Tulsa board chided for keeping charter schools suit alive

In a Friday editorial, the Oklahoman took the Tulsa school board to task for continuing its lawsuit against the state's charter school law. The TPS board claims the law is unconstitutional because it limits charter schools to certain parts of the state based on population and district size.

Charter schools exist because many parents and educators aren't happy with what they see at traditional schools. Some are in direct competition with traditional public schools; others have programs that serve students who have struggled in a traditional education setting. That's not to say all charter schools are perfect and a great fit for every student. But we believe the marketplace will sort the good from the bad, and parents ultimately will vote with their children's feet.

Charter schools were designed to be incubators for new ideas that could be replicated. Instead, we tend to hear excuses on why some of their innovations won't work in regular schools. Even Oklahoma City, which has been a more welcoming environment for charter schools than Tulsa, has had tense and sometimes hostile relationships with charter schools.

We said when the lawsuit was filed that it was a waste of money. It still is. Schools -- and school boards -- would do better to embrace the competition as an opportunity for students to receive a better education and a challenge to do better. That's not too much to ask.

The editorial refers to a December 15 attempt by TPS board members Brian Hunt and Lana Turner-Addison to drop the lawsuit. The motion failed by a 4-2 vote.

(Crossposted at BatesLine.)

School choice makes a difference for autistic child

Horace Mann, homeschool dad

"We need to focus on fixing and improving our public schools, not throwing our hands up and walking away from them," said President-elect Barack Obama, shortly before throwing up his hands and walking away from the D.C. public schools last month. This presumably wasn't too difficult for Obama, in that he already had experience in throwing up his hands and walking away from the Chicago public schools.

Of course Mr. Obama, a father of two, is merely the latest in a long line of public figures who champion public schools ... for other people's children. But until reading a new book by education professor Milton Gaither, I had no idea this grand tradition stretches all the way back to Horace Mann himself.

That's right, Horace Mann, generally regarded as the father of America's current public school system, was a homeschooler. "Ironically," Gaither writes, "some of the very people pushing so strongly for common schools that would raise the masses up ... were tutoring their own children at home out of a fear that these very masses would corrupt their own kids. One such individual was Horace Mann himself, whose wife Mary taught their three children at home even as he stumped the country preaching the common school. Mann's biographer Jonathan Messerli captures the irony well:

From a hundred platforms, Mann had lectured that the need for better schools was predicated upon the assumption that parents could no longer be entrusted to perform their traditional roles in moral training and that a more systematic approach with the public school was necessary. Now as a father, he fell back on the educational responsibilities of the family, hoping to make the fireside achieve for his own son what he wanted the schools to accomplish for others.

'Attention! We stink at what we do!'

Education reporter Mike Antonucci nails it:

The people who collected $338 million this year for the specific purpose of getting higher salaries for teachers yesterday sent out a press release admitting they're no good at it, and haven't been for years.

State budget shortfalls? School choice can help

The good news: Oklahoma state government will have less money to spend in the next budget year.

The better news: State lawmakers can help alleviate the budget shortfall by enacting school choice. "Lawmakers should take note of a state report from Florida," Cato's Adam Schaeffer writes, "that concludes Florida is saving millions of dollars with school choice. ... The Office of Program Policy Analysis & Government Accountability found that taxpayers saved about $39 million, close to 50 cents for ever dollar donated through Florida's education tax credit program last year. The report concludes much more could be saved if politicians expand the program and give families more choice."

School choice works ...

... for the Obamas.

Quote of the day

"I don't know much about Arne Duncan, President-elect Obama's choice to be Secretary of Education," David Boaz writes this morning. "But I do note this: In seven years running the Chicago public schools, this longtime friend of Obama was apparently not able to produce a single public school that Obama considered good enough for his own children."

'School for $6 a month'

In a new commentary on Forbes.com, Chester Finn reports that "lots of needy kids are getting a decent education at an astoundingly low cost in spite of their governments' failure to provide anything of the sort."

What a surprise

The Chicago Public Schools weren't good enough for Barack Obama's children, and apparently they're not good enough for Rahm Emanuel's children, either.

The next frontier in school choice?

The venerable American Enterprise Institute hosts a discussion on tax credits Monday.

What the Big Three automakers could learn from public schools

Don't ask for a mere one-time bailout, Andrew Coulson says. Ask for permanent government ownership and control.

Private schools are regulated

"There is a widespread misperception that private schools avoid government oversight or are 'unregulated,'" the Friedman Foundation reports. But in fact, Oklahoma's private schools "are subject to a wide variety of laws and regulations that run the gamut from reasonable rules to ensure health and safety to unreasonable rules that interfere with school curricula, preventing schools from pursuing the educational approaches that work best for their students."

Black market alive and well

[Guest post by OCPA intern Emily Solomon]

The black market for school choice is still alive and well in Oklahoma.

In the December issue of Perspective, published by OCPA, Dr. Donald Tyler, pastor of Greater Grace in Tulsa, pointed out that in Tulsa, "Some kids are able, by using false addresses, to get into the better public schools -- Union or Jenks or Broken Arrow -- but there are kids who cannot go that direction. It's just awful to see the number stuck in an environment with not the best the teachers, not the best facilities, and not the best environment for them to learn and grow in."

Of course, it's not just Tulsa. Last year (and likely again this year), Edmond schools required enrollees to bring a utility bill on enrollment day to prove their residency within the district. This wouldn't be necessary if people weren't trying to cheat the system. But can you blame them? They just want what's best for their kids.