Oklahoma Legislators Seek To Exclude Religious Schools From New School Choice Program

As Oklahoma moves toward expanding educational opportunities for students, some Oklahomans are not happy about all the opportunities out there — particularly at religious institutions.

The 2022 re-election of Governor Stitt and the election of the new superintendent for public instruction, Ryan Walters, was viewed as a “mandate” for enacting school choice policies in the state, and proposals for universal school choice are already in motion.

In the state legislature, there are now two pending bills that propose education savings account programs for Oklahoma students — one more restrictive in student eligibility than the other.

In their current states, both bills say that any participating private school “shall not be required to alter its creed, practices, admissions policy, or curriculum to accept payments.”

Yet Democrats are not on board, a conservative think tank at Oklahoma City, the Oklahoma Council of Public Affairs, has pointed out.

One Democrat in the state house, Andy Fugate, is attempting to introduce legislation that would prevent private schools from using “the state funds to provide religious instruction or religious activities.” In a statement, he said his bill “addresses the concerns of those who fear school indoctrination.”

Mr. Fugate’s bill would make optional all religious instruction and rituals for students at religious schools who pay for tuition with ESAs, as well as prevent faith-based consideration in the admissions process for schools that accept the state funds.

“Oklahoma families should not have to exchange their religious freedom for their education,” he added.

Mr. Fugate’s bill relies on a status-use distinction between public funding for religious institutions that the Supreme Court has rejected, most forcefully this past summer in Carson v. Makin.

In Carson, the court ruled that Maine’s prohibition on the use of voucher funds at religious schools was tantamount to “discrimination against religion.”

Another Democratic lawmaker in Oklahoma has proposed legislation that would require schools receiving public money to operate under “the same laws, rules, regulations, and mandates prescribed for public schools.”

The Oklahoma supreme court has ruled that voucher funds do not constitute public aid once in the hands of parents.

“When the parents and not the government are the ones determining which private school offers the best learning environment for their child, the circuit between government and religion is broken,” the justices said in 2016 in a ruling on whether vouchers for disabled students could be used at religious schools.

Meanwhile, the Sooner State made waves in December when its attorney general at the time, John O’Connor, green-lit the possibility of religious charters in an advisory opinion.

Oklahoma — like all states with charter schools — currently has a prohibition on licensing religious charter schools. Mr. O’Connor, however, wrote that such a prohibition likely violates the Constitution and should not be enforced.

The opinion has paved the way for what could be the first religious charter school in the country. The Archdiocese of Oklahoma City filed its application to operate a charter school Monday morning.

Yet Catholics in Oklahoma are not relying solely on the possibility of a Catholic charter school to advance their educational mission. The executive director of the Catholic Conference of Oklahoma, Brett Farley, said the group would be “heavily involved” in lobbying for ESAs in the state.

In an email to the Sun, Mr. Farley said he and his colleagues were “more or less agnostic” as to how to achieve their goal of universal school choice in Oklahoma.

https://www.nysun.com/article/oklahoma-legislators-seek-to-exclude-religious-schools-from-new-school-choice-program

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Schools Secretly War Against Parents’, Taxpayers’ Values

Government schools are increasingly keeping secrets from parents regarding their children, a development suggestive of an elite ruling class that recognizes few, if any, limits on its power. A current controversy in Indiana is emblematic. A school district secretly developed a plan to encourage children to adopt the identity of the opposite sex at school without their parents’ consent or even knowledge, The Daily Signalreports:

Following the exposure of a hidden “Gender Support Plan” and policy to conceal student transgender procedures from parents, the whistleblower, counselor Kathy McCord, has been placed on immediate and indefinite leave, and could be facing termination.

McCord, a counselor at Pendleton Heights High School in the South Madison Community School Corporation in Indiana, confirmed documents unearthed by parents in Madison County showing that counselors were asking teachers not to reveal a student’s new name and pronouns to parents.

McCord had toldThe Daily Signal about the new policy two days before a school board meeting last December 8:

School counselor Kathy McCord went on the record with The Daily Signal to outline the shady methods the school district employed to keep the so-called Gender Support Plan away from teachers and parents. McCord also described how she was ordered to compel speech from teachers by requiring them to use one set of names and pronouns with students and another with parents. …

McCord told The Daily Signal that Assistant Superintendent Andrew Kruer, [Superintendent Mark] Hall’s subordinate, had informed all counselors that this procedure of keeping information from parents was a school board-approved policy. Kruer also told counselors that the district’s legal counsel, LGBTQ+ advocate Jessica Heiser, had informed the counseling staff it was federal law.

This effort to indoctrinate students into values antithetical to those of their parents and of the taxpayers who pay for the schools is spreading rapidly across the United States, as we have regularlyreported at Heartland Daily News:

Even in strongly Republican areas where most parents are likely to be conservative, schools are implanting a radical, extremist ideology in children, The Federalist reports.

“One of the most visible ways many Idaho public schools push extremism common to far-left locales is in exposing kids to adult sexual practices and gender ideology, often without parent[s’] knowledge or consent,” writes Joy Pullman for The Federalist.

This is no minor difference of opinion. Regardless of whether one agrees with the substance of these teachings, it is a gigantic case of government overreach for schools to push on children a worldview radically different from what their parents are teaching them and what the taxpayers think they are paying for.

This puts educators, counselors, and administrators who think differently in an awful position:

The Daily Signal reported that McCord and another counselor, who chose to remain anonymous, expressed distress at the district policy. They said that they became school counselors to work with students and parents, not to come between them.

The fact that these issues are new and the required thoughts, attitudes, and behaviors are completely in opposition to those of someone as far left as Barack Obama only a decade ago means many thousands of people working in the government education system have had to change their minds radically about these fundamental aspects of life, learn to love cognitive dissonance, move to lower-paying parochial schools, or find a new line of work. Those whose values do not align with the program cannot remain. The Indiana case shows this, as The Daily Signalreports:

Amanda Keegan, a geography and psychology teacher at Pendleton Heights High School, says she resigned in part to protest this policy.

In an exclusive interview with The Daily Signal, Keegan said, “When I had to look at that parent, and feel like I was lying to that parent … I was sick to my stomach. I can’t lie to parents. I can’t do that again.”

The education establishment benefits from teacher exits because it accelerates the ideological purification of its workforce. The plan is simple and obvious: indoctrinate the teachers in woke colleges and universities and push out any current teachers, counselors, and administrators who dare to differ. Then, complain teachers are not paid nearly enough, and note teacher shortages are looming, thus requiring still-higher pay. When parents and other taxpayers expose your actions in school board meetings, shut off the microphone and have the boldest ones arrested, as Heartland Daily News has reported here, here, here, and in numerous other news stories and commentaries.

The matter of choice is central here. If parents choose to hand over their offspring to people who will teach them whatever the experts care to convey and will not tell the parents what they are doing, that may be the parents’ right, however foolish it would be for them to do so.

That is not the situation in these schools. The government compels parents to send their children to school and forces taxpayers to finance the system. With that power behind it, a government-established cadre of people manipulates their captive children to question basic elements of their identity and their place in the world. Giving such power to government is obviously a gravely risky decision.

Regardless of whether one agrees with the agenda being taught in these schools, it is obvious the parents who are handing over their children to them deserve to know what their kids are being taught, and the taxpayers who fund these institutions have a right to know whether their money is being spent on what they intend it to be devoted to.

State governments have full authority over the schools they create and fund. Parents have a right to complain to the school boards and should continue to do so. Real change, however, will remain a pipedream until parents and other taxpayers punish lawmakers in the voting booth for their negligence or complicity in allowing this. Only then will the government take seriously the movement for school choice and parents’ rights.

S.T. Karnick: skarnick@heartland.org

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The truth about Australia’s education system: bullying, indoctrination, and intimidation

Recently, I interviewed an 18-year-old New South Wales University student named Tallesha. My goal was to get a first-hand glimpse of what is really going on in the education system.

It was incredibly insightful to speak with Tallesha. While high school is still vivid in her mind, she is now undertaking the transition into the university lifestyle. She recently completed a bridging course consisting of sociology, business, media, and writing; and will now study political science. She has the ambition of becoming a political journalist.

Drawing on her experiences, Tallesha summed up her thoughts by saying, ‘I believe a lot of the political issues we’re facing at the moment stem from the information and behaviours being taught in schools and universities.’

She went on to say, ‘What is currently being assumed about the education system is definitely not an overreaction, a large extent of genuine indoctrination is happening and it’s definitely getting worse.’

Expanding on those comments, Tallesha drew on her own specific experiences. ‘It’s very hard to openly disagree with the lecturers because your marks could suffer,’ she explained. ‘In my bridging course I did sociology and that was obviously very far left. So, in assignments, that would be based on Marxist theory. You had to accept their way as truth. If you debated that, you wouldn’t get the marks, because you would be seen as incorrect.’

She backed up her comments by providing an example.

‘A question on one of my tests was, “Is gender fixed?” And the correct answer was “false”, because it is supposed to be fluid. If you disagreed with that, you would lose that mark.’

Identifying as a Christian conservative, Tallesha obviously had an issue with this answer, but she can see no way of bypassing having to go along with the Marxist ideology that oppose her own beliefs. She appears to be in the tiny minority, however, as according to Tallesha, 95 per cent of her fellow students lean openly left.

This prompted me to ask Tallesha if she feels comfortable expressing her views in her classes. ‘No,’ she replied. ‘You pretty much can’t.’

From the moment her lecturers enter, there is clear ideology expressed. She told me that without fail, every lecturer introduces themselves with their pronouns. Is it little surprise that the students also follow suit, as Tallesha told me, ‘I had my graduation recently, and any speaker that got up, all announced their pronouns.’

With such a dominant lean towards leftist ideology, I asked Tallesha if any of her fellow students ever acknowledge that things should be more balanced. ‘No,’ she replied. ‘A lot of them don’t think they lean that far left. They think, “This is mainstream. Every young person should share our views. If you don’t then there’s something wrong with you.”’

Tallesha was then able to provide more context of how the peer pressure is applied.

‘In sociology, the way the other side was depicted is uneducated and misinformed. So, they make it seem like if you are part of the other side, it would be embarrassing,’ Tallesha recounted. ‘It was almost like bullying. My lecturer would always make jokes about conservative views, constantly.’

With the peer pressure in place, then comes the indoctrination.

Of the subjects she studied in her bridging course, Tallesha found business to be the most centrist, but her writing course contained clear left bias. ‘It was a uni prep course, so it teaches you all the skills you need to succeed in uni,’ she explained. ‘But each skill was taught in a context, and all the context they were taught in were some sort of left subject. Climate change was used. The freedom movement, the anti-vaccine moment was used.’

I find it hard to understand how anyone can paint ‘freedom’ in a negative light, but Tallesha was quick to inform me that ‘white supremacy’ is linked to the freedom movement. ‘They make lots of links that just don’t make sense,’ she said.

This prompted me to ask if any figures of the right are ridiculed. ‘Trump was definitely brought up a few times,’ she replied. ‘Even the Liberal Party, even though they’re not very conservative, the Liberal Party is attacked as well.’

I then asked if there is any politician that her lecturers adore. Her response was interesting. ‘No, I don’t think there are any specific ones.’

It seems if you attack your enemies constantly, then there is no need to defend your side.

My final question to Tallesha was, ‘What needs to happen to reform the education system?’

‘Honestly, I don’t really know. It’s pretty much that far gone. Because everyone in it and within it, is all left. Maybe ten years ago it could be saved, but now it’s all left. It’s too far infiltrated. You can’t get conservatives in there. If you aren’t left and you’re a lecturer, you’re not going to get a job. And if you are a conservative student, you’re very likely to be kicked out if you say the wrong thing.’

‘It’s almost bullying.’ Tallesha added, speaking of the peer pressure that is placed upon students. ‘All of them are so eager to fit in. The conservative side is being portrayed as embarrassing to be a part of and you’ll be made fun of if you’re part of that side. So, everyone is swaying away from that. It sways anyone that is not sure on their political views to the left pretty quickly, because they want to fit in.’

Interviewing Tallesha did not fill me with much hope. After all, this is our youth. This is our future. If Tallesha is correct and 95 per cent of students are left-leaning, then the other side of politics is faced with a big problem.

https://www.spectator.com.au/2023/01/the-truth-about-australias-education-system-bullying-indoctrination-and-intimidation/

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My other blogs: Main ones below

http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM)

http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)

http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)

http://australian-politics.blogspot.com/ (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)

http://snorphty.blogspot.com/ (TONGUE-TIED)

http://jonjayray.com/blogall.html More blogs

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