#OklaEd sending three million tax dollars to private company

"School districts across the country are increasingly turning to new technology to help minimize the impact of an active shooter," FOX 25 reports.

Just this year, the Oklahoma State Department of Education secured $3 million in new funding to implement a statewide panic button system. “We have 540 brick-and-mortar districts, and we hope that 100% of them have adopted the program by the end of the 20-21 school year,” said Jon Parker, executive director of school safety & security at the Oklahoma State Department of Education.

The department is providing the RAVE Panic Button to all districts. It’s an app that alerts authorities to an active shooter, a medical emergency, a fire, or other crisis. The app simultaneously sends out a notification to other teachers and staff on campus as well.

“Staff members are very well-equipped to be able to respond quickly, but they can’t respond until they know they need to respond,” said Noah Reiter, vice-president of customer service for RAVE Mobile Safety. “So this application reduces the time it takes for them to implement their emergency response.” ...

Oklahoma will join states like Delaware and Arkansas, along with the District of Columbia, in deploying this technology. It reflects a growing trend—and booming business—in the U.S. In 2017, security equipment and services for schools generated $2.7 billion in revenue, according to analysis by HIS Markit.

Booming business! Indeed, it looks like this private company may even (gasp!) turn a profit. Which is fine with me. For as past OCPA speaker Walter Williams reminds us, profits are very much a good thing.

Oklahoma public schools send more than $1 billion to private companies every year

Including companies offering teacher preparation, Curtis Shelton writes.

The profit motive is incompatible with public education? Nonsense.

Writing over at U.S. News & World Report, American Enterprise Institute fellow Ian Lindquist tackles the fallacious argument that "for-profit schools harbor a motive that makes them incapable of educating children—namely, a profit motive." 

Adults who aim to make money cannot have children’s best interests at heart because they will look for opportunities to cut costs in an effort to pay shareholders rather than direct all available funds toward children’s education. The conflict of interest created by this profit motive renders for-profit schools incompatible with public education. 

This is nonsense. Education is not the only sector that provides public goods. Indeed, there are many public goods handled by private companies: hospitals, prisons, and transportation systems operated by for-profit providers ensure public health, public safety, and public transportation. In none of those cases does profit motive necessarily dispose the company to abdicate its mission of serving the public. In these cases, companies’ ability to provide the best product possible is aligned with their ability to make money and pay their shareholders. Far from giving up their social missions to seek profit, they need to serve the public both to accomplish that mission and gain profit. Without mission, no profit. The mission is and must be primary. 

The circumstances in the education sector do not nullify this logic. If an education company has a mission to provide excellent schooling for students, then it either fulfills its mission or it doesn’t. If it does, then it is a worthy contractor and its charter should be renewed; if it does not, then its charter should be revoked. 

Read the whole thing here.

Are profitable corporations making 'big money' with vouchers?

The web site Oklahoma Education Journal recently posted a video ("Profitship! Cashing In On Public Schools") which warned that public education must not "let corporations take over with charter schools and vouchers."

This argument is not new in the #OklaEd community. Public education activist Angela Clark Little once said of voucher programs: "What they are about is making money ... lots of it. Big money ... and legislators collaborating with big business."

But is that true? According to the Oklahoma State Department of Education, there are 51 schools participating in Oklahoma's voucher program. They are:

1. All Saints Catholic School
2. Bishop John Carroll School
3. Bishop Kelley Catholic School
4. Bishop McGuiness Catholic High School
5. Corn Bible Academy
6. The Catholic School of St. Eugene
7. Destiny Christian School
8. Emmanuel Christian School
9. Good Shepherd Catholic School at Mercy
10. Good Shepherd Lutheran School and Child Development Center
11. Happy Hands Education Center
12. Holy Family Cathedral School
13. Holy Trinity Catholic School
14. Holy Trinity Christian School
15. Immanuel Lutheran Christian Academy
16. Ketchum Adventist Academy
17. Lakewood Christian School
18. Life Christian Academy
19. Marquette Catholic School
20. Messiah Lutheran School
21. Metro Christian Academy
22. Mission Academy High School
23. Monte Cassino Catholic School
24. Mount Saint Mary Catholic High School
25. Oak Hall Episcopal School
26. Oklahoma Bible Academy
27. Oklahoma Christian Academy
28. Oklahoma Christian School
29. Paths to Independence
30. Rosary School
31. Sacred Heart Catholic School
32. Saint Catherine Catholic School
33. Saint Paul's Lutheran Church and School
34. Saints Peter and Paul Catholic School (Kingfisher)
35. Saints Peter and Paul Catholic School (Tulsa)
36. Special Care, Inc.
37. St. Charles Borromeo Catholic School
38. St. Elizabeth Ann Seton Catholic School
39. St. James the Greater Catholic Church and School
40. St. John's Episcopal School
41. St. John Nepomuk
42. St. Joseph Catholic School (Enid)
43. St. Joseph Catholic School (Muskogee)
44. St. Mary Catholic School (Guthrie)
45. St. Mary’s Catholic School (Lawton)
46. St. Pius X Catholic School
47. Summit Christian Academy
48. Town and Country School
49. Trinity School
50. Undercroft Montessori School
51. Victory Christian School

So regarding vouchers, what are the names of the profitable corporations which are taking over? What are the names of the big businesses making big money?

Profit without honor?

"If there’s one thing the government education blob knows it hates, it’s 'profit,'" Greg Forster writes in this month's issue of Perspective. And yet:

What does the education establishment always advocate? More spending. Where does that spending go? A good deal of it goes to for-profit corporations. From textbooks to cafeteria food to school buses, our schools supply the ghouls and vampires of the private sector with billions of dollars of business a year.

Profits in public education

Some defenders of Oklahoma's monopoly school system don't like public charter schools, and they really don't like (trigger warning!) "for-profit" charter schools. Something about the Koch brothers dispatching their evil minions to an ALEC meeting to club baby seals and privatize education for rapacious gain. In reality, however, only 10 to 15 percent of charter schools nationwide hire a for-profit entity to manage certain aspects of the school. The number is even lower in Oklahoma. (Which is a pity, because profits are a good thing.)

Fed up with these "nobody should make a profit from public education" sentiments, Dr. Terry Stoops at the John Locke Foundation decided to put together a partial list of those who make a profit from public education:

1. Computer companies – all schools have computers, hand-held devices, and other hardware in them
2. Software companies – those computers have software on them
3. Furniture companies – kids gotta sit on something and write on something else
4. School bus companies – until someone invents the Transporter, we’ll have to use buses
5. Textbook companies – the Gideons have no school textbook equivalent
6. School supply companies – pencils! pens! reams of paper! chemistry equipment!
7. Instructional technology companies – those video and audio systems, e.g., Smart Boards, are not free
8. Television companies – many classrooms come equipped with a TV (and sometimes a DVD player too)
9. Landowners, Realtors, construction companies, contractors, and suppliers – building and maintaining schools requires working with (gasp!) for-profit businesses
10. Food and beverage suppliers – think school lunches, vending machines, and snack bars
11. Copier companies – copiers are teachers’ best friend or worst nightmare
12. Athletic equipment – for physical education
13. Musical instruments – for music education
14. Art supplies – for art education
15. Energy companies – many things run on electricity these days

Doubtless there are others, but you get the point. And I haven't even mentioned the one-percenter who's paid a third of a million dollars to preside over the woeful Tulsa school district. Talk about for-profit management!

Public money to private schools (cont'd.)

[Guest post by Patrick McGuigan]

I've noted before on this blog that public dollars flow to private schools all the time. With the fate of the Lindsey Nicole Henry Scholarship program hanging in the balance, now is a good time to adapt and update some of my past reporting on just how widespread the practice is. Some examples:

1. News stories about Oklahoma's pre-kindergarten (four-year-old) education programs casually incorporate by reference "free" (tax-financed) pre-K services, including at church-affiliated or other private providers receiving public support.
2. The ubiquitous federal Title I program provides remedial services to elementary children in high-poverty areas where schools are failing (or are at risk) to meet core achievements. Public school officials are directed to consult with private schools on delivery of services.
3. Private schools utilize Title I services. Funding is driven by the "proportion of private school children from low-income families residing in participating public school attendance areas." The law requires equitable, not lesser, services for private school students. The second Bush Administration's No Child Left Behind Act established provisions for "supplemental services" to children, provided by a public or a private entity. Students enrolled at failing public schools can receive extra help – tutoring, computer-assisted education, and similar things – outside the normal school day. Parents can pick from a state list, and districts pay providers directly.
4. In many districts, tax funds are used to pay private vendors who provide online courses, often for students failing in traditional classrooms. Privately run online work has become common for children who need alternative instructional approaches.
5. As school populations fluctuate, sites no longer needed are leased (and occasionally sold) to private businesses or institutions.
6. Pell Grants are the best-known federal program supporting students based on economic status, with outright grants through public or private schools. College students can get $4,000 or more a year and never have to pay it back. Some use Pell Grants at a public institution and later at private schools, and vice versa. This has empowered millions of lower-income Americans.
7. Stafford Loans allow lower- or middle-income students to access below-market interest rates, with no repayment until completion. The program works directly with private alternatives.
8. The Oklahoma Tuition Equalization Grant (OTEG) program provides grants of up to $2,000 a year to residents who choose to attend private not-for-profit colleges, often church-affiliated.
9. The Oklahoma Higher Learning Access Program (OHLAP) assists students who complete core requirements. Also known as "Oklahoma's Promise," OHLAP is available for students in public or private (including religiously-affiliated) universities and at career tech centers working with public two-year institutions.

Other examples of tax dollars financing private delivery of desirable services across all age levels include but are not limited to Head Start, child care assistance, and public-school food, custodial, maintenance, transportation, and security services.

Bottom line: Every day millions of public education dollars flow to private vendors or entities.

OSU professor says 'nonprofit' universities are profitable

State universities are actually quite profitable, OSU professor Vance Fried said this week at a Cato Institute forum.

Schools in the slums

Marvin Olasky's latest column is excellent.

Ten years ago James Tooley, a professor of education with a doctorate and a World Bank grant to study private schools in a dozen developing countries, took the standard path toward helping the poor: He flew first class and stayed at 5-star hotels.

But something happened in India as he visited private schools and colleges that cater to the privileged. At night, lying on 500-thread-count Egyptian-cotton sheets, he meditated about the "con" that he was now part of: Wealthy Indians enjoy foreign aid because they live in a poor country, the poor fall further behind, and the researchers live richly.

Then Tooley broke the rules. With guilt feelings and some spare time, he actually went into the slums instead of riding past them with his driver. He was surprised to see little handwritten signs announcing the existence of private schools: He thought private schools are for the rich. Guided through alleys and up narrow, dark, dirty staircases, he entered classrooms and found dedicated teachers and students.

Tooley found schools that survive not with government money or international bequests, but through $2-per-month fees paid by rickshaw pullers who scrimp and save to give their children a chance not to pull rickshaws. He went on to visit 50 Indian private schools in poor areas over the next 10 days. Did some foundation make them possible? No, these were for-profit schools created by poor but persevering entrepreneurs. 

Read the whole thing.

Delicious

The National Education Association runs a side business in which it partners with a non-union, for-profit school.

HT: Mike Antonucci