Oklahoma school-choice programs save money

A new report from EdChoice (“The Fiscal Effects of Private K-12 Education Choice Programs in the United States”) finds that Oklahoma's tax-credit scholarship program saved about $12.5 million to $32.6 million since its inception through FY-2018, which is about $2,000 to $5,200 in savings per scholarship student. 

Oklahoma's private-school voucher program saved about $12.6 million to $22 million since its inception through FY-2018, which is about $4,700 to $8,300 in savings per scholarship student.

Anti-Christian discrimination reaches Oklahoma

Credit: The Weekly Standard

[Guest post by Jonathan Small]

It’s no secret government officials often target traditional Christians for harassment, but Oklahomans often view that as a problem that happens in other states, not here. Sadly, that’s not true.

In 2010, lawmakers passed and the governor signed into law the Lindsey Nicole Henry (LNH) Scholarships for Students with Disabilities program. It provides state scholarships for certain students—those with special needs like autism, or foster children—to attend private schools.

A few things are required for schools to participate. The LNH law requires that participating private schools comply with the antidiscrimination provisions of a section of federal law that bars discrimination “on the ground of race, color, or national origin.”

Those are the only three categories listed. Yet, under the leadership of State Superintendent of Public Instruction Joy Hofmeister, the OSDE drafted new regulations that added “religion” and “sexual orientation” to that list.

As a result, private Christian schools are now being blackballed from serving LNH students.

When Altus Christian Academy and Christian Heritage Academy applied to serve LNH students, they were denied approval by the State Board of Education at the group’s October meeting.

Oklahoma State Board of Education member Kurt Bollenbach complained one of the schools required staff to be “mature Christian teachers,” which he declared was “discriminating against other religions or nonreligions.”

Bollenbach and Brad Clark, who serves as Hofmeister’s top attorney, also stressed the two schools' policies on sexual orientation.

Put another way, if they want to serve LNH students, Christian schools must be prepared to hire strident atheists and embrace all aspects of the LGBT agenda.

Bollenbach even declared Christian schools have the right to set hiring policies only “until they ask for state dollars.” But that is not true, because the LNH program does not force parents to attend any specific private schools. Instead, students attend by choice.

That’s one reason the Oklahoma Supreme Court upheld the law in 2016, saying, “When the parents and not the government are the ones determining which private school offers the best learning environment for their child, the circuit between government and religion is broken.”

The U.S. Supreme Court has also upheld school-choice programs that allow students to attend private religious schools.

It’s notable that the LNH program operated for nine years without any problem before the OSDE concocted these new restrictions on schools’ policies regarding religion and sexual orientation.

The OSDE regulations are, in effect, a unilateral rewriting of Oklahoma law done outside the legislative process. Fortunately, the illegality of that action is apparent to all, and the agency will likely face lawsuits if it does not reverse course.

Even so, this incident highlights a sad fact: Citizens in conservative Oklahoma must be just as vigilant in monitoring their government’s actions as their blue-state counterparts.

Henry Scholarship turns 10

It's been a godsend for many families.

Parents justified in student privacy concerns

[Guest post by Jonathan Small]

Recently, thousands of Oklahoma students’ names and home addresses were obtained from the Oklahoma State Department of Education and used for mailers. Parents were understandably upset.

In Arizona, the state Department of Education released parent names and individual account information for more than 7,000 student-beneficiaries of a school-choice program. Parents were understandably upset.

But now Oklahoma lawmakers are telling parents not to worry about student privacy, even though newly passed legislation mandates reporting requirements that experts believe could allow identification of individual students.

House Bill 1230 imposes new regulations for the Lindsey Nicole Henry (LNH) Scholarship Program that include releasing LNH data by school site and recipient demographics including race, income, and disability. Families are rightfully concerned by those requirements because the legislation did not include student-privacy safeguards typically included in other reporting mandates.

It’s not unreasonable for parents to worry that it won’t take long for people to identify students by name if a report shows a private school has just a handful of LNH recipients and one is a low-income black child with autism.

Children served by LNH private-school scholarships either have special needs, such as autism, or are foster and adopted children. Many are survivors of abuse—including, at times, severe bullying in public schools that prompted suicide attempts before the LNH program provided an alternative. Why should the state make it possible for those children’s former tormentors to identify them and their new school? And why should the state allow anti-school-choice radicals to identify specific families? If you don’t think there’s reason for concern on that front, you have not seen the vitriol school-choice opponents aim at low-income families online.

LNH recipients are not unreasonable in expecting privacy to be safeguarded because those protections are given elsewhere to other students. For example, when state testing results are released by school district, the data is withheld in instances where the number of test-taking students is so low that reporting on results could allow identification by inference.

The children with special needs targeted by HB 1230 deserve comparable protections.

The Republican Party often presents itself as a champion of deregulation in the name of individual liberty and job creation. President Trump has slashed regulations at the federal level, which experts agree has contributed to strong economic growth. At the state level, Gov. Kevin Stitt wants to cut regulations by 25 percent. So why has a GOP-controlled Legislature chosen to head the opposite direction when it comes to a program that serves needy children?

The Oklahoma Council of Public Affairs believes in accountability. But the troubling provisions of HB 1230 do nothing to deter or identify potential fraud. They only create potential hardship for families that already face more than their fair share of challenges. To make Oklahoma a place where more families can thrive, Oklahoma policymakers should stand up for those families, not add to their burdens.

Unnecessary and burdensome, HB 1230 raises privacy concerns

Some thoughts on HB 1230, which places more strings on the Lindsey Nicole Henry Scholarship program.

• Accountability is vitally important, but it makes no sense to impose upon a market an accountability system designed to regulate a monopoly. Government regulations are a pale imitation of the true accountability system—accountability to parents. As political scientist Greg Foster says, "there is no real need to regulate private schools, in choice programs or otherwise, for anything other than health and safety."
• This is especially true when one realizes that public schools are not accountable. Indeed, as one retired public school teacher puts it, "there is no entity in America that is less accountable than a government-run school system."
• Republicans believe in reducing, not increasing, red tape. President Donald Trump boasts of a “record number of regulations eliminated” while Gov. Kevin Stitt is aiming for a 25 percent reduction in regulations by the end of his term.
• Submitting extensive data to government officials to publish online raises serious privacy concerns:

• Just last month, for example, we learned that the Arizona Department of Education handed over a spreadsheet containing private data on participating school-choice families to a group that wants to shut down school-choice programs. "The sheet gave the names and email addresses of more than 7,000 parents, the grades their children are in, and the children’s disabilities (if any)," Dr. Forster writes. "While the private data had been superficially covered, mandatory steps to prevent the process from being reversed—revealing the data—had not been taken."
• The Oklahoma Department of Education (OSDE), similarly no fan of school choice, has also demonstrated a recent willingness to cooperate with the organized left.
• Oklahoma Watch reported on Feb. 14 that thousands of Oklahoma students received recruitment flyers in the mail from a virtual charter school and that "parents are furious about the school’s access to children’s names and home addresses." The school’s attorney, Drew Edmondson, said the school got the information from the OSDE website. "This is a violation of privacy and safety," says one Noble Public Schools board member. "We have received alarming complaints," says state Superintendent Joy Hofmeister.

• The only failed example of private-school choice in U.S. history is school vouchers in Louisiana, Dr. Forster writes, where, because of overregulation, participation rates by private schools were catastrophically low. "The problem was not any one obviously bad regulation. There was no 'poison pill.' Each individual regulation, by itself, was not a dealbreaker. The problem was the accumulated weight of many intrusive regulations, whose combined burden was far greater than expected. One important aspect of that was the clear signals that the schools got from the government that more regulations would be coming in the future. Private schools told the program’s evaluators that they didn’t want to sign up to be subject to unpredictable future creation of regulatory liabilities."
• Dr. Donnie Peal, executive director of the Oklahoma Private School Accreditation Commission (OPSAC), reminds us that Oklahoma private schools are already accountable to state and federal governmental entities as well as to OPSAC, which works in collaboration with and on behalf of the Oklahoma State Department of Education. Dr. Peal says HB 1230 is unnecessary.

UPDATES:

• "Legislation imposing new reporting mandates on a school-choice program has passed the Oklahoma House of Representatives," Ray Carter reported Feb. 19, "even though the legislation does not include specific student-privacy protections that ensure compliance with federal law."
• The day after HB1230 passed the House, the bill's author, state Rep. Mark McBride, flipped off and verbally attacked OCPA president Jonathan Small in the state Capitol building. As Small recounts the incident, McBride's words "included saying I was the 'f' word at least twice, calling me a piece of 's----' twice, saying I was worthless twice, twice referring to me as a derogatory word for male genitalia, and twice telling me to 'scat' like I was some sort of animal."
• Gov. Kevin Stitt signed HB 1230 into law.

Duncan parents of special-needs children allege abuse

Duncan Public Schools superintendent Melonie Hau is heading out the door, KFOR reports.

Wednesday night the school board held a meeting to discuss the next steps after her departure. In the audience were parents and children with signs demanding a change in culture at the school. ... 

"The water got a little too hot for her and it's going to keep on getting hotter," said mother Tiffany Hartfield. Hartfield previously told News 4 that her son, living with a number of conditions, was neglected by Duncan Public Schools. Now, she says she has an attorney and plans to take legal action against the district. 

She was one of many parents present, holding signs before the board that read things like "Stop the Abuse Now." The board did not address the crowd, nor did they take public comment. "I want somebody to know how they're making these kids feel," said Mona Presswood, crying as she held her granddaughter. 

A mother that now lives in California released surveillance video of her child, allegedly dragged by school personnel. She is also taking legal action against the district. She tells News 4 her daughter is still in a body brace a year after the incident. 

Another mother, Elizabeth Scott, said she's glad the superintendent is leaving because she hopes it will start a change from the top-down. She said her daughter, who has epilepsy, once got off a school bus slurring her speech and stumbling. She shared pictures with us that show scratches on the child's arm and abrasions to her forehead.
"She said that the teacher's aide in her class grabbed her arm and twisted it, causing her to hit her head on the board," said Scott. 

She refused to return her child to that teacher and said the school's resolution was to put her back in preschool. "She’s going to be a year behind, she’s going to be almost 7-years-old when she goes back to kindergarten for the second time," Scott said. "I feel like my daughter is being punished because she got hurt, but I had to keep her safe, whatever that took." 

She mentioned her concern for a number of students in special needs classes with her daughter who are nonverbal, unable to tell their parents anything that may happen in the classroom. "There are so many kids in these classes that can’t talk and it's just terrifying to think of what's happening." 

Presswood said that over the course of at least two years, her granddaughter would be yelled at and handled with physical aggression by teachers and a principal. She said it had damaging mental effects on the child. 

"She said 'there were just days that I just wish I wasn’t alive anymore, it would just be so much easier if I wasn't alive," she said. "At no time should any child feel like they’re not good enough or not want to be alive, it's ridiculous."

Oklahoma students with disabilities are eligible to receive a private-school voucher.

House Speaker: ‘Put parents back in charge’

Speaker Charles McCall

In a speech on the floor of the Oklahoma House of Representatives yesterday, Speaker Charles McCall called for increased education funding and teacher pay. Raucous applause and a standing ovation ensued. But then he added this nugget: "At the same time, we must put parents back in charge of their children's education and give underprivileged families more options and more opportunity to thrive."

Also on the House floor yesterday, Speaker Pro Tempore Harold Wright praised former state Rep. Jason Nelson for his work to enact the Lindsey Nicole Henry Scholarship Program for Children with Disabilities, saying the program has made a significant difference for the children who need it.

'I have come from the other side of this nightmare'

Autistic student Seth Sutherlin was bullied severely in public schools. Now a student at Paths to Independence in Bartlesville, Seth says “now I know that I am worth something, my life is worth something.”

Oklahoma voters support educational choice

According to a new statewide survey commissioned by OCPA and conducted by Cor Strategies (502 likely Oklahoma voters; the margin of error is plus/minus 4.37 percent):

• Oklahoma voters support educational choice. Among Republicans, the support is overwhelming.
• When asked what type of school they would select for their own children, roughly half of Oklahomans say they would choose a traditional public school. 
• A plurality of Oklahomans says public schools lack accountability.

Click on the links above to learn more. Trent England and I discussed the survey results today on The Trent England Show. (Be sure to catch the show every weekday at lunchtime on OCPA’s Facebook and YouTube channels. If you miss it live, Trent's archive is here or listen to the podcast on Soundcloud or iTunes.)

Oklahoma GOP lives up to ‘let them eat cake’ stereotype

"Critics often caricature Republicans as greedy and heartless, with little compassion for struggling citizens," The Oklahoman editorialized today. "The state Senate Education Committee did little to undermine that stereotype when it killed legislation benefiting children who are homeless or suffering from mental illness."

According to legend, upon hearing poor people had no bread to eat, Marie Antoinette responded, “Let them eat cake.” For Republican senators to embrace this attitude toward the plight of homeless and mentally ill children is fiscally irresponsible and morally offensive.

Voting in favor of the bill were state senators Brecheen, Ikley-Freeman, Scott, Stanislawski, Sykes, and Thompson. Voting no were state senators Allen, Bergstrom, Dossett, Dugger, Fields, Pemberton, Sharp, and Smalley.

Hospital exec touts Cristo Rey, Good Shepherd

"Over the years, I’ve seen how teamwork between different organizations has led to meaningful programs for our community," writes Di Smalley, regional president of Mercy in Oklahoma.

One recent example involves the Cristo Rey Oklahoma City Catholic High School, which opens this fall. The school offers a rigorous college preparatory curriculum and a unique work-study program to students with limited economic means. As part of the program, students work one day a week in a business setting and receive a salary that pays most of their tuition. Several businesses have already signed on to participate in this transformative new program. ...

Another example was the creation of the Good Shepherd Catholic School at Mercy in fall 2011. Mercy partnered with the University of Central Oklahoma and the Archdiocese of Oklahoma City to open the school, which teaches children with autism or similar neurological disorders beginning at age 2. The accredited program helps nearly 50 children each year become more independent academically and behaviorally so they can transition to a traditional school setting.

Since the school opened, numerous students have spoken for the first time and 21 children have moved on to traditional schools. After three years in the program, one student went from non-verbal to speaking in complete sentences, reading simple books and working on early addition. He has made a few friends and will likely transition to a traditional school within 24 months.

No, public schools don’t take all comers

"The Oklahoma State Department of Education and the schools it serves spend up to $2 million annually—as much as $200,000 per student—to send selected students with profound disabilities to private residential schools in other states," Mike Brake reports.

Henry Scholarships are improving education

"The success of Oklahoma's Lindsey Nicole Henry Scholarship Program proves that when customers have power, providers are more responsive and service improves," the state's largest newspaper editorializes. "This is breaking news only in government."

Critics of the scholarship program argue parents aren't capable of figuring out if their child is properly served in a private school, but then argue those same parents are fully capable of navigating federal, state and local bureaucracies to obtain an improvement in services not being rendered in a public school. If you can do the latter, then obviously you can do the former.

Read the whole thing here.

Henry Scholarship program grows

Ben Felder has the story.

Griffin touts scholarships for foster, adopted children

State Rep. Tim Downing, Robert Ruiz, and state Sen. AJ Griffin are
pictured at the July 6 meeting of the Oklahoma School Choice Coalition.

The video is here, and Jay Chilton has a report here.

Oklahoma expands its private-school choice programs

Oklahoma has two important private-school choice programs. Happily, our state's political leaders expanded both programs during the 2017 legislative session.

Our school voucher program, enacted in 2010, is helping rural students who want a faith-based education, bullied children who contemplated suicide, autistic students, and more.

In 2017, SB 301 expanded the eligibility for this voucher program. Formerly limited to students on an IEP, eligibility now extends to children in foster care (a 2015 OCPA recommendation) and children adopted out of state custody. Click here to see how your state senator voted. Click here to see how your state representative voted. [Updates: State Sen. AJ Griffin discusses the legislation here. Oklahoma Watch reports on the legislation here.]

Oklahoma's tax-credit scholarship program, enacted in 2011, is helping hearing-impaired children, homeless students, teenage students battling addiction, and more.

In 2017, SB 445 made more cap space available for this tax-credit scholarship program. Click here to see how your state senator voted. Click here to see how your state representative voted.

It should come as no surprise that a Republican government would expand parental-choice options. The GOP platforms, both nationally and in Oklahoma, place a strong emphasis on parental rights and educational choice. Moreover, no fewer than seven public-opinion surveys conducted by reputable polling firms over the last few years have shown strong support for school choice among Republican voters. This, of course, helps to explain why Republican political leaders support school choice. Most notable are President Donald Trump and Vice President Mike Pence. (They are embracing the views held by the great President Ronald Reagan, who in his day proposed "a tuition tax credit plan," "a voucher system," and "education savings accounts.") Here at home, Sen. James Lankford, Lt. Gov. Todd Lamb, Gov. Mary Fallin, and others support educational choice.

Given those realities, it's disappointing that school choice hasn't made even more progress. "I think Oklahoma has been way too slow" at expanding school choice, Scott Pruitt told me in 2015. "It's shocking to me, when you look at the individuals that make up our legislative bodies, how most of them are conservative in their viewpoint, they ought to be seizing this opportunity—now—to make Oklahoma the most choice-friendly state in the country."

Unfortunately, that hasn't happened, in part because many of the Republicans in our legislative bodies arrived via the Trojan Horse dragged in by GOP campaign consultants. Regrettably, these operatives are more concerned with collecting lucrative fees than with electing candidates from the Republican wing of the Republican party. And school choice hasn't been the only casualty: Republican politicians, claiming there's a budget "crisis," also continue to raise taxes and increase government spending—even though the CAFR tells us (on page 193) that total state spending is at an all-time high. (You likely didn't know that—but you would if journalists would report the news fully, accurately, and fairly.)

Still, kudos to Oklahoma's political leaders for taking these baby steps toward securing parental rights. There's much more work to be done. All parents have the moral right to direct their child's path. As private-school choice advocate Martin Luther King III says, "fairness demands that every child, not just the rich, has access to an education that will help them achieve their dreams."

Ed choice can help 'sober high school' rescue more kids

Norman mom says voucher, tax-credit scholarship changed her son's life

Terrific column by Beckie Kinard here.

Sen. Dossett introduces anti-choice legislation

A bill filed by Democrat state Sen. J.J. Dossett of Sperry "prioritizes ideological purity over pragmatism, embodies self-contradiction, and could have ripple effects far beyond what even Dossett likely intends," The Oklahoman editorializes today.

The legislation declares that “no state-appropriated funds shall be allocated to, transferred to or used, directly or indirectly, to support a private school that serves pre-kindergarten through twelfth grade students.” 

In short, it's an effort to make it illegal to provide Oklahoma parents with education savings accounts that allow for the use of state funds to send their children to the school of their choice. 

Like many Democrats, Dossett, a former teacher/coach, opposes parental control and school choice in education for ideological reasons. Yet his bill immediately undermines that viewpoint by providing an exemption for the Lindsey Nicole Henry Scholarships for Students with Disabilities Program Act. That program allows families to use taxpayer dollars to send children with special needs, such as autism, to private schools. 

Why make an exception? The likely answer: Because the Lindsey Nicole Henry program is wildly popular and an undoubted success. 

Read the whole thing here.

Disabled student denied entry into Piedmont schools

"Piedmont school officials refused to admit a 17-year-old disabled student into the district even though his mother was an employee at the time," Tim Farley reports. "This isn’t the first time parents with disabled children have encountered problems gaining services or entry into Piedmont schools."

Yet another reminder of why Oklahoma's special-needs voucher program is so important.