School Choice

The Oklahoma Libertarian Party supports a competitive school system that offers a variety of options. We believe educational tax credits are the best solution for Oklahoma. Tax credits would help families reward superior schools by choosing to send their children there. Government schools currently have little accountability to the public since they are assured funding regardless of performance.

Schools Links

Advance Charter Schools: OKLP site
Legislative Education Action Drive (LEAD)
Books at Laissez Faire Books
Blog of Isabel "Izzy" Lyman, Oklahoma author of "The Home-Schooling Revolution"
Alliance for the Separation of School and State

Schools: Archive

The Oklahoma Education Association's $4 billion lawsuit was dismissed "with prejudice." According to the OCPA, government schools spent over $11,250 per student in 2003. And OCPA asks what is "adequate" school funding?

Just what are Oklahoma teachers' salaries for 190 days of work a year?

Libertarian Party of Oklahoma Vice-Chair, David Splinter, wants more effective, rather than increased, spending on schools through educational choice.

V. Midge Sullivan says, "When schools are forced to follow 'no child left behind,' common sense will tell you that 'no child gets ahead.'" in a letter in the Oklahoman. The Oklahoma Education Association's $4 billion lawsuit was dismissed "with prejudice." According to the OCPA, government schools spent over $11,250 per student in 2003.

Dave Hadaway thinks we need to raise the standard and wonders why the advanced curriculum today is easier than the previous standard curriculum.

First Class Education for Oklahoma turned in 170,000 signatures to put the 65% solution on the ballot (they need 117,000 valid signatures). Visit First Class Education site and click here to read the language first hand (scroll to the bottom of page).



Mary McAninch thinks the Oklahoma City Board of Education should stop coercing charter schools to share facilities in a letter to the Oklahoman.

Oklahoma has 552 Public School Superintendents who alone draw off almost 40 million dollars.

Maureen Downey thinks school superintendents reap benefits that taxpayers don't see.

Charlie wants to link legislator pay to the average salary of Oklahomans working in the private sector (not to teachers' pay, which he calculates at over $30/hour).

Will a California judge strike down a high school exit exam because it is working?

Bob Sullivan of First Class Education for Oklahoma thinks 65 cents of every dollar spent on education should stay in the classroom.

Rep. Ron Paul says the "Academic Freedom Act" would further stifle debate about controversial topics and takes a step toward complete federal control of college curricula, grading, and teaching practices.

Slum Schools in Africa are privatizing with great success.

Brandon Dutcher examines the proposed increased bonuses for Oklahoma schoolteachers who have earned national board certification.

Grant Goss is doing the right thing writes Frances Taylor to the Daily Oklahoman.

Charlie thinks bribing graduates to stay is wrong.

OCPA's Brandon Dutcher says Oklahomans want economic and educational freedom.

School Choice Superintendent to leave post.

Minnesota home-schooler Nathan Cornelius wins the National Geographic Bee.

Brandon Dutcher examines the proposed increased bonuses for Oklahoma schoolteachers who have earned national board certification.

Real Education Matters More

10/2005 Letter to the Gazette

Mr. Hochenauer's commentary calling for "average" school funding rests on misleading numbers and seeks bureaucratic priorities, rather than educational value.

Oklahoma Council of Public Affairs recently found that we spent $11,250 per student in 2003 (according to the GASB's generally accepted accounting principles). Apparently, the NEA figure of $6,400 fails to take into consideration real costs such as added pension debt. This accounting of our tax dollars seems worthy of Enron, not our state's school system.

Regardless of the numbers, comparing how much Oklahoma government spends to other states ignores the real issues of education. Are children developing skills like reading and writing and learning to think critically? Let's look at students as humans, not dollar signs that we can compare to other states.

Many Oklahomans support more effective, rather than increased educational spending. Effective spending involves choice, which in Oklahoma has already taken the form of magnet schools and charter schools. As an alumnus of Classen SAS, a magnet school, I saw firsthand how a small amount of choice created a very different atmosphere for learning. Other doors for choice include educational tax credits and vouchers. These would empower parents with the financial resources to exercise their choice.

School funding is not a game that should be ranked like football, as Mr. Hochenauer suggests. School funding is a mechanism for accomplishing something truly valuable: Education.

David Splinter

Raise the standards

Letter to the Editor
The Oklahoman, 6/18/06

Dave Hadaway (Your Views, June 10) is worried about the lack of education our children are getting in the public school system. Thirty-nine percent of our high school students must take remedial courses to qualify for college. When schools are forced to follow "no child left behind," common sense will tell you that "no child gets ahead." There always have been and always will be children above average and children below average in the learning process.

Those who have the ability to advance to higher levels shouldn't be dumbed down just so no child gets left behind. There will always be students with low self-esteem but that shouldn't keep smart, ambitious students from getting ahead. Let's raise the standards and let the chips fall where they may.

V. Midge Sullivan,
Oklahoma City

Raise the standard!

Letter to the Editor
The Oklahoman 6/10/06

My son graduated from one of our city high schools as a straight-A student who took nothing but advanced placement and honors classes. One day I looked at his textbooks and saw that this supposedly advanced curriculum wasn't even equal to what I took as the standard curriculum of the day. Why have our educators continually dumbed down our children? Why have we, as parents, allowed this to happen?

As parents and grandparents, we've quit taking an interest in the lives of our children and grandchildren. We've become too busy to worry about what or how our children are being taught. It's time for all of us to stand up and demand that standards be raised. It's time for us to quit babying our kids and let them learn to accept the fact that while they will not always succeed, they become a failure only when they quit trying. That's what I was taught in school. Let's pass it on to the next generation. If we don't, our children and grandchildren won't be able to govern themselves or their country.

Dave Hadaway,
Oklahoma City

Schools need separate buildings

Letter to the Editor, The Oklahoman 5/29/06

Two Oklahoma City charter high schools, the excellent students they support and the faculty they've recruited are threatened by the ignorance and inability of school board members to recognize their failings and move to cease an experimental facility sharing that has failed abysmally.

Charter schools are an important and worthy part of our educational system in Oklahoma and have spearheaded wonderful educational alternatives and opportunities for our children. Harding Charter Preparatory is an excellent college prep program with a proven record of success in a short period of time. Harding Charter Prep was coerced into a facility sharing agreement with a new Fine Arts High School. This facility sharing has been a dismal failure and the students of both schools are suffering.

Harding Prep students deserve a campus where they can concentrate on their demanding college advanced placement curriculum and the fine arts school deserves a campus where they may express their artistic approach; neither should be in the same building. I plead with the Oklahoma City Board of Education and the board of the fine arts school to accept the failing of this experiment and secure a separate building for fine arts in the 2006-07 school year. Our children deserve diverse educational opportunities. They don't deserve to suffer from our mistakes.

Mary McAninch,
Oklahoma City (Update: a subsequent letter to the editor stated that the facility sharing was voluntary.)