Seems to me that a false dichotomy is being promoted here. You say that public schools are failing. I’d say the report cards on education ONLY apply to public schools. Let’s look at athletics as an example. Private schools are allowed to recruit players from across the state. Have you noticed the number of championships accumulated by private schools? They have to play in the class above their student numbers. Maybe two classes above would make things fair, but I’m not holding my breath.
Public schools have been underfunded for years on end. A rabid minority seems to only care about giving tax breaks to private school parents by stealing monies from the public schools.
Special education students are regularly rejected by private schools. If a child is deemed severely disabled, that child must be cared for by public schools from birth to the age of twenty one. My school district was sued and lost. So they pay for full time care and “education” in another state Kansas, and must pay for transportation and lodging for parent weekly. We have infants in public schools. The cost for those few students is exorbitant and take monies out of the common classroom. Private schools spend ZERO.
Our Oklahoma Constitution requires that not one dime of public money shall be spent on religious entities. NOT ONE DIME.
Yet Ryan Walters desires to rob from the public to promote his personal religious choice on all people in the state. Now the dirtbag is wanting to spend $3,000,000 for Trump Bibles
The Gideons would probably supply nonTrumpp Bibles for free. But he wants to spend tax payer money on his effort to promote a state religion, and Donald Trump personally . It’s unconstitutional but makes no difference to him, he’d rather spend millions defending his clearly unconstitutional wet dream just to get attention from national politics. He’s a horrible hypocrite if he can’t see that promoting one religion over another is a dangerous game that public schools shouldn’t have to contend with, then he hasn’t read our state’s Constitution.
We used to rent out our gymnasium to civic entities, Boy Scouts, and a few others. Then one day the Nazis wanted to rent our gym for a rally. The entire district now rents to absolutely no one.
This Ryan Walters crap is just the latest assault on public schools and faculty. Republican Governor Frank Keating said “only one in ten teachers is deserving of a raise, the rest are just a bunch of slugs”.
Ninety percent undeserving of a raise in a state whose priorities place us continually at 48-50th in the nation for funding.
Back in the early eighties the fire and police wanted to form their own retirement system but they didn’t have the money. So the state took $19,000,000 from the teacher’s retirement system with the promise to pay it back with interest. When the debt owed reached $30,000,000 the state just said tough, we’re not paying back anything. Fire and Police can retire after 20 years. Public School personnel now have to go over 35 !!
Henry Belmon was the only decent Republican Governor and passed 1017. I know first hand marching around the Capitol and picking up every scrap of trash so the media wouldn’t be able to say how much money was wasted cleaning up after teachers. The Capitol grounds were cleaner after we left than they were before.
In my experience, private,religious, and home schooled kids are only marginally prepared for the real world. They have been sheltered and spoiled most of their lives IMO . Home schooled kids in particular seem to have more trouble with math and science, not to mention diminished social skills. Small wonder since parents aren’t specialists in every subject.
Lastly, public school personnel have unions to negotiate for them. Republicans hate teacher’s unions more than any other. Apparently, they, like Frank Keating truly believe that only 10% deserve a raise, and they want to hand select the toadies that might receive them. Could be spouses or just best friends, could be only those that go to their church, doesn’t matter to them that fewer and fewer students see teaching as a career. Guess they’re waiting for AI replacements to rule the day. Or they think it’s a NIL situation where a few make millions and the lineman are paid chump change. My 2 cents.
www.theguardian.com
