Survey says Oklahoma homeschoolers are stacking up well

First, let me point you to this FOX 25 homeschooling story which aired last night. (Full disclosure: I'm hopelessly biased towards the homeschooled children in this story.)

In related homeschooling news, a new survey released this week by the Friedman Foundation and OCPA contains a couple of interesting nuggets. The statewide survey was conducted by Braun Research, Inc., a firm which has been used by such research organizations as Gallup and the Pew Research Center. It has a margin of error of ± 4.0 percentage points. Oklahoma voters were asked: "If you know one or more families that homeschool their children, what is your impression of the quality of their education?" A plurality of voters, 45 percent, rate the education as "good" or "excellent," while 28 percent say it is "fair" or "poor." (The other 27 percent don’t know a homeschool family or didn’t give a response.)

By way of comparison, the same survey asked respondents to rate Oklahoma's public school system. While 39 percent rate it as "good" or "excellent," 58 percent say it is "fair" or "poor."

Also of interest is the question below about what option parents would select for their own child. Eleven percent of Oklahomans say they would choose to homeschool.

'Utilizing charter schooling strengthens rural education'

Interesting piece by Andy Smarick here.

Oklahomans want educational choices

Charters, vouchers, tax credits, ESAs, you name it.

Tulsa school puts 6-year-old on wrong bus

The child's mother is justifiably upset.

Terrific online courses from Logos Press

Computer-based classical Christian education.

Oklahoma gets a 'D' on student achievement

Here's a wealth of data from the latest "Quality Counts" report.

'Keeping sex predators out of schoolrooms'

Campbell Brown, a former news anchor with CNN, wants to know why " the most powerful constituency in education is making it more difficult to protect children from molesters."

School Choice Week is drawing near, and 'public education' is changing

'Ponca City student arrested after police find guns, drug paraphernalia'

News9.com has the story.

Christian Montessori School helped shape Steph Curry

The Golden State Warriors and their superstar Stephen Curry will be town to play the Thunder on Friday night. With National School Choice Week just around the corner, listen to Curry talk about what his Christian Montessori School meant to him.

'The Common Coring of private schools'

"Common Core is already moving the nation’s education system toward greater uniformity," Jason Bedrick writes.

It's a new year, and public education is changing

You may have noticed that some Oklahomans are terribly concerned with this matter of increasing per-pupil spending in the public school system. And though I don’t happen to share that concern, recently in the state’s largest newspaper, The Oklahoman, I offered some suggestions on how to do just that. For example, school choice — vouchers, tax credits, and education savings accounts — can incentivize parents to choose nonpublic schools, thus increasing per-pupil funding in the government’s schools.

In fact, the very idea of public education is changing, as I point out in the January 1, 2014 issue of the Oklahoma Gazette. “Public education” simply means we want an “educated public” — and it doesn’t matter if that education takes place in a traditional public school, a charter school, a private school, a virtual school, or even a home school. After all,

A heavily unionized government monopoly is not the best system for delivering mail — or education. And just as email and Facebook are killing the government’s postal monopoly, disruptive innovation is coming to education, too. In the Information Age, parents have more choices than ever. Pennsylvania state Sen. Anthony Williams, a liberal African-American Democrat, calls it an “antiquated belief” that the existing public school system has “the right of first refusal when it comes to educating our children. An innovative and productive public education system can include home schooling, parochial schools, private schools, cyber schools, public charter schools and, yes, traditional public schools — all of which I support.”

As do I, and I encourage you to read the entire article here.

Arizona may expand ESAs

EAGnews.org has the story.