Covington teacher's aide charged with sex crimes, furnishing alcohol to minor

The Enid News & Eagle has the story.

Is school choice the black choice?

Where do you stand on the issue of #schoolchoice? Let me know and be sure to watch Roland Martin Presents: Is School Choice The Black Choice? Streaming live on #YouTube https://t.co/cbrFIqnCcq and on #Periscope https://t.co/Omw7gWbBJj

— rolandsmartin (@rolandsmartin) June 21, 2018

Ada schools to close for Election Day

The Ada News has the story.

Resigned Broken Arrow elementary teacher charged with molesting students

The Tulsa World has the story.

Oklahoma's real school expenditures per student have more than doubled since 1970

"Improving student outcomes has proved difficult in large part because we are unwilling to take any major steps to make schools better," economist Eric Hanushek writes.

It appears acceptable just to put more resources into existing schools without any evidence of better academic learning. Real school expenditures per student have more than doubled since 1970 [in Oklahoma they increased from $3,813 to $8,646]—yet our graduates’ achievement remains mostly flat. When we talk about dealing with the rigidities of our current education system, people generally shrink back. Witness, for example, the reactions to teacher strikes in Arizona, Colorado, Kentucky, Oklahoma, and West Virginia. There were no discussions of relating any salary increases to the effectiveness of teachers. Indeed, the only thing on the table was more funding for failed existing policies.

Ed prof: teacher certification 'has next to no effect on teacher performance'

Robert Maranto is the 21st Century Chair in Leadership at the Department of Education Reform at the University of Arkansas. He also serves on the Fayetteville school board. He previously worked for the Brookings Institution and for the Clinton administration. 

"In contrast to other professions, studies show that certification has next to no effect on teacher performance," he wrote last month in The Wall Street Journal.

Instead it’s is a rote exercise providing the mere appearance of professionalism. There’s a reason the prep schools attended by Barack Obama (Punahou), both Presidents Bush (Phillips Academy), Chelsea Clinton ( Sidwell Friends ) and John Kerry (St. Paul’s) hire uncertified teachers. That certification is the main qualification for public-school teachers shows how differently the country’s elites treat your kids and mine.

Sex abuse lawsuit against Oklahoma school to continue

"A federal judge has refused to dismiss a lawsuit alleging officials at an Oklahoma school did nothing to stop sexual attacks against a middle school student," the Associated Press reports.

Mounds student said she had sex with coach 'about 100 times'

"A former Mounds High School Girls basketball coach has posted bond after being charged in connection with inappropriate relationships with two students," the News on 6 reports. "Brett Brooksher was booked Tuesday on charges of second-degree rape and sexual battery. Court documents say one of Brooksher's former players said she had sex with him about 100 times starting when she was a junior."

Scholarship organizations are changing lives

Andrew Rice runs a unique school serving students who are battling to overcome addiction. Oklahoma's tax-credit scholarship program helps students like this—and many more.

Mapping drive-times from private schools in Oklahoma

"More than three-quarters of Oklahoma families could drive their K–12 students to a private school in 20 minutes or less," according to researchers at EdChoice.

Former Cleveland school employee pleads guilty to second-degree rape

The News on 6 has the story.

Teacher raps venerable civil-rights organization

"The National Rifle Association has manufactured a world where schools must ask 'when' and not 'if'" school shootings will occur, writes Mid-Del social-studies teacher Aaron Baker.

The difference between roads and education

"Parks, roads, even policing, don’t come close to the intensely and fundamentally personal—fundamentally human—purpose of education," Neal McCluskey writes. "To assert that letting taxpaying families choose their schools is akin to letting them build private thoroughfares or parks with public dollars at best trivializes education, at worst threatens basic freedom. Indeed, far from calling for government control, the nature of education cries out for letting all people choose."

Andrew Spiropoulos and I touched on this same subject here.