Charter Schools Under Attack
from Teacher Unions
and Sycophant Education
Lobbyists and Legislators
The teacher unions and their puppet legislators are pushing for accountability of the money spent on admin costs but as a private vendor contracting with state agencies, they are not required to disclose their costs. Neither does the mechanic that fixes their buses or the company that provides their janitorial supplies.
In 2013 Fallin had been muscled into requesting an OSBI investigation but after the report had been turned into the AG office no charges were filed and all involved kept silent, other than supporters of Epic pointing out they had been falsely accused. Yet the rumors ginned up by the teachers unions led to the law enforcement arm of the DOE, the Office of the Inspector General, to meet with Oklahoma City and Tulsa school administrators.
Open records requests have been given to both the Tulsa Public Schools and the Department of Education asking for all the info available on the alleged investigation. One such request from www.SoonerPolitcs.org has been sitting unanswered for about three weeks, a troubling thing.....
Sooner Tea Party has turned in our own Open Records requests to both the Tulsa and State Department of Education to see the purported emails concerning the federal investigation and visit. But the Tulsa World, the instigator of spreading these rumors sold as news stories, is claiming that dual enrollment in Epic and private schools or learning centers is being looked at.
The agency running the charter schools says that there are no official complaints against the charter schools on that issue but said that the use of public funds to aid a private or sectarian school is prohibited. And that would be a problem if the private schools or tutoring centers were getting the state money instead of Epic. The prohibition would be against Epic enrolling students on a part time basis, something that the parents of Epic kids tell he just doesn't happen. You go all in or you home school or use a private school.
In fact, the only credible information about the investigation issue is a Facebook post where a Tulsa mom was upset that others were taking advantage of public tax money by using Epic. An Epic administer responded that they had no control over what a student or parent did in their free time. And that Tulsa mom appears to be quite the kook, having five kids enrolled in five different public school systems. She appeared to blame the schools for her kids failing grades.
Most of the legislation attacking Epic and the other charter schools has been left behind but HB1395 by Rep. Shelia Dills R. is asking that the private companies disclose their use of funds for the for profit management companies. One would think that the vast discrepancy between the 80% going into the classroom at Epic schools to the 55% of the billions of dollars going into public school classrooms would make such accountability ridiculous. One would think that their demand to expose the salaries of the charter school's employees, administrators, managers, and owners would simply make the public schools appear inefficient and wasteful by comparison. Her bill also adds training requirements and conflict of interest restrictions rather than judge the school by the quality of the grades of the students coming out of that school. With nearly all Oklahoma schools getting failing marks, the pot doth protest the blackness of the kettle too much to mix metaphors. The legislation has been somewhat watered down with amendments and it hasn't passed the Senate yet but call your senator and ask them to vote on on HB 1395 just in case.
RINO and teacher union stooge Senator Ron Sharp is attacking the charter schools as well. He is upset that charter schools are growing rapidly and getting funded. What he refuses to acknowledge is that the charter schools get around ONE THIRD of the money that the public schools get, less than $5000 per kid, sometimes up to $6000 per kid, leaving the balance of around $13,000 in total funding per student left to the school system. For every kid that Epic snags, the local school district drops the responsibility and costs of educating that kid while retaining most of the allocated cash for that kid.
Luckily Sharp's colleges in the Senate torpedoed most of his legislation as they saw how self serving it was and how it would damage an excellent example of a government function being privatized in a more efficient and less expensive manner than what was there before.
Senator Sharp of course has one of the lowest rankings in our annual index. Sharped voted wrong according to the GOP Party Platform 19 out of 20 times, earning 5 points out of 100, thanks to that one vote against a soft on crime bill.
The public report cards for the schools in Oklahoma that came out this year showed many of the Oklahoma City and Tulsa schools receiving failing grades. The teacher unions cannot afford to have an alternative in place for public school students or they will see their numbers fall as the best teachers leave the public school system and start teaching at Epic Charter Schools. Nor can the unions allow such excellent percentages of money to flood into the classrooms as it would be impossible for the bloated staff at a public school to compete with the charter schools. Sure, the extra cash left behind by losing a student to a Charter school is great for the public schools but it will swell to the point where even the legislators realize that feeding the teacher unions is bad government.
