legislation – including full universal vouchers like Oklahoma’s Governor signed into law just last year – Democrat Governor “Katie Hobbs unveils plan to rein in Arizona school voucher program“. Yup, regulation of private schools on even a WORSE level than Rep. Jacob Rosecrants has suggested, including the following:

A requirement that private schools provide the accommodations and services in a disabled student’s Individualized Learning Plan or Section 504 Plan.
Require manual approval of any ESA purchase over $500. That should ensure the taxpayer dollars that fund ESAs are spent on academic purposes, Hobbs said. She also called for an end to ESA awards for items such as ski passes and luxury car driving lessons, although it’s unclear how those “luxury” items would be defined.
Give the state Auditor General authority to review and report on how ESA money is spent by private schools. This is a standard practice for Arizona’s public schools.

So, how in the world did a REAL threat that private schools be regulated for purposes of accountability and essentially turned into public schools over a tax credit bill rear its ugly head? How does this happen in Oklahoma? Aren’t we smarter than that?

Whelp…NO. According to EdWeek, Oklahoma was 49th in education in 2021. So, maybe we aught to be putting more effort into MAKING public schools actually educate kids instead of growing government to the point that it becomes the blob that ate private schools.

Clark Jolley at the Jeb Bush, Foundation for Education Excellence National Summit on Education Reform in Boston, MA with former Oklahoma State Board of Education member Amy Ford. Clark Jolley was the lead author of the bill that adopted Obama-pushed Common Core State Standards throughout Oklahoma.

Sadly, Clark Jolley and ROPE have never been famous friends.

It all started in 2010, when he authored SB2033 (described by the title, “Teacher Incentive Pay) with Coffee, Jolley, Ford, Rice and Leftwich of the Senate. This bill was created as a vehicle by which to apply for federal Race To The Top funds. The bill is 34 pages and codified into law the Teacher Leader Effectiveness Evaluation System (a nightmare that Senator Adam Pugh tried to put an end to last year in a bill that was ‘committee’d to death’), the Race To The Top Commission, The Common Core State Standards Initiative, and failing school intervention program – three of the four aspects of the Obama Administration’s Race To The Top grant paid for with ARRA funds.

So, there’s that.

In fact, I STILL can’t consider any Republican in the legislature who signed on to OBAMA’s education plan a real Republican – including Clark Jolley.

There is more – so much more – but to post all of that here would more than likely cause some kind of catatonic state from which the reader might not recover. Let me simply say this; Blogspot has an excellent ‘search’ function. I highly suggest – before casting a vote for Clark Jolley for anything – you search his name on the ROPE blog. There are dozens of entries from which to choose where we’ve dissected and discussed legislation created by Senator Jolley and his cronies that we simply could not – AS SMALL GOVERNMENT REPUBLICANS – support.

The blog from which this picture was taken, “Oklahoma Legislative Education Leaders Take Advantage of Free Boston Trip Sponsored By Jeb Bush Foundation“, most probably says it all, however.

In closing – and yes I am closing, as I feel my point should have been made solidly with the opening line – I do want to copy and paste an encounter we had with Senator Jolley (originally posted here) while we were lobbying against Common Core.

During 2011, there was a bill of Senator Jolley’s (SB264) with which we had issue. It was advertised as a deregulation bill for schools, but there were an additional number of components – including a reference to the SLDS (State Longitudinal Database System) we didn’t like – and we didn’t want it passed. Unfortunately, we found it late in its legislative cycle – after it was going back to the House a second time.

Three of us were walking the halls talking to Representatives, sharing our concerns about the bill, when Clark Jolley strides by us at a ferocious clip, points a finger at us and says, “I want to see you in my office” and marches off. We felt as though we were to follow, so we shrugged our shoulders at one another not knowing what was going on, and followed dutifully.

Senator Jolley strode into his office directly behind his desk, told us to sit down, sat down himself and immediately launched into a very thorough berating, replete with pointed finger. Now, mind you, one of us was actually a constituent of the Senator and NONE of us on the ROPE board are paid in any way – we are all mothers, housewives (and business owners) who take it upon ourselves to study the legislative process and become involved. This fact, however, did not stop Senator Jolley from taking the time to tell us exactly how the cow ate the cabbage.

We were NOT to go around behind his back, he explained vociferously. If we had a problem with one of HIS bills, we needed to come to him first and not let him hear about it from someone else. He wanted to make sure HIS bills get passed and he would work with us but he was not going to have us going around him taking matters into our own hands.

I have NEVER been such a combination of flabbergasted, annoyed and angry all at the same time. I thought Senators were supposed to be public SERVANTS. At one point I finally decided I’d had enough and told him that we weren’t paid lobbyists and didn’t know the system inside and out – heck one of us was even a constituent – we were simply doing what we felt was right. It didn’t require a lecture.

I have never forgotten that incident…

True public “SERVANTS” don’t behave like Clark Jolley.

PS: Todd Russ was always kind to us, listened, and more importantly voted YES to repeal Common Core from Oklahoma law. I’ll be voting for Russ.

ROPE Report

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Representative Jacob Rosecrants Files Bill To Force Accountability For Education Tax Credit Dollars

We’re Not So Jolly About Common Core Clark – Vote NO For Clark Jolley For State Treasurer