THE EDUCATORS MAKE THEIR MOVE - ACTIONS AGAINST VIRTUAL CHARTER SCHOOLS LOOM - WAS LAST YEAR'S INVESTIGATION A HOAX?
THE WATCHMAN
Let’s face it folks. It’s the time of the year for the annual culling of legislation being offered by alleged good legislators who in reality are doing nothing more than paying back the people who paid for their campaigns. First up to get headlines were educators and former educators. What was their interest? They seem to feel that charter schools, particularly virtual charter schools are getting to much of the education dollar. That comes as no surprise. Both of the unions have been fighting against charter schools for years. They want those dollars for themselves.
We first caught wind of what was going on from this article from www.OklahomaWatch.org. We recognized a few of the names mentioned as being either educators or former educators. We really have no problem with that. It’s a noble profession.
The very next day we read this article from the www.MuskogeePolitico.com listing an additional legislator who has filed legislation concerning Charter Schools. This is when we decided to do a little investigation of our own. What we found was not good. The list of wrongdoing runs the length of a football field. Manipulations of investigations, Overlooking the true culprits in order to make a case against those that are innocent. Lawsuits and the Oklahoma State Attorney General were even involved. All this was done just so these weasels who call themselves politicians and educators would have a reference to stand on to support their legislation. All of this is straight out of Alinsky’s book “Rules for Radicals.” It’s enough to make you sick.
We guess these people think the rest of us are just plain stupid and would have forgotten all about this snafu they had over the investigation last summer. They should remember, it’s the age of electronics and records are easily found. Articles like this one that highlights the fake news frenzy and cover up of the real villain in this charade. What a joke these people are.
Then there was this late report we found here from KFOR news where they once again specifically name Epic Charter Schools and a Senator involved in the investigation and pending lawsuit is making even more accusations. We shall quote from the article “Some of these are request bills from superintendent board members,” Senator Sharp told News 4. “They are concerned about the amount of money that is being used for recruitment.” Most of these bills actually look to regulate the existence of virtual charter schools out of existence because one single man has had his feelings hurt along with the teacher’s unions.
Since we’ve already mentioned his name, we are going to start by presenting you with the Biography page for Senator Sharp here. Right there beside his photograph he lists his occupation as a retired teacher. There was no indication of where or what grades he taught, but we know that being an educator is a trying yet rewarding career. We will give him credit for that. We can understand his concern over funding for every school seeing that he does sit on the Appropriations Subcommittee for Education. There begins the trouble though.
As a sitting member of the Appropriations Subcommittee for Education his actions over the course of the last year have created a conflict of interest by the simple fact of being involved in a lawsuit against him by one of the schools, he would appropriate funds to. Recusing himself would not be an appropriate remedy as he would still be able to influence the budget coming from that committee.
He has submitted two bills for consideration. The first is SB 1100 which you can read at this link. The bill is not to egregious and in fact most of the articles have already been in place. We must ask though, does every single brick and mortar school district get reviewed like this annually? The answer is no. Laying these added burdens to strictly charter schools is designed to add to their cost and drive them out of business.
The second bill Senator Sharp submitted was SB 1153 which you can read at this link. This bill is applied to all public, charter and virtual charter schools alike. We do have a problem with the effective date. We see no interest, upheaval in society or danger to the public safety that would necessitate that “Section 2. This act shall become effective July 1, 2020. Section 3. It being immediately necessary for the preservation of the public peace, health or safety, an emergency is hereby declared to exist, by reason whereof this act shall take effect and be in full force from and after it’s passage and approval.” The only emergency we can see is getting you off that committee so you can stop harassing some of the only places where our children are educated and not indoctrinated.
The next legislator that came to our attention was Senator J.J. Dossett. We went to his Biography page here. We would first like to thank him for his service with the Oklahoma Air National Guard. He lists his employment as being a teacher. A job that gets harder every year. He has submitted SB 1097 for consideration. You can read the entire bill at this link. What this bill would do is beginning in two years students that desire to enroll full time in virtual schools would still be required to enroll in certain classes within the public-school system. This completely guts the virtual system of any usefulness. In addition, the student funding would be split between the public-school and the virtual school. That equals more money for fraud waste and abuse in the public-schools as they are.
We next went to the proposal of Senator Gary Stanislawski. We went to his biography page at this link and found that he is the only legislator in those we are highlighting that is not an educator. He did serve his country for several years and for that we thank him for his service. He has proposed SB 1541 which you can see at this link. His proposal is not solely directed at the virtual charter schools. His proposal has the appearance of defining the duties and responsibilities of the Department of Education as well as what public-schools, charter schools and virtual charter schools must do to make the system work.
We next went to Representative Lundy Kiger’s official Biography page here and there was no biographical information there. We next went to www.votesmart.org to see what information they could provide. We found the information here. He turns out to be the former Principal of Panama Public Schools. He has two proposals that he has filled. The first is HB 3065 which you can read here. There is just no easy way to say this. His proposal would just place a limit on the amount of funding virtual charter schools would get. He knows that doing so would force virtual charter schools to provide services to fewer and fewer individuals. This is a blatant attempt to run a business out of the state.
His second proposal is HB 3066 which you can see at this link, seems more like a proposal that has been made so his name will be in the books of Oklahoma History forever. Like it or not all schools advertise. It’s the nature of the beast. To apply this law equally and fairly it would have to apply to all institutes of higher education as well. Why must they make this state look stupid?
Then we get to Representative D. Fincher. We went to his official web biography page which you can find here, and found that he too has a career in education. He has made to proposals to the legislature this year. The first is HB 3405 which you can read here. This bill is something that should already be done in the school districts and charter schools. It does however allow the school district that is sponsoring the charter school to receive 5% of the charter schools allotted funding for administrative fees.
His second proposal is HB 3414 which you can read here. This deals with the transfer of students between districts. It would affect charter schools within a district, but we don’t see an impact on virtual charter schools.
As you can see, last summer’s investigation of Epic Charter School was a set up for this legislation to begin the dismantling of such education efforts in our state. The old saying of follow the money rings true here. School districts want the money that are being used to fund these students in charter schools and we ask for what? The Oklahoma Board of Education promotes liberal activism disguised as Civics that report you can see here. Two years after a 20% increase in education spending and what do the citizens get, a decline in the overall knowledge that our children has actually declined.
In closing none of these proposals are worthy of being passed into law. All they do is fulfill promises made to donors to campaigns. There should be no changes made and no further increase in education spending until teachers start teaching instead of indoctrinating.
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