OK Policy recognizes Choice Remarks

"If you’re an Oklahoman interested in state politics and policy, it’s not easy to know which blogs provide good information and interesting perspectives on the issues you care about," writes David Blatt of the Oklahoma Policy Institute. David put together a list of 15 key blogs, and was kind enough to include Choice Remarks, about which he wrote:

One of several blogs maintained by Oklahoma Council of Public Affairs vice president Brandon Dutcher, this blog focuses on education issues and pushes for alternatives to traditional public education through tax credits, vouchers, and charter schools. With Republicans solidly in control at the state Capitol, Brandon’s blog is likely to be an increasingly influential source of ideas on education policy for the state’s elected leaders.

Thanks, David, for the good word.

Local school district mulls starting voucher program

The state's third-largest school district is considering starting a voucher program which would give students public money to attend private schools.

In Colorado, alas. But it's something to think about here in Oklahoma.

'Bullying and harassment'

Scholarship or no scholarship, one mother isn't putting her special-needs child back in the public school. "To put him back in that school system where he would be one in 700 in a big building, it would just open him back up to the bullying and harassment that he got before," she says.

'More parents look into private schools'

There's an excellent story in yesterday's Tulsa World ('More parents look into private schools') with a very helpful table showing just how affordable private schools really are.

For purposes of comparison, I will remind you that the per-pupil cost in Oklahoma's public schools is $10,257 and will once again reissue the challenge to debate anyone who thinks that figure is incorrect.

School board member: abolish trial de novo

Yesterday in The Oklahoman, Karen Youngblood, a school board member in Yukon, said it's time to

empower local schools to reward good teachers and effectively deal with bad ones. We should abolish trial de novo, the system that allows a teacher who rejects all corrective help, goes through the long process of discipline, and loses their case before the local school board to immediately file suit in district court and start the entire process over with a lesser standard. This costs taxpayers up to $50,000 to fire a bad teacher.

Oklahoma leaders want kids to have more options

Kris Steele

I mentioned yesterday that Speaker-elect Kris Steele supports school choice for special-needs kids (and I suspect for plenty more kids as well).

Brian Bingman

Oklahoma's new Senate leader, Brian Bingman, also supported the special-needs scholarship bill and favors other school choice options as well. Sen. Bingman was among a group of Oklahomans who traveled to Pennsylvania last year to see firsthand how school choice is working there. As Patrick McGuigan reported, "the group visited 'choice' schools in the Keystone State, talked with organizers of Pennsylvania's tax credit program, interacted with a bipartisan mix of lawmakers and activists, and had the opportunity to press for details on how the program works in practice."

Mary Fallin

And our friends at the Center for Education Reform remind us that our Governor-elect, Mary Fallin, is also a friend of school choice. Indeed, while in Congress, Fallin co-sponsored the "School Choice for Foster Kids Act," a bill which would authorize states to provide vouchers to foster kids to cover tuition costs at private schools.

Janet Barresi

Add to this a new state Superintendent, Janet Barresi, who helped launch two public charter schools and who supports a variety of choice options (including school choice for special-needs kids).

In short, we are entering a new era in Oklahoma, and likely will be participating in the seismic shift that is taking place nationwide.

Waiting for 'Superman' and The Lottery stir state response

"Two powerful motion pictures were previewed recently in Oklahoma City," Patrick McGuigan reports, "drawing diverse advocates of education reform to view the films and participate in panel discussions about charter schools, parental choice, and other issues."

Speaker-elect favors special-needs scholarships

Congratulations to state Rep. Kris Steele (R-Shawnee), the new Speaker-elect of the Oklahoma House of Representatives. Earlier this year on the House floor, Rep. Steele voiced his support for the special-needs scholarship program and vowed to stick with it for the long haul.

Rep. Steele also offered the invocation prior to OCPA's September 15 dinner in Tulsa featuring Sarah Palin, another big fan of Oklahoma's special-needs scholarship law.

Exile?

A few weeks ago I tweeted, "The SQ 744 folks are burning bridges left and right. Their out-of-state rent-a-hacks don't care, but OEA should. They sure as heck better win."

Well, they didn't win. The rent-a-hacks are off to the next gig, and OEA is left to survey the wreckage.

"I'd like to think SQ 744 is the OEA's equivalent of Napoleon's attempt to conquer Russia," one of my more astute friends observed. Let's hope so.

After all, I would remind state legislators that, first, the OEA sued you. Then, continuing their how-to-make-friends-and-influence-people blitzkrieg, they spent millions of dollars telling your constituents how greedy and deceptive you are. They reminded your constituents over and over that "some really greedy people" -- the "highest-paid in the region," no less -- are desperately trying to "protect their perks and privileges." But not to worry, they told your constituents, even though the "politicians are trying to deceive you," they were there to "take on the Oklahoma legislature.

Well, deceptive and greedy legislators, they took you on. Now what?

At a minimum, state legislators should politely inform the OEA that the days of blank checks without reform are over. Even liberals now acknowledge the need for reform:

1. Tulsa World editorial writer Wayne Greene says "spending more money for the same methods is sending good money after bad. Funding without reform is expensive and worthless at the same time."
2. President Barack Obama acknowledges that "money without reform will not fix the problem." 
3. Ed Allen, president of the Oklahoma City American Federation of Teachers, AFL-CIO, says "reform must come first and the dollars to support achievement must follow. As educators, we must accept the fact that reform is here and it is not going away. Demanding dollars without reform is a losing argument, morally unacceptable, and politically unattainable."

So consider whatever reform our friends on the left might suggest, all the while moving forward with robust reform: expanding school choice, for example, and getting rid of tenure and de novo review. On the school-choice front, leadership will come from OEA targets like Jabar Shumate and Jason Nelson, as well as Dan Newberry.

"Isn't it time for the politicians to take a back seat?" one 744 ad asked? No, actually, now that Oklahoma's new center-right government is in place, it's time for the state's most powerful labor union to take a back seat. Maybe even a well-deserved exile.

[Cross-posted at OCPA]

Broken Arrow indigence watch

Broken Arrow's top school official doesn't like special-needs scholarships because he says “we don’t have enough money to fund what we do now.”

But they do have enough money for a new 14,500-square-foot locker room.

SCOTUS to hear school-choice arguments today

This morning the United States Supreme Court will hear what one scholar calls "one of the most important education cases in a generation." Here's more information on the Arizona tax credit program:

'School drug deal leads to overdose'

"Four teenagers are hospitalized after allegedly abusing prescription pills at a local high school," KFOR reports.

'Get rid of the deadwood'

Tulsa World editorial writer Wayne Greene has done yeoman's work pointing out the many problems with SQ 744. One reason he plans to vote against the measure is that

it fails to deal with the problem of dead-wood teachers in public schools. Most public school teachers enjoy the public school equivalent of tenure: Firing them is so expensive and time-consuming that school administrators are only willing to do it in the most outrageous of cases. That keeps incompetent teachers in the classroom. SQ 744 does nothing to address the problem. 

I'm reminded that in 2002, liberal state Rep. Debbie Blackburn (D-Oklahoma City), herself a former schoolteacher, acknowledged: "I taught with people that I thought should never have been in the profession." It might make sense to "get rid of the deadwood," she said.

Unfortunately, rather than evaluating Oklahoma's 37,660 teachers as individual professionals, their labor unions tend to treat them more like unskilled laborers, interchangeable automatons. But of course it's silly to speak of "teachers" as a monolithic mass. In reality, there are excellent teachers, good teachers, mediocre teachers, and those "incompetent teachers" Mr. Greene mentioned. Guy Strickland, an award-winning teacher, principal, and educational researcher, says the most informed estimates are that 5 to 15 percent of teachers are incompetent.

If he's correct, that's 1,883 to 5,649 incompetent teachers in Oklahoma. Quite apart from the damage being done to students, why should Oklahoma's hardworking waitresses and nurses and small-businessmen be forced to spend their hard-earned money paying the salaries of a few thousand incompetents? It makes no sense.

Fortunately, there are encouraging signs that things could be changing. Movies like Waiting for 'Superman' and The Lottery could portend a coming earthquake.