Magazine to feature Okla. charter schools

Many Oklahomans are unaware of the successes of Oklahoma's charter schools. To help remedy this situation, the Oklahoma Charter School Association is teaming up with Tierra Media Group to publish "The Charter Schools of Oklahoma," a magazine set for distribution in January 2010. According to Bill Bleakley, Tierra's president and CEO, the magazine will

• Inform legislators, civic leaders, and the public about Oklahoma’s charter schools;
• Provide a history of the development of charter schools within the state and their contribution to education;
• Explain the unique nature of each charter school, its mission, and enrollment criteria;
• Help recruit students by informing parents about charter-school opportunities;
• Inform potential donors about charter schools’ achievements and benefits; and
• Provide the sponsoring districts with an overview of their charter schools.

The magazine will be mailed to 3,500 civic leaders, governmental officials, donors, patrons, and interested citizens. In addition, each school will receive 500 copies to distribute to potential donors and student families.

Sponsorships are available. To learn more, contact Bill Bleakley at bbleakley at tierramediagroup dot com.

Okla. economist defends school choice

In a column published in August in the Edmond Sun, University of Central Oklahoma economist Mickey Hepner made a case for school-choice scholarships. Now Dr. Hepner, who also serves on the executive committee of the board of directors for The Oklahoma Academy, is back with a new column defending school choice.

Is Oklahoma next?

Voters in New Jersey and in Virginia just sent a pro-school-choice candidate to the governor's mansion.

'The phony funding crisis'

"For the past hundred years, with rare and short exceptions and after controlling for inflation, public schools have had both more money and more employees per student in each succeeding year," Arthur Peng and James Guthrie write.

And the results?

'We're lying to our children'

Oklahoma has been lowering the bar, resulting in "artificially high test scores." See for yourself here.

Education transparency needed

"Oklahoma’s public schools spend more than $4 billion in federal, state and local tax dollars every year, but the accounting of this spending does not appear to be as transparent as it should be," Brian Downs writes today in the state's largest newspaper. "Next November, voters will decide on State Question 744 which, according to a recent interim study on the issue in the Oklahoma House of Representatives, would take $850 million away from every state agency and give it directly to schools. How can voters decide to take away money from other vital agencies without knowing for sure how current dollars are being spent?"

'Black parents need radical new options'

"Why do the education elites want to keep at-risk black males in schools that dump them in the streets or jail?" writes Dr. Anthony B. Bradley, an assistant professor at Covenant Theological Seminary in St. Louis.

Given the many social pathologies plaguing black males in low-income and fatherless households, the best place for at-risk black males is not the dominant failed public school paradigm. Since public schools are forbidden to teach virtue and often reduce children to receptacles of information, expanding private and faith-based options to black parents is the only compelling solution. ...

Americans cannot afford, financially or morally, to trap black males in criminal cultivators masquerading as schools. Even though charter schools, vouchers, and tax-credit programs reflect some progress, black parents need radical new options that empower them with absolute freedom to choose the best schools. While every at-risk black male does not have access to good faith-based opportunities, the only hope for liberating young black males to actualize their potential to be productive participants in a global economy and virtuous citizens of a healthy nation is to free black parents from the tyranny of government bureaucrats. Black America needs a "Freedom of Choice" movement.

Budget bind?

The CBS affiliate in Tulsa reports that the Wynona public schools are facing a "budget bind." But Census and NCES data tell us Wynona is spending $10,092 per student.

'Their blood is on our hands'

James T. Meeks, a Democrat state senator from Chicago and the pastor of Salem Baptist Church, has had it with all these murders of public-school students. He writes in the Chicago Tribune:

We like to point to irresponsible kids and uncaring parents. But what about a society that won't lift a finger to do anything about the crumbling, disastrous school system that all of these kids, victims and violators, come from? ...

For the first time in my personal and political career, I am exploring the idea of vouchers and charter schools to help facilitate choice and enhance academic performance. Why should we continue to make investments in a system that is bankrupt and weighed down with bureaucracy? ...

They say the definition of insanity is to do the same thing over and over again and expect different results. We can no longer afford to have the blood of every child on our hands.

But the free-babysitting aspect is still dandy

Reason Foundation researcher Lisa Snell finds it troubling that 

the two states in the nation [Oklahoma and Georgia] with huge financial commitments to universal preschool for over a decade now have the lowest expectations for K-12 students in terms of grade-level proficiency and they continue to score below average on the nation's benchmark for student achievement.

20-20 vision

"Are there ways to do more to give parents more choices in choosing the school that best fits their children's needs?" UCO economist Mickey Hepner asks, recommending the creation of Task Force 2020, an education reform task force for Oklahoma.

We know that whenever parents have more school choice there are higher levels of parental satisfaction. In the last 20 years Oklahoma has experimented with limited school choice and seen the emergence of several charter schools in Oklahoma and Tulsa counties. Should we do more to promote charter schools throughout our state? Should Oklahoma join in with 10 other states in providing education scholarships for parents who send their children to accredited private schools?

You go, girl

This past summer 17-year-old homeschooler Zac Sunderland became the youngest person ever to circumnavigate the globe alone. Now his kid sister Abby, who just turned 16, plans to do it. "Without homeschooling, I wouldn't be doing this," Abby tells WORLD magazine's Mark Bergin. "It's good to show people that homeschoolers aren't the total nerds and book people that they might get the impression we are."

Nobel Prize winner was homeschooled

No, not that Nobel Prize winner (though he was privately educated). I'm talking about Willard S. Boyle, who shared the 2009 Nobel Prize in Physics.

Mom says school fights are common

"A local mother is calling for changes after her daughter came home from school with a broken nose from a fight," KOCO reports. "Kelli Richardson said fights are common at McLoud High School and school leaders aren't doing enough to stop them."

Obama's single mom got to choose a private school