'State of educational emergency'

"The [Oklahoma City school] district — and more importantly, its students — are in a state of educational emergency," the state's largest newspaper editorialized today.

What to do about it? Well, obviously the same old non-solutions will be repackaged and trotted out for the umpteenth time. Nothing we can do about that. But here's one small request. While the education producers and "stakeholders" and labor unions continue to tinker with the statist quo, how about tossing a life preserver to some kids in the district who need new hope right now, and whose childhood won't wait for the promised reforms to take effect?

'At wit's end'

"After a fight that sent a Capitol Hill High School student to the hospital with stab wounds Thursday, students and parents are left to wonder if the halls of Oklahoma City schools are safe," The Oklahoman reported yesterday ('Knife attack at Capitol Hill leaves some parents in fear').

Sean Pearl, a 17-year-old junior at the school, said he saw the fight and he and his classmates immediately feared for their safety.

"I was scared," Pearl said. "After they put us on lockdown, I got a teacher to let me go to the bathroom so I could call him (my dad) and get him to come get me. I heard people saying they were going to come up here (to the school) with guns and stuff like that."

Pearl said the sudden and swift attack was carried out with a penknife.

"I saw a guy put a bandana over his face, and then he ran up behind the guy (the victim), stabbed him five times in the back, once in the side, once in the arm and slashed his neck open," Pearl said.

Pearl was back on campus Thursday evening with his father, Henry Pearl, to attend a student-parent-teacher conference. Henry Pearl said he didn't feel like his son was safe at Capitol Hill. But with little more than a year left for Sean in high school, Henry said he didn't think there was much else that could be done to protect his son before his schooling ends.

"I just pray," the elder Pearl said. "I pray a lot." ...

"The security does need to be beefed up here," he said. "I'm at wits end. I hated to even have to send my son to this school because of the name it's made for itself. I grew up in Midwest City in the '70s and I knew about Capitol Hill. It's only gotten worse."

While he's praying, Mr. Pearl should pray that the New Hope Scholarship Program being pushed by Sen. James Williamson passes the Oklahoma legislature. Sen. Williamson's bill would give new hope to students at certain schools (and Capitol Hill High School is one of the schools on the list).

New life for school-choice bill

Today the state Senate voted in favor of a tax credit for private-school scholarship programs. State Sen. James A. Williamson (R-Tulsa) successfully attached his amendment creating the New Hope Scholarship Program (formerly the Great Schools Tax Credit Program) to SB 1556, which passed the Senate by a vote of 30 to 18. The amendment provides a tax credit for taxpayers who contribute to organizations that provide scholarships for low-income children to attend an elementary or secondary private school in a county with a population of more than 450,000.

State Sen. Kenneth Corn (D-OEA) voted against Williamson's measure, saying "cherry-picking a handful of students and pulling resources out of public education does nothing to fix the main problem." Cherry-picking? The students at issue here are those trapped in the worst inner-city schools in Oklahoma! Sen. Corn further argues that the money for tax credits will reduce the amount of money available for public schools. Of course, OCPA has already demonstrated that, to the contrary, per-pupil expenditures would increase under Williamson's plan. For his edification, I e-mailed Sen. Corn a copy of our spreadsheet which demonstrates this quite clearly.

Newspaper defends parents' 'right to choose'

Hats off to the state's largest newspaper for defending Oklahomans' constitutional right to educate their own children at home. Back in 2002 the newspaper declared that "The Oklahoman is often critical of ... this state’s unwieldy Populist Era constitution. But today, more than ever, we are grateful for those who provided reasonable, explicit and just protection for parental prerogatives to direct and guide the education of their own children."

And in a house editorial today ('Right to choose'), The Oklahoman pronounced as "nonsense" one labor union official's assertion that homeschooling parents are "gullible amateurs." (My homeschooled fifth-grade daughter could tell you -- even if that union official could not -- that "amateur" derives from the Latin word for love. One reason homeschooling succeeds is that parents love their children and are devoted to their success in a way that no school employee could possibly be. As Christ taught in another context, the hireling doesn't care for the sheep like the shepherd does.)

"Some parents aren't cut out for teaching their own, but there also are poor public schools and poor professionally trained teachers," The Oklahoman noted. "Homeschooling is a valuable option for parents and should be protected."

Unions keep children trapped

In a column yesterday in The Edmond Sun, I remind folks that the school-employee labor unions can't tolerate any escapees.

Cal Thomas on the exodus

"The government schools want to shape a child's mind in ways that reflect a mostly liberal, humanistic worldview," Cal Thomas writes this week.

This has implications for a child's understanding of economics, foreign policy, American history and the size and purpose of government, in addition to what once were known as "traditional values." It is about reflecting the worldview of the teachers unions, who are in the pocket of the Democratic Party. In other words, the Left uses public schools to produce the next generation of Democrats.

The tragedy is that too many conservative Christian, Republican parents who want their children to have a different worldview - their own - willingly participate in the destruction of their children's minds by turning them over to a way of thinking that is antithetical to their beliefs. Parents who worship at conservative churches on Sunday willingly send their children to schools five days a week where what they are taught undermines what they learned in church and at home. They would never think of taking their kids to a church that teaches doctrines opposed to their beliefs, but they don't give a second thought to doing the same thing by sending them to government schools. It makes no sense.

Some parents don't have much of a choice: Their (tax) money is being used to support the public schools, and there's not enough paycheck left over for private school tuition. Which is why these parents need vouchers or tax credits.

Remediation bill points up the need for school choice

The good news: Oklahoma schools are teaching phonics. The bad news: It’s in college.

To cite just one example (sadly, there are many) of what goes on at many of our institutions of "higher education," students at Tulsa Community College can take a college English course called Spelling and Phonics, which is "designed for the student who needs to master basic spelling literacy and principles of phonics." Ponder it, folks. I can’t make this stuff up.

Taxpayers already paid for K-12 education once; now they are forced to pay for it again. According to last year’s annual Student Remediation Report produced for the Oklahoma State Regents of Higher Education, more than one-third of Oklahoma students require remedial courses in college.

In an attempt to do something about it, yesterday the Oklahoma House of Representatives unanimously passed legislation creating a Task Force on Student Remediation.

As you think about "Spelling and Phonics" and about high-school students watching movies in class, I want you to consider the requirements facing students hoping to be admitted to Harvard College around 1700: "Everyone competent to read Cicero or any other classic author of that kind extemporaneously, and also to speak and write Latin prose and verse with tolerable skill and without assistance, and of declining the Greek nouns and verbs, may expect to be admitted to the College: if deficient in any of these qualifications, he cannot under any circumstances be admitted."

Do you think it’s possible Oklahoma’s K-12 education system is dumbed down? Last year my homeschooled eighth-grade son learned Algebra II, Henle Latin I, intermediate logic, physical science, grammar, and composition. Here are some (not all) of the books he read and discussed: The Epic of Gilgamesh; The Code of Hammurabi; The Odyssey; The Histories; The Oresteia Trilogy; Plutarch’s Lives; The Theban Trilogy; The Last Days of Socrates; The Early History of Rome; The Aeneid; The Twelve Caesars; Till We Have Faces; The Unaborted Socrates; Genesis; Exodus; I and II Samuel; I and II Kings; Isaiah; Jeremiah; Chosen by God; and Socrates Meets Jesus.

If parents want this kind of education for their children and the public schools won’t deliver it, those parents should be given a voucher or a tax credit which allows them to choose another option.

If you enter college needing to learn “Spelling and Phonics” – something you should have learned in first grade – suffice it to say you’ve been ripped off.

Rebutting six common charter school criticisms

School choice opponents often recycle the same tired arguments against common-sense reforms. The Center for Education Reform has issued a paper rebutting, with proof, six common attacks used by opponents of charter schools:

Here are the six erroneous criticisms:

1) Creates Balkanization in Education (The "Charter Schools Segregate" Argument)
2) Competition Has No Impact (The Anti-Ripple Argument)
3) Innovation Is Lacking (The "Prove It's So Different" Argument)
4) More Accountability is Needed (The Process Versus Progress Argument)
5) No Evidence That They Work (The Double Standard Argument)
6) The Common Good Is Undermined, Sort Of (The "Choice Is Bad For Democracy" Argument)

The CER shoots down each of these attacks in turn. While this is not a recent paper -- it's from 2002 -- these anti-charter arguments are still in play.

Their parting shot:

Charter schools are based largely upon accountability. They must be approved by a state agency designed to review the quality and effectiveness of these schools. If the applications cannot clear the bar, or if the schools do not meet their contractual obligations, the public good is not served and the school will not be approved or will be shut down.

Can traditional public schools make the same claim?

(Hat tip to Tulsa Chiggers, a leading blog advocating for charter schools in Oklahoma.)

Ed secretary: Consider school choice

Business as usual ain't gonna cut it, U.S. Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings told the members of a joint House and Senate Education Committee meeting this morning. "The same old thing isn't going to get it done," she said. "We need to look at things like charter schools and school choice -- a lot of things that are not business as usual."

Oklahoma educrats full of hot air

U.S. Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings once said, "School choice is part of the strategy to give every child an excellent education."

Secretary Spellings will be the featured speaker tomorrow at a joint meeting of the Oklahoma House and Senate Education Committees. One of the reasons choice is so important -- and one hopes Secretary Spellings will mention this tomorrow -- is that, as Kevin Carey has pointed out, the folks in charge of Oklahoma's government-run schools aren't leveling with parents when it comes to school performance. Mr. Carey is the author of the OCPA study Hot Air: How Oklahoma Inflates Its Educational Progress Under No Child Left Behind.

For example, according to Mapping Oklahoma's Educational Progress 2008, a new publication from the U.S. Department of Education, only 27 percent of Oklahoma's fourth-graders are proficient in reading. But Oklahoma's education officials would have you believe an astonishing 88 percent of our fourth-graders are proficient in reading. They are full of hot air, as you will see if you read Mr. Carey's report.

Next argument, please

In a letter to the editor published today in The Oklahoman, labor union official Jamie McCoy of Midwest City writes:

In "Bipartisanship for the children” (Opinion, Feb. 10), Brandon Dutcher is again demonstrating his persistence to push for vouchers and tax credits. Senate Bill 2148 is promoting itself as the "Great Schools Tax Credit Program Act." The bill would give money back to any Oklahoma taxpayer who donates money to fund scholarships for low-income students to attend private schools.

It sounds good, but vouchers or tax credits reduce the resources available to ensure great public schools for every child. Our per-pupil expenditures are already among the lowest in the country. Dutcher continues to suggest limiting the funding for public education is good for Oklahoma.

It's hard for me, as an Oklahoma teacher, to understand how our legislators can justify taking away tax money that funds a public education offered to every child.

If McCoy truly is concerned about "per-pupil expenditures," one wonders why she didn't do even basic research on the tax-credit plan before denouncing it. She would have discovered that, um, per-pupil expenditures would increase, not decrease, under the plan. As Dr. Susan Aud explains:

When a student uses school choice, the local public school district no longer needs to pay the instructional costs associated with that student, but it does not lose all of its per-student revenue, because some revenue does not vary with enrollment levels. Thus, school choice produces a positive fiscal impact for school districts as well as for state budgets. ... Instructional spending per student has consistently gone up in all affected public school districts and states. School choice has not prevented those states and districts from spending more on the students who remain in public schools.

Indeed, accountant and OCPA research fellow Steve Anderson, formerly a state-certified teacher with 17 teaching certifications, has prepared a spreadsheet showing that under the plan McCoy denounces, expenditures would increase by more than $200 per pupil -- and that's if only 2,500 scholarships were granted. The per-pupil expenditure would rise with each additional scholarship granted.

School choice for autistic children

"Improved education for autistic children is the goal of a bill being considered in the Oklahoma Legislature," the Associated Press reported yesterday. "The bill filed by Senator Mary Easley is intended to allow more children with this developmental disorder to be included in regular classrooms and to give more support and training to teachers to make this happen."

Here's a better idea: Use vouchers or tax credits to help children with autism and other special needs, as Ohio and Utah are doing.

'School competition needs a push'

Charter schools "fill an important niche for families who want to stay in public schools but aren't happy with the traditional options," the state's largest newspaper editorialized today.

As we've noted before, charter schools exist because traditional public schools aren't getting the job done. That competition is a sore spot with many public school officials, and no doubt a key reason why legislators are so reluctant to further open up the education market. They're hesitant to go against the wishes of educators in the areas they represent.

We understand lawmakers' unwillingness to move quickly when it comes to charter schools and other sticky issues. But they've been beyond cautious with charter schools, operating at a snail's pace. It's time they quit catering to the whims of those who prefer the status quo and let the market — namely parents — decide whether more charter schools are a good idea. Perhaps then, traditional public schools will fully embrace the challenge of improving education for all students instead of complaining about the competition.