Archives for category: Oklahoma
« Older Entries

John Thompson: What Happened When Oklahoma Adopted the “Mississippi Miracle”

By dianeravitch
July 17, 2026 //
2

John Thompson, historian and retired teacher in Oklahoma, explains what happened when state officials in Oklahoma decided to adopt the “Mississippi Miracke.”

He writes:

In so many places, there is a push to implement the reward-and-punish “Mississippi Miracle.” And, unfortunately too many journalists believe their simplistic claims about increasing literacy. Oklahoma is just one example of a state implementing the so-called “Miracle,” so, our story should be a warning to others. 

The Oklahoma State Chamber of Commerce featured Mississippi Governor Tate Reeves in an event this June. Given the misinformation that the Chamber has been spreading about the so-called “Mississippi Miracle,” I assumed that Gov. Reeves would spin the same message. But, his false and misleading statements were far worse.

The leaders of the state Chamber have long repeated the falsehood that NAEP Proficiency is “grade level” when, in fact, grade level is closer to the much lower “Basic” category. This claim was invented in the 1980s in order to attack our public schools as irreparably broken. 

Getting back to Gov. Reeves, Mississippi spins its State “Proficiency” rates as if they were connected with the reliable NAEP rates.  But, from 2019 to 2024, the Mississippi State 8th grade Reading Proficiency rates increased by 6 points, while its NAEP Proficiency scores dropped by 2 points, increasing its State/NAEP Proficiency Gap to 19 points. The 4th grade gap reached 25 points.

So, I looked at Reeves’ record as governor and found an even more disturbing history. And I wondered whether the Chamber looked into his past before they hosted him.

But, I must start with Gov. Reeves plan for expanding test prep and retention policies to 8th graders.

Reeves and the Oklahoma Chamber seem unaware that a major reason why test-driven accountability did so much damage was that No Child Left Behind (NCLB) set impossible targets that pressured schools to treat kids like numbers in order to try to minimize the inevitable harm the law would inflict. 

However, he acknowledged that Mississippi hasn’t increased 8th grade scores. Over the last 28 years, Mississippi’s 8th grade NAEP reading scores improved by one point, indicating that they did not improve reading for comprehension, or help students “learn to read, so that they can read to learn.”

In 2023, their average 8th grade NAEP reading score was 253. But, in 1998, the average score was 255. 

Worse, NAEP – which (at least previously) couldn’t be taught to – has a long history of being the most reliable metric. But, Mississippi’s new 2025-26 standards:

Are based on multiple measures including statewide assessment results in English language arts, math and science, English learner progress, advanced course and career and technical education performance, and graduation rates.

Since Mississippi’s new tests are designed to be taught to, there is little reason to believe they reflect growth in learning.  

Reeves then bragged about recently increasing Mississippi’s new targets. Under state law accountability, standards must increase “when 75 percent of students are proficient or when 65 percent of schools or districts earn a grade of B or higher.”  But, their State and NAEP proficient scores were dramatically different. In 2024, only 23% of Mississippi 8th graders scored Proficient or above in NAEP reading.

I also wish the Oklahoma Chamber would fact check Reeves’ unsubstantiated claim that raising the bar leads to increased student learning. They could start with former Oklahoma Secretary of Education Daniel Hamlin’s research which found that states which set high performance test standards “have not found a way to translate these new benchmarks into higher levels of student test performance.” 

Next, I would like to ask the Oklahoma State Chamber’s leaders if they looked into Reeves’ history. As the Mississippi Free Press explained, Reeves’ ties to the Sons of Confederate Veterans were longstanding. In 2013, He:

Spoke to the SCV’s national gathering in Vicksburg, Mississippi, in front of a massive Confederate battle flag and in a room decorated with smaller Confederate flags and cotton plants. After then-Lt. Gov. Reeves congratulated the organization for “keeping history for our youth,” speakers defended the Confederate “cause” and compared “Yankees” to German “Nazis” in World War II.

Moreover, Reeves’ subsequent proclamation did not mention the role of slavery and white supremacy.

And this April, Reeves, once again, signed the proclamation for the “Confederate Heritage Month.”

I have asked but received no answer as to what the Oklahoma State Chamber of Commerce knew about Reeves when it invited him to Oklahoma City.

In terms of improving schools, I would urge them to pay more attention to peer reviewed education research. And, it seems to me, that state leaders also should pay more attention to the Oklahoma City Chamber’s approach to school improvements, as opposed to the State Chamber.

It’s “Civic Lab is working to advance civic collaboration. Their practice is to look at what makes community collaboration flow best, document what they find and share those practices at a broad level.” Rhonda Baker, Director of Education for the Chamber, explained that they seek to report to the state legislature about better ways to connect the community and improve educational outcomes. And, “they’re talking to the nonprofit community to seek recommendations on policy and alignment changes to ultimately make programs mesh better.”

That, not praise for Jim Crow, sounds more like the Oklahoma Standard to me.

Categories Accountability, Literacy, Mississippi, Oklahoma

John Thompson: Let NCLB Die, It’s Done Enough Damage

By dianeravitch
May 21, 2026 //
8

This week, a report by the Education Scorecard, led by Sean Reardon at the Stanford group; Thomas Kane at the Center for Education Policy Research at Harvard; and Douglas Staiger at Dartmouth proclaimed that we are in a decade-long “learning recession.” It found that 83% of state reading scores declined from 2015 to 2025. 

While I respect the Scorecard’s skills in compiling test score patterns, due to my time as an academic historian, an education researcher, and an inner city teacher, who witnessed the extreme harm done to students by the No Child Left Act of 2001 and the 2010 Race to the Top, I must challenge many of the conclusions that are being drawn from the test score patterns that Reardon, Kane, Staiger, and their partners present.

For instance, Thomas Kane told NPR that around 2013, “‘school districts learned that nobody was looking over their shoulders in terms of student achievement.’” When I read this statement, my response was that Kane must be living in a different world.So many districts are still looking over their shoulders prioritizing accountability metrics, not real learning.

Kane then claimed that accountability-driven mandates due to the NCLB and the RttT produced gains that “‘may be one of the most important social policy successes of the last half-century that nobody knows about.’” That statement has been refuted by numerous studies including RAND’s research which concluded that the failure of attempts to improve learning through high-stakes testing added to the proof,  “that one does not fatten a hog by weighing it.”I believe the test-driven teacher evaluations that Kane pushed were the most destructive education policy that I’ve ever heard of, and were a major factor in undermining teaching background information and reading for comprehension.Their test results patterns, I argue, actually support the opposite of the defense of NCLB and the RttT; it was the full implementation of high stakes testing, not the rejection of those failed policies, that was one of the top two causes of the sharp decline in literacy.

On the other hand, I agree that a main reason for the decline is the failure to manage social media, and that chronic absenteeism is a major factor.

But, first, I want to explain the political reasons why reading outcomes in the Tulsa Public Schools (TPS), and the Oklahoma City Public School System (OKCPS) fell so far. Secondly, I want to help defuse the “blame game,” and push back against the ramping up of unfair criticism of urban schools that is likely to get worse.  

Reardon previously led the research by the Equal Opportunity Project which found that the TPS’s 3rd through 8th grade growth rates were the 7th lowest in the nation from 2009 to 2015.

TPS students had gained only 3.8 years of learning over five years. Moreover, the OKCPS students only gained 4.4 years.

The TPS had had better schools than Oklahoma City, and we repeatedly visited Tulsa to learn from them. But, in 2010 they received a Gates Foundation grant for evaluating teachers, that Kane and Staiger helped create. Then, I frequently visited Tulsa and listened to both teachers and frustrated consultants as they complained about the damage being done to teaching and learning. Not surprisingly, it became much harder to recruit or retain teachers.

Now, the TPS, when compared with around 10,000 schools with similar demographics, “ranked higher than 1% of districts nationwide in average reading performance during the 2022-25 school years.” 

Also, data from American Enterprise Institute’s Nat Malkus showed that the TPS’s chronic absenteeism rate was 48.2%, compared to the nation’s 31.9% chronic absenteeism rate for similar schools.

Similarly, the Scorecard said, “Oklahoma City ranked higher than 0% of districts nationwide in average reading performance during the 2022-25 school years.” Its students performed 3.93 grade levels below the 2019 national average. Moreover, chronic absenteeism was 42.8% compared to the national rate of 33% for similar districts. 

But, before Oklahoma City’s educators in high-challenge schools are blamed, the extreme segregation they face must be taken into account. Oklahoma County has 14 school districts.  along with magnet, charter, and private schools. School choice resulted in neighborhood schools with intense concentrations of students from extreme, generational poverty, who have endured multiple traumas (known as ACEs), thus driving down the OKCPS’s test scores. 

Consequently, in 2015, suburban and exurban schools Edmond, Mustang, Moore, and Yukon were ranked higher than the national average by 1.6; .6; 1; and .8 years. By 2024, their scores declined by the same or by lower rates as similar national schools. So, it’s hard to make the case that the lack of teacher accountability, as opposed to segregation by choice, drove those drops in reading. 

At the risk of sounding too nerdy, the historian in me needs to recall the chronologies for test score gains and decreases. I argue that the most meaningful reading metric is the 8th grade NAEP, which had been improving incrementally from 255 in 1971, to 263 in 2012, before it fell to 260 in 2020, and to 256 in 2023. 

Both my experiences in the classroom, and the reading of the data, support the narrative that it took a while for the destructive policies of both interconnected reforms to be put in place, but when that happened, both laws drove meaningful learning down.    

On the other hand, some claim that the reversal of the most punitive parts of RttT caused that decline. But those changes didn’t occur until 2015, after 8th grade reading scores were already in decline. Even so, in Oklahoma, the conservative Oklahoma Council of Public Affairs (OCPA) blamed State Superintendent Joy Hofmeister for the drop in state reading scores because she ended the practice that made us second in the nation in retentions. 

Getting back to today’s national discussion about literacy, one data-driven scholar, Brian Jacobs, was cited for supporting NCLB despite its problematic features. He said, “It was not a cure-all, but I think it really did improve student achievement.” 

But, if you follow the link to his research, it concludes, “Our results suggest that NCLB had no impact on reading achievement for 4th or 8th graders.” And it gives virtually no evidence that it didn’t undermine learning about science, history, arts, and music.    

Reading the news coverage of the Education Scorecard brings me back to three sets of memories. During the early 1990’s, our school superintendent bragged about implementing the Reagan administration’s A Nation at Risk. So many of my students who grew up in that era would thank me for teaching in a meaningful manner, and then complain that they had previously been “robbed of an education” by its testing.

Secondly, at the turn of the century, I repeatedly talked with smart, sincere data experts about methodological problems when using their metrics for real world policies, as opposed to economic theory. I repeatedly heard the reply that their job was to show that data-driven accountability can improve teaching. If I’m right, they would say, they would run some more controls (presumably after the policies were in place). But it wasn’t their job to predict what will happen if those policies are adopted.    

Thirdly, as the RttT was implemented, my students from the poorest elementary and middle schools would repeatedly thank me for showing them respect by teaching them in a meaningful manner. And, they kept volunteering that they had been “robbed of an education.”

It is also important to remember that the majority of OKCPS students are Hispanic, and remember that the OKCPS probably would have collapsed if it had not been for immigration. Now, when ICE is terrorizing immigrants, we must come together in support of our threatened students in order to reduce its contribution to chronic absenteeism. 

And Oklahoma has long ranked near the nation’s top for Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs), and near the bottom for children’s wellness.

Moreover, I don’t recall talking to a parent who doesn’t see the need to help young people control, and not be controlled, by their digital devices.

And I almost never talk to a parent, a student, or an educator who doesn’t want to cut back on high-stakes testing and test prep.

So, I agree we need to take the Education Scorecard seriously, but we should use it as a diagnostic tool to help us come together for the team efforts required for bringing back the joy of reading.   

For instance, I agree with Elaine Allensworth, the executive director of the Chicago Consortium on School Research, who responded to the Scorecard saying we should not panic, but “We need to really start asking questions about what we can do to support students so they feel engaged in school.”

Categories Accountability, Education Industry, NCLB (No Child Left Behind), Oklahoma, Race to the Top, Standardized Testing

Oklahoma: Where Laws and Court Decisions are Bought by the Richest

By dianeravitch
April 22, 2026 //
3

John Thompson, retired teacher and historian, lives in Oklahoma and keeps watch on the state of democracy.

He wrote:

Oklahoma is one of several case studies revealing how Trumpians and reactionary institutions such as the Heritage Foundation seek to undermine democracy. So, it is not just Oklahomans who need to come to grips with the multiple ways that Gov. Kevin Stitt, and the Republican-controlled legislature are challenging basic legal norms and the principles of our democracy.

We must understand why Sen. David Bullard told his Republican colleagues that they must restrict voter ballot initiatives. “Your democracy does not need you right now,” he said. “Your republic needs you . . . The Republican form of government says that you’re ruled by your elected officials.”

When I was a child, Oklahoma was a racist, sexist, corrupt oligarchy. But a highly respected federal judge told me that we started to become a democracy on January 1, 1963, the day that Sen. Robert S. Kerr died. That allowed Attorney General Robert Kennedy to send federal investigators into Oklahoma. A month later, they started the investigation of our corrupt Supreme Court. Afterwards, we created one on the nation’s most honest judicial selection processes.

Gov. Stitt has been committed to turning the clock back to the time when the bribery of the Court was the norm. Now, he hopes that an initiative petition can be used to undermine our trustworthy judiciary. That would be a non-starter if the norms of the petition process were respected. But the date of vote was shifted to August 25, when there are virtually no Democrat primaries, and low turnout, so the voters tend to be conservative Republicans.

And that is just one issue where Republicans seek an August vote. They also changed the date for seeking reversing the voters’ decision to protect SoonerCare from Medicaid cuts and for reversing the voters’ decision on the Tobacco Settlement Trust which has ensured that funds from the tobacco settlement are used for building a healthy society. They also hope this tactic will allow for the passage of new Voter I.D. requirements, and cutting property taxes in a regressive manner.

The governor and the legislature have cut taxes by $1.3 billion since 2020. And last year, they committed to the goal of putting “income taxes on the path to zero.” Now the goal is cutting property taxes.

As Christy Taylor of GenXpletives explains:

Oklahoma currently ranks 49th in the nation in per-pupil spending. That means only one state in the country spends less on each student’s education than Oklahoma does. When you adjust for inflation, per-pupil spending has declined since 2008.

Moreover, roughly 80% of every property tax dollar collected in Oklahoma goes directly to public schools and career tech centers.

Even worse, is what Sen. Bullard was speaking about when attacking democracy. He sponsored a ballot measure that required that no more than 10 percent of signatures for a ballot measure come from a county with 400,000 or more people, essentially giving rural, conservative areas the power to block an initiative from appearing on the ballot.

And in another surprise, Gov. Stitt voted to award “a lucrative investment advisory contract to a firm owned by his former chief of staff and one-time business partner — a company that has the power to steer more than $2 billion in state pension, endowment and sovereign wealth fund money.”

Also, it was no surprise, but SB 1439:

Prohibits Oklahoma courts from hearing any civil or administrative action against fossil fuel producers, manufacturers, processors, refiners, pipeline operators, transporters, sellers, trade associations, or any entity that purchases fossil fuels to generate electricity — when the claim arises from or relates to climate change, its alleged effects, or greenhouse gas emissions.

I have been focusing on recently revealed tactics for empowering the affluent and disempowering the poor and working class that the Republican super-majority rushed into place. But, we can’t ignore their HB 3242, which mandates:

Biological sex segregation in restrooms, changing areas, sleeping quarters, and student housing at public schools, public universities, public buildings, and domestic violence shelters. It creates a private right to sue for any person who encounters someone of the opposite biological sex in a covered space. 

Neither can we ignore their attempt to make it harder to regulate puppy mills.

And we can’t overlook the way that what Cherokee Nation Chief Chuck Hoskin was banned from speaking to the House of Representatives because he voiced concerns about rolling back Medicaid.

And we can’t forget that lawmakers filed more than 30 immigration-related bills and that “the vast majority of these bills would further marginalize and penalize Oklahoma immigrants.”

In other words, we must remember that the 2026 session has been full of both “under-the-table” strategies for sneaking rewards to elites that most of Oklahomans would oppose, and loudly displaying cruelty and hatefulness that they believe will bring victory in low-turnout elections.  

Categories Corruption, Democracy, Ethics, Fraud, Injustice, Oklahoma

John Thompson: What Is the Best Way to Improve Oklahoma’s Public Schools?

By dianeravitch
April 13, 2026 //
5

John Thompson, retired teacher and historian in Oklahoma, considers ideas about how to improve Oklahoma’s schools, but insists that one overlooked cause of lower academic progress, was the torrent of misguided mandates written in Washington, D.C., such as No Child Left Behind and Race to the Top.

Thompson writes:

Despite our disagreements on some policies and research methodologies, I have respect for Adam Tyner, the executive director of the Oklahoma Center for Education Policy  He earned a doctorate in Political Science, and was the National Research Director at the Thomas B. Fordham Institute.Tyner is the author of The Fall to 48th: Documenting Oklahoma’s Educational Decline, which draws upon NAEP scores, and cites Diane Ravitch as to their reliablity. While I agree that Oklahoma schools can come back, I’m troubled by the title of his NonDoc piece, “The ‘Southern Surge’ suggests Oklahoma’s education system can bounce back.” 

Being a retired inner-city teacher, I am pleased by Tyner’s rejection of cheap, quick, and simple solutions. But, as a historian, I would focus on different NAEP test scores, and the way that No Child Left Behind (NCLB); Race to the Top (RttT); and budget cuts undermined teaching and learning.

To his credit, Tyner linked to Matt Barnum’s analysis of both the potential benefits and harms of the “Southern Surge,” and the “Mississippi Miracle.” Barnum acknowledged the gains in 4th grade test scores by states that drew upon the “Science of Reading.” But, he concluded:

Eighth graders’ results “have been less impressive for these Southern exemplars.” Alabama’s eighth grade reading scores have been falling and are among the lowest in the country. Louisiana’s eight grade reading scores remain at the 2002 level. And, Mississippi’s eighth grade reading scores are about the same as they were in 1998.

I believe that Tyner’s history of the last three decades should be read in conjunction of his recent commentary in the Oklahoman. 
He starts it with Phonics instruction being “a first step towards teaching literacy.” But, he adds, “Background knowledge is key to reading comprehension.”

Tyner then explains:

To become a strong reader in middle school and beyond, students need a firm foundation of core knowledge, and that comes not just from practicing reading, but from developing a broad vocabulary and an understanding of a large range of topics — from geography and history to literature and science.

He then critiques many Oklahoma schools for efforts to improve comprehension by mainly:

Having students practice so-called “comprehension skills and strategies,” such as finding the main idea in a passage and making inferences. These Chromebook-based exercises often resemble test prep. Although some of this practice is fine, hours spent on it crowd out history, geography, science and literature.

This is very consistent with a scholarly paper by the SRI, Report: Beyond the Surface: Leveraging High-Quality Instructional Materials for Robust Reading Comprehension Learning brief, funded by Tulsa’s Schusterman Family Foundation. As reported by the 74, Katrina Woodworth, the director at SRI’s Center for Education Research & Improvement, explained. “The point is to both teach reading and to build students’ knowledge base so that they have more scaffolding for future learning of both content and meaning.” But even the most promising Science of Reading programs they studied, may be “unintentionally encouraging teachers to focus on surface-level goals.”

One of the lead authors, Dan Reynolds, asked, “Are we teaching our K-4 kids that reading is just tasks? Are we teaching them that they just need to label stuff and fill out graphic organizers?”

Reynolds said the “Surface-level” instruction they discovered, “weakens instruction for students and can later manifest as a skills disadvantage.” 

And, getting back to Tyner, he wrote that an “important caveat to the undeniable successes of Mississippi and Louisiana in raising fourth-grade reading is that those states have seen little improvement in eighth-grade reading.”

While I very much agree with his position on the harm done by the failure to focus on background information, educators didn’t voluntarily undermine the teaching of history, the arts, and critical thinking. After all, the SRI study finds hope in the evidence that students and teachers prefer deep reading instruction.

But, I wish he had explained how the decline of holistic instruction was the predictable result of the NCLB’s and RttT’s test-driven mandates. During that time, for example, I served on a team assembled by our outstanding State Superintendent Sandy Garrett, in order to minimize the harm we knew was coming with NCLB.

Due to the demand that schools meet impossible testing goals, schools were forced to cut back on social studies, history, science, and the arts, as well as critical thinking. They inflicted the worst harm on schools serving the poorest children of color. Being a history teacher in extremely high-challenge high schools, I was horrified by the hundreds of stories I was told by students who said they were “robbed of an education.”

And those experiences explain why I’m worried by Tyner’s call for “deliberate efforts to improve instruction and accountability.” I would communicate with many thousands of teachers, and students, and I can’t remember anyone who lived through those “reforms” and didn’t see test-driven, accountability-driven instruction as a failure.

Moreover, while Tyner calls for solid funding of the infrastructure necessary to implement the Southern Strategy, he is less clear about the harms that retaining students can have. Given the lies perpetrated by rightwingers who claimed Oklahoma failed to improve reading because Joy Hofmeister quickly ended retentions, I wish he would be more explicit in fact-checking them.  

A history of 21st century education in Oklahoma should also explicitly include the reasons why Oklahoma backed off from passing four End of Instruction tests. Rep. Joe Eddins explained in 2005, “Based on test data, the House of Representatives staff estimates 89,000 failed tests each year.”

So, Oklahomans focused on win-win policies, and NAEP 8th grade test scores, stopped declining in 2005, and went up from 2009 to 2013.  (2013 was the year when national 8th grade reading and math scores also peaked.) 

I taught in an alternative school, in 2012, when new End-of-Instruction tests were being piloted. I resigned after being required to give the vast majority of my students’ worksheets, and focus on tutoring a few students who had a chance of passing the test, and graduate. Fortunately, under the leadership of Superintendent Joy Hofmeister, that law was repealed in 2016.

A history of what went wrong in Oklahoma schools should also address the budget cuts that killed those successes.

As the Oklahoma Policy Institute reported in 2016:

Oklahoma’s per pupil funding of the state aid formula for public schools has fallen 26.9 percent after inflation between FY 2008 and FY 2017. These continue to be the deepest cuts in the nation, and Oklahoma’s lead is growing. On a percentage basis, we’ve cut nearly twice as much as the next worst state, Alabama.

Moreover, Mississippi’s cuts ( -9.2) were about a third of Oklahoma’s, and Florida’s and Louisiana’s cuts were a little less than 20% and about 10%. Tennessee increased its funding by 9.8%.

After Nearly a Decade, School Investments Still Way Down in Some StatesPublic investment in K-12 schools — crucial for communities to thrive and the U.S. economy to offer broad opport…

Although I would have written a different history on Oklahoma education’s decline, I do believe we can rebuild our education systems.

But, I would have liked to read more of Tyner’s thoughts about the damage teachers witnessed by accountability-driven reforms that were imposed on Oklahoma schools, and huge funding cuts. My main response to his history, however, is that this is the time to be more blunt in terms of what it would  really take to achieve equitable levels of reading for comprehension.  

Given the lack of evidence that the “Southern Surge” is improving reading comprehension, providing long-term benefits, and doing more good than harm, we should find a more holistic way to reverse the harm inflicted on our schools by top-down mandates of the last quarter of a century. 

Categories Accountability, Budget Cuts, Education Reform, Funding, NAEP, Oklahoma

Oklahoma: Jewish Families Oppose Public Funding for a Religious Charter School

By dianeravitch
April 9, 2026 //
0

An organization called the Ben Gamla Charter School Foundation wants to open a virtual Jewish religious charter school in Oklahoma.

The story is not as straightforward as it appears.

Behind the Florida-based Ben Gamla charter chain is a for-profit management company called Academica, which derives huge annual profits from its connection to more than 200 charter schools across the nation.

There are fewer than 9,000 Jews in the state of Oklahoma, and they are not clamoring for a Jewish charter school.

The state charter board twice rejected the Ben Gamla application, because a previous appeal for a Catholic online charter school was turned down by Oklahoma state courts, then by a 4-4 decision in the U.S. Supreme Court because Justice Amy Coney Barret recused herself due to her friendship with a lawyer for the religious school.

The Ben Gamla Foundation filed a lawsuit on March 24, claiming that the state law banning public funding for religious schools is unconstitutional religious discrimination.

The lawsuit asks a federal judge to strike down Oklahoma’s ban on religious charter schools, and to order the state to stop denying applicants on the basis of their religious character.

“We’re asking the court to end that blatant religious targeting and allow families to choose schools that are best for them,” Peter Deutsch, a former Democratic congressman in Florida and founder of the National Ben Gamla Jewish Charter School Foundation, said in a statement.

The lawsuit alleges that Oklahoma’s requirement that charter schools be “nonsectarian” is unconstitutional, citing the First Amendment’s Free Exercise Clause and the Fourteenth Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause.

But Jewish organizations in Oklahoma are wary of the Ben Gamla application. A small group of Jews and a rabbi in Tulsa recently asked to join a lawsuit to block the Ben Gamla charter school.

The group filed a motion Wednesday in federal court in Oklahoma City seeking to intervene in the lawsuit brought by the National Ben Gamla Jewish Charter School Foundation, which is trying to become the nation’s first publicly funded religious school.

Rabbi Daniel Kaiman, the principal rabbi of Congregation B’nai Emunah in Tulsa, says he opposes the mixing of religion and government because of the potential for abuse. His own children attend a public elementary school in Tulsa.

“I am passionate about Jewish education—indeed, I have dedicated my life to it. Kaiman wrote in a declaration filed with the court. “Children in my congregation, including my own children, receive excellent, privately funded Jewish education through our synagogue and at home in accordance with our community values. But the mixing of religion and government creates opportunities for religious coercion…”

The motion was filed on behalf of the seven by the ACLU, Americans United for Separation of Church and State, the Education Law Center, the Freedom From Religion Foundation and Oklahoma Appleseed.

The Ben Gamla school would under insert religious teaching into all subjects and require all employees to uphold Jewish values in their lives. What any of that means is unclear. How would math, reading, science, and other subjects be taught from a Jewish perspective. What sort of “values” would employees uphold and who would determine whether they did?

The Ben Gamla application is opposed by state Attorney General Gentner Drummond, who is against religious charter schools. But Drummond leaves office in January and might be replaced by a supporter of religious charter schools.

The state charter school board is pro-charter and is not vigorously opposing the Ben Gamla application. In fact, the state charter board retained First Liberty Institute to represent it. It is a conservative Christian legal group that believes that religious charter schools should be legal.

Oklahoma Jews are opposed to Ben Gamla. The Jewish Federation of Greater Oklahoma City sent a statement to the state Attorney General saying that religious charter schools “risk eroding the constitutional safeguards that protect both religious freedom and government neutrality toward religion.”

Ben Gamla’s financial interdependence on the Academica charter chain should alarm Oklahomans as much as the effort to turn public money over to religious schools.

Academica is a very wealthy for-profit charter management organization.

According to Ben Gamla’s strategic plan, Academica will control its budget and finances, facilities and management, human resources, and much more. And, of course, charge a management fee.

Academica manages more than 200 charter schools in at least 22 states. Its biggest chains are Somerset Academy (at least 80 campuses), Mater Academy (40-50 schools), Doral Academy, and Pinecrest Academy.

Academica held more than $115 million in properties in Florida in 2010 and collected $19 million in profit. That’s 16 years ago, the network has vastly expanded, and no one has updated the total value of Academica’s real estate since then or its annual profits.

Academica makes its hefty profits through management fees and “related party transactions.”

This is how a “related party transaction” works:

A real estate LLC controlled by Academica allies buys or builds a school property. The nonprofit charter school, like Ben Gamla or Mater or Somerset, leases the building. The school collects public funds from the state or the city, then pays rent to the LLC. The rent is high, often as much as 20% of all public funding. The management company chooses the services provided, making contracts with its allies.

The Network for Public Education described Academica in its report on for-profit schools:

Academica: The largest EMO is Academica, based in Miami, Florida. Academica’s owner is a real estate developer, Fernando Zulueta, who opened the first charter, Somerset, as part of a housing development he had constructed. He reasoned that his real estate venture would be more attractive to buyers since students would have a school within the development. Using their real estate companies, Fernando and his brother, Ignacio, built what journalist Jessica Bakeman called “an empire of charter schools.”

Over 100 active corporations linked to Fernando Zulueta and his family members are listed as residing at Academica’s Miami headquarters at 6340 Sunset Drive and 6457 Sunset Drive in Miami.39 They include real estate corporations, holding companies, and finance corporations, as well as sub-chains both within and outside of Florida.

Like many other charter schools and chains, Academica cashed in on the COVID Paycheck Protection Program during the pandemic. Individual schools and other nonprofit and for-profit entities related to the chain received in total up to $35.7 million dollars, even though there is no evidence of revenue lost during the pandemic. In fact, during the pandemic, the EMO continued to expand. In total, charter schools cashed in on one billion dollars from the PPP program.

Mater Academy Foundation, Inc., the related non-profit corporation that oversees Academica’s Mater brand of charter schools, acquired a $127.5 million educational facilities lease revenue bond to purchase several facilities from Academica. The South Florida Business Journal detailed the purchase price of several of the facilities and the Academica-affiliated real estate entities that cashed in on the sales, concluding that “the Pandemic Profiteering deal allows Academica to cash out after investing in the development of charter schools, although it will still earn management fees for the schools.”

The connection between Fernando Zuleta’s real estate holdings and his for-profit managed charter schools goes beyond the state of Florida. According to the State Public Charter School Authority, Academica Nevada pays the lease on behalf of the charter school Mater Academy Mountain Vista of Nevada to Stephanie Development LLC. The managingmembers of Stephanie Development are Fernando and Ignacio Zulueta and Robert and Clayton Howell. Robert Howell is the manager of Academica Nevada.

About 18% of all charter students are enrolled in for-profit charter schools, like those of Academica. If Ben Gamla is approved in Oklahoma, that will open new horizons for their expansion.

Be sure to read NPE’s report:

For-Profit Charter Schools Gone Wild—Proof That Greed and Education Don’t Mix

https://share.google/KgVigiNsDfKzQa0AD

Categories Charter Schools, Funding, Oklahoma, Religion, School Choice, Separation of church and state

John Thompson: Beware of the Effort to Revive the NCLB Punishments, by Stealth

By dianeravitch
April 6, 2026 //
4

John Thompson, retired teacher and historian in Oklahoma, was stunned by some survey results released about parents’ opinions on education. He took a deep dive, read the raw data, and discovered that the survey was conducted by ExcelInEd, Jeb Bush’s organization. Excel promotes high-stakes accountability for public schools but no accountability whatsoever for voucher schools, which they also promote.

ExcelinEd has familiar game plan: they use inaccurate NAEP statistics to defame public schools, demand more accountability to crush the morale of principals, teachers, and parents, then insist that vouchers and charters are the way forward. As Josh Cowen showed in his book The Privateers, voucher schools get far worse results than public schools, and numerous studies have shown that charter schools are usually no better than public schools and often much worse.

Thompson writes:

Patricia Levesque, the executive director of ExcelinEd, recently wrote a commentary about a survey of 500 Oklahoma parents, claiming that more than 80% of them want “a state testing and accountability system to measure student achievement, and they expect honesty and accuracy about their children’s grade level performance.”  

Her stressing honesty is ironic because ExcelinEd is known for spreading the falsehood that reliable NAEP Proficiency test scores correlate with “grade level.” That helps rightwing organizations like the Oklahoma Council of Public Affairs proclaim, “Just 14 percent of third-grade students in both the Oklahoma City and Tulsa districts tested proficient or better on state ELA tests.” In fact, NAEP Basic is closer to grade level.

So, I took a dive into the survey. My reading of it was very different than Levesque’s. 

In some ways, the survey she described  is consistent with the Education Department parent survey that State Superintendent Lindel Fields released. But Levesque’s interpretation of the results was very different than Fields’ analysis of the state’s parent feedback.

The survey Levesque cited found that 74% of parents want a pay raise for teachers, and another 74% say we spend too little on education. Her study found that 80% of parents were very or somewhat satisfied with their school but, for some reason, it adds, “While overall positive, this fails to hit the common 95% satisfaction sought in commercial endeavors.”

While 78% of parents support retention by 3rd grade of students who don’t read on “level,” parents estimate that about 83% students read at or above grade level; and 78% are confident in the way their schools teach reading.

FYI, in 1998, 80% of Oklahoma 8th graders read at that level, but now about 59% do. My reading of the research, and classroom experience, attributes the subsequent decline to the way that No Child Left Behind and the Race to the Top undermined the teaching of History, Science, Arts, and of the background knowledge that is essential for reading comprehension; huge funding cuts; COVID; and Ryan Walters; as well as the rise of social media.

Yes, 83% of the survey are supportive of student testing, which is no surprise. But, the study doesn’t dig into the difference between testing for tracking student progress, as opposed to high-stakes testing. After all, there is great support for testing for diagnostic purposes, as opposed to the reward-and-punish testing that has been rampant since the NCLB was enacted.

Conversely, the Education Departments’ parent survey seems to be calling for schools to tackle the crucial issues that they were forced to ignore, as districts invested in high-stakes test-prep.

When Superintendent Fields explained that the results of statewide surveys of educators and parents, informed the budget priorities he is seeking. Superintendent Fields reported, “Early literacy, support systems to improve behavior and mental health resources and teacher recruitment and retention are among the top three concerns for all groups surveyed.”

The Education Department survey found that some parents called for a reduction of standardized testing, while others did not address it.  

The parents survey included repeated calls for teaching critical thinking skills, and media literacy; identifying misinformation; and early grade emphasis on literacy.

It explained that parents “highlighted the importance of both academic and life skills, emphasizing the need for students to be well-prepared for real-world challenges.” 

Parents said that misinformation is very prevalent, and children need to be taught how to tell fact from fiction. They understand that learning how to be critical consumers of information is “literally the foundation of a successful life.” They know that social media and A.I. can make kids “susceptible to conspiracy theories and propaganda.” 

What I didn’t see in the parents’ responses was calls for data-driven accountability; online, as opposed to personal tutoring for 3rd graders; or simple “miracles.”

What I saw was a desire to return to personal connections. I saw goals that would require more support for educators, as well as requiring cooperation with social workers, health providers, and mentors that are necessary for preparing children for a full life in the 21st century. 

Categories Accountability, Bush, Jeb, Data, Education Industry, Florida, Oklahoma, Standardized Testing

John Thompson: Is It “Silly Season” or “Cruel Season” in Oklahoma as Legislature Reconvenes?

By dianeravitch
February 13, 2026 //
1

John Thompson, historian and retired teacher in Oklahoma, reviews the big concerns that will preoccupy the Republican Governor and Legislature in 2026.

He writes:

As Oklahoma’s legislative session begins, commentators are reminding us of the absurdities that will come. The Oklahoma Voice’s Janelle Stecklein’s Welcome to the 2026 Edition of Welcome to Oklahoma’s Political Silly Season. Here are Some Bills Worth Mocking, reported on: 

A proposed deregulation bill that would result in alligators taking over our wetlands; the bill to ban Sharia Law; the “doubly criminalizing the stealing of shopping carts,” and the bill which claims “condensation trails left in our atmosphere by airplanes are actually chemical agents designed to interfere with the sun, [and] weather or are a nefarious way to psychologically manipulate us.”

And, former Speaker of the House, Cal Hobson’s, “Hide the Children. Lock the Door. The ’26 Session Draws Near, summarized  the bill to require universities to build structures honoring the assassinated Charlie Kirk.

Then came Governor Kevin Stitt’s address to the legislature.

Seven years ago, Stitt promised  to make us a “Top Ten” state,” by creating a business-friendly environment by cutting “red tape,” reducing regulations, as well as pushing school choice, and other free-market policies. 

But, according to CNBC, Oklahoma is now ranked 41th for business, 48th in education, and 49th in life, health and inclusion.

According to the U.S. News and World Report, we’re ranked 46th in economic opportunity, and 42th overall.

But Stitt told the legislature:

We’ve proven to the world that Oklahoma is second to none – it’s a state that promotes innovation, champions freedom, and creates opportunity for its people.

Oklahoma wasn’t built by government planners or bureaucrats. …

Oklahoma was built by entrepreneurs, risk-takers and innovators who believe in free markets and the American Dream – that if you work hard, take risks and create value, you should be rewarded.

Actually, Oklahoma was founded on populist principles, such as empowering voters to pass initiative petitions and amendments to the constitution. After the voters legalized medical marijuana, and voted for the expansion of Medicaid, Republicans have attempted to undermine those rights. And, now, Stitt is calling for the repeal of those two laws, and passing two other petitions that are the opposite of what voters supported.  

Stitt’s most destructive attack could be on Medicaid expansion, known as SoonerCare, which reduced the state’s uninsured rate from 17.6% in 2019 to 13.9 % in 2024. But, now it needs almost $500 million to maintain the federally mandated level of service and to administer new mandates and to more efficiently manage the system.

And Oklahoma’s recent privatization of Medicaid campaign “moved thousands of patients to other insurance providers.” And, it has “resulted in lower reimbursement rates and increased denials for services.”

Medicaid provides coverage for one in four Oklahomans. It provided coverage for more than ½ of the state’s child births. While half of its recipients are children, it helps out many low-income seniors and persons with disabilities.

But, Stitt told the legislature, “Nobody feels sorry for an able-bodied male that should be working between the ages of 25 to 65, and we should not be giving them free healthcare.”

Stitt bragged about his cuts in income taxes, which were “the Path to Zero income tax;” He called them a step towards “one of our greatest budget reform wins in history.”

Due to spending cuts, Oklahoma saved over $5.5 billion dollars. Those funds could be used to address $692 million shortfall for this year, as well as $1.5 billion in increased funding that state agencies have requested.

Instead, he wants to amend the constitution to place a 3% annual cap on recurring spending growth.

The third state question Stitt suggested to lawmakers would be to freeze property taxes for “all levels.” Property taxes are a major funding source for public schools, CareerTech, and county level programs. 

And he would like to expand the $249 million per year tax credits for private schools.

And Stitt repeated his calls to reverse the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling and limit tribal sovereignty in Oklahoma.

Of course, Stitt praised Trump and Ronald Reagan. He challenged the legislators to read Reagan’s speech, “A Time for Choosing.” He then said Reagan was “the last best hope of man on earth;” without him we would have taken “the last step into a thousand years of darkness.”

He then bragged about freeing Oklahomans from Covid lockdowns, protecting them from vaccine mandates, and, in the name of protecting individual liberties and religious freedom, preventing boys from playing in girls’ sports.

After boasting about his success in limiting the freedom of transgender students, he called for the elimination of the Oklahoma Secondary School Activities Association (OSSAA) for not promoting the open transfer of student athletes.

And Stitt concluded:

Oklahoma is not just part of this American Dream. We are its purest expression. And this spirit is what has always defined Oklahoma.

Oklahoma is where bold dreams are possible.

I believe these last seven years have been the greatest in state history

Of course, Stitt’s “commitment to limited government and protecting the Oklahoma way of life,” also required cooperation with rightwing legislators; together, they share credit for making “our state … the best in the country.”

Categories Budget Cuts, Cruelty, Extremism, Oklahoma, Privatization, School Choice

John Thompson Reviews the Evidence About Mississippi’s “Miracle”

By dianeravitch
January 28, 2026 //
3

John Thompson, historian and retired teacher in Oklahoma, is concerned about the snake-oil salesmen pitching the Mississippi “miracle” in his home state. It’s amazing how quickly quack ideas spread.

He writes:

As Oklahoma’s legislative leaders became even more devoted to the “Mississippi Miracle” narrative pushed by “astroturf” think tanks like Jeb Bush’s ExcelinEd, and the Chamber of Commerce, I’ve been taking a closer look into the so-called “studies” they spread. I’ve long been wary of cheap, simplistic solutions to complex, interconnected problems.  But, the research I’ve been analyzing provides warning that their agenda is more dangerous than I would have anticipated.  

After discussions with advocates for large numbers of retentions of children who don’t produce grade level reading scores, I’ve focused on the need to fund and build the support services, like high-dose tutoring programs – before holding student back. Apparently, many of them believe that we were on track to an Oklahoma Miracle in 2014 when we held back 21,000 children, second only to Mississippi. In fact, our scores had been improving before the retentions, almost certainly due to meaningful funding increases that ended in 2008. And, like Mississippi, our retention-driven approach didn’t increase 8thgrade scores, indicating that they taught young children how to improve test scores, without improving reading comprehension.

After federal Covid funding ended, Mississippi shifted to a cheaper method of tutoring students, known, ironically as the “Paper” online tutoring.   In 2023, the reliable Chalkbeat did a deep dive into “Paper,” which documented, “This online tutoring company says it offers expert one-on-one help. Students often get neither.”

Chalkbeat found a system which required single tutors to multitask, working at a breakneck speed to serve multiple students. One tutor served up to 12 students at once. And “Paper” incentivized outputs with “surge” bonuses of 2 to 3 times more than their regular wages for tutoring multiple students at a time. 

I wonder what parents would think if their 3rd graders had to undergo the stress that that sort of online technology can generate. And since Mississippi spent $10.7 million dollars for online tutoring for kids from 3rd to 12th grade, how will such a system effect the learning cultures of schools? 

Moreover, National Public Radio recently presented the findings of the Brookings Institution’s study of A.I., which concluded, “At this point in its trajectory, the risks of utilizing generative AI in children’s education overshadow its benefits.”

NPR reported:

At the top of Brookings’ list of risks is the negative effect AI can have on children’s cognitive growth — how they learn new skills and perceive and solve problems.

The report describes a kind of doom loop of AI dependence, where students increasingly off-load their own thinking onto the technology, leading to the kind of cognitive decline or atrophy more commonly associated with aging brains.

One of the report’s authors warned:

When kids use generative AI that tells them what the answer is … they are not thinking for themselves. They’re not learning to parse truth from fiction. They’re not learning to understand what makes a good argument. They’re not learning about different perspectives in the world because they’re actually not engaging in the material.

And, NPR quoted one student who’s comment on A.I., “It’s easy. You don’t need to (use) your brain.”

There are some reasons for hope in Oklahoma. It is my understanding that more business leaders have been listening to real education experts, and people in our schools. And, Representative Dick Lowe has filed HB 3023 which says:

Reading intervention shall not be provided solely by digital technology. Reading intervention shall include a majority of direct instruction from a teacher, specialist, or literacy coach and shall be led by a teacher or specialist trained in the science of reading.

But, our budget will remain flat, at a time when federal cuts for agencies and nonprofits that provide essential services to schools, are struggling to finance their own programs. 

And, it is hard to be hopeful in regard to legislators and business people who believe, or claim to believe, and join in spreading,  the lies told by true believers in reward-and-punish, free market ideologies, and think tanks like ExcelinEd.

Sadly, we must continue to push back against corporate school reformers, at a time when we we face world history levels of challenges, such as the rapid rise of A.I. increased inequality, and Trumpism.   

Categories Curriculum, Education Industry, Literacy, Mississippi, Oklahoma

John Thompson: Bad, Failed Ideas Revived in Oklahoma

By dianeravitch
January 16, 2026 //
2

John Thompson, historian and retired teacher, reports on the latest education news from Oklahoma: the Chamber of Commerce is intent on reviving the failed test-and-punish agenda of the Bush-Obama years, plus the so-called “Mississippi Miracle,”which is credited with amazing results in reading.

John writes:

Once again, attacks on under-funded Oklahoma public schools are examples of the threats the nation’s schools face. Yes, we’ve gotten rid of State Superintendent Ryan Walters, but I’m more worried about today’s  “accountability-driven” mandates, such as those pushed by the Chamber of Commerce. 

On the other hand, our public schools have a history of receiving support from holistic, bottom-up efforts by a variety of excellent social work agencies, nonprofits, volunteers, and innovative educators.

These partners remind me of 1990’s, when student performance was growing. The head of the Oklahoma City Public School System curriculum department dropped into my History classroom, saying that she had been watching me teach, and I might like to try something new. She suggested that I start the year with the 20th century to get my kids hooked on history. Then, around Thanksgiving, we would return to the beginning of the subject, and reteach the 20th century.

It was a brilliant approach, supported by cognitive science. And it showed inner city students respect by nurturing meaningful, challenging instruction. The result was that my kids worked from bell-to-bell, from day one to their graduation day, learning how to learn.

I doubt that would be allowed today, when “everyone” is pressured to be on the “same page,” often requiring the same type of data-driven instruction.

Then, as the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 approached, our principal gave us aligned and paced curriculum guidelines; They are now pervasive. She said that she knew we wouldn’t use it, but rather than throwing it away, we should keep it handy in case a top administrator visited the class.

Before NCLB, we had the autonomy to adjust our lessons in order to promote in-depth learning. For instance, when my students came to class carrying Ralph Ellison’s The Invisible Man, which they were reading in their English class, I would quickly change my schedule. Our History class would learn about Ellison’s childhood in Oklahoma City, and how his famous “Battle Royal” scene was inspired by a cruel joke that was played on him when he applied for a job.  

And, around that time, the bipartisan MAPS for Kids succeeded in saving the OKCPS from a financial collapse by raising taxes.  MAPS for Kids listened to educators, parents, top national education and cognitive science researchers, and students; it called for the meaningful instruction which treated high-challenge kids with the same respect and opportunities that are bestowed on students in the exurbs.  

I was in the room when MAPS and OKCPS leaders agreed that educators should receive a clear message – their job is to teach the Standards of Instruction, not to standardized tests.

I was then in the room when top district administrators were supposed to reveal the agreement to a committee of principals. The committee chair started with summaries of ridiculous policies that had been imposed over the years. Principals replied with absurd, but hilarious stories, about the tumultuous effects of non-educators’ political demands. 

But, the administrator then said that we would have to dramatically expand standardized testing. 

When I pushed back, a highly respected administrator put her hands on my shoulders, and said, “John, I’ve always  said you don’t make a hog heavier by weighing it. But this is politics. We have no choice.”

When NCLB and subsequent corporate school reforms were implemented, the supposed goal was using top-down, accountability mandates to rapidly transform schools serving our poorest children of color. But in my experience, those were the students who were most damaged by output-driven reforms that forced teachers to be “on the same page” when teaching the same lessons.

I didn’t have the expertise to get involved in the debates over aligned and paced instruction in pre-k and elementary schools, but the idea that it should be forced on high-challenge secondary students was absurd. Educators pushed back as much as we could, but our resistance was condemned as “low expectations.” And reformers who blamed us Baby Boomers for making “excuses,” sought to replace us with young teachers, such as those in Teach for America, who were trained in the culture of data-driven accountability

Reformers also brought frequent benchmark testing into schools. Lacking explicit stakes, benchmarks could have created a culture of testing for diagnostic, not accountability, purposes. In my experience, however, the test prep culture, combined with more frequent tests, further undermined the teacher autonomy required for holistic instruction.  

Today, the campaign for the “Science of Reading,” now known as the “Mississippi Miracle,” is driven by “extensive use of formative and benchmark assessments to track student progress and inform instructional differentiation.” The American Federation of Teachers’ president Randi Weingarten supported much or most of the “Science of Reading” but she “doesn’t advocate for what we have found so disrespectful: scripted curricula or ‘teacher proof’ programs.”

And we face new threats when, as is happening in Oklahoma,” the ideology-driven, reward-and-punish parts of the “Mississippi Miracle,” are combined with the Moms for Liberty’s focus on “back to basics” foundational skills and phonics.

Despite the lack of evidence that the Miracle increases long-lasting reading comprehension, as opposed to short-term test gains for 4th graders, Oklahoma’s Chambers remain committed to retention based on reading test scores, like we did in 2015-2016 when we were second to Mississippi in retaining k-3rd grade students. They ignore that tragic results which seemed likely to occur in 2004, and in 2012, and 2015 when Oklahoma briefly required the passing of four End-of-Instruction tests to graduate from high schools.  

But, I would remind the Chamber of its call for recruiting and retaining high-quality teachers in order to attract and retain business investors for Oklahoma. After all, the best way to attract high-quality teachers, and parents of students, is to allow for high-quality, holistic teaching and learning, not make them work in a 21st century version of a Model T assembly line.

Categories Accountability, Education Industry, Failure, Literacy, Oklahoma, Research

The 74: More Religious Charter Schools Apply for Public $$

By dianeravitch
December 9, 2025 //
4

You knew that when the U.S. Supreme Court turned down a request from Oklahoma to approve a religious charter school, there would be more requests in the pipeline. Oklahoma was rejected by a 4-4 vote only because Justice Amy Coney Barrett recused herself, because of her friendship with one of the lawyers for the online Catholic school.

Recently, as I reported, Oklahoma returned with a proposal for an online Jewish charter school, a Ben Gamla charter. The entire state of Oklahoma has a population of only 9,000 Jews. They are not requesting a Jewish school, but an entrepreneur connected to a Florida for-profit charter chain is.

Religious charter schools are a big problem for the national charter lobby. They say that charter schools are “public” schools. The advocates for religious charter schools say they are not public schools. They are specifically religious schools.

The 74 reported the latest proposal:

When the U.S. Supreme Court deadlocked this year in a case over whether charter schools can be religious, experts said it wouldn’t take long for the question to re-emerge in another lawsuit.

They were right.

In Tennessee, the nonprofit Wilberforce Academy is suing the Knox County Schools in federal court because the district refuses to allow a Christian charter school. Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti is on the school’s side. He issued an opinion last month that the state’s ban on religious charter schools likely violates the First Amendment. 

“Tennessee’s public charter schools are not government entities for constitutional purposes and may assert free exercise rights,” he wrote to Rep. Michele Carringer, the Knoxville Republican who requested the opinion. 

The legal challenge in Tennessee comes as a Florida-based charter school network prepares to submit an application to the Oklahoma Charter School Board for a Jewish virtual charter high school. Peter Deutsch, the former Democratic congressman who founded the Ben Gamla charter schools, began working on the idea long before the case over St. Isidore of Seville Catholic Virtual School even went to court. The 4-4 tie in May means that an Oklahoma Supreme Court decision blocking the school from receiving state funds still stands. 

The National Ben Gamla Jewish Charter School Foundation runs a network of Hebrew language charter schools in Florida. Now it wants to open a virtual religious charter school in Oklahoma. (Ben Gamla)

“The prior decision shows that there’s an open question here that needs to be resolved,” said Eric Baxter, vice president and senior counsel at Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, a law firm representing the National Ben Gamla Jewish Charter School Foundation. “We hope the court will get it right this time. We hope the federal courts get it right without having to go to the Supreme Court.”

Idaho also confronted the issue earlier this year. The state’s first charter, Brabeion Academy, initially promoted the school as Christian. But it was approved in August as a nonreligious school and will open as such next fall. Related‘A Day to Exhale’: Supreme Court Deadlocks on Religious Charter Schools — For Now

Deutsch, Skrmetti and other supporters of faith-based charter schools base their argument on three earlier Supreme Court rulings allowing public funds to support sectarian schools. They say that excluding religious organizations from operating faith-based charter schools is discrimination and violates the Constitution. But leaders of the charter sector and public school advocates argue that classifying charter schools as private would threaten funding and civil rights protections for 3.7 million students nationwide…

To Oklahoma Attorney General Gentner Drummond, the debate is settled, for now. In November, he said his office would “oppose any attempts to undermine the rule of law.” 

Americans United, which advocates for maintaining church-state separation, has also issued a warning over the new school. The organization represented parents and advocates in a separate case over the school. 

“Religious extremists once again are trying to undermine our country’s promise of church-state separation by forcing Oklahoma taxpayers to fund a religious public school. Not on our watch,” Rachel Laser, president and CEO, said in a press release….

The demand for a Jewish charter school would be much higher in Florida, which has an estimated Jewish population of nearly 762,000, compared with about 9,000 in Oklahoma. 

Please open the link to continue reading the article.

Categories Charter Schools, Ethics, For-Profit, Oklahoma, Privatization, Religion, Separation of church and state, Virtual Charter Schools
« Older Entries