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Oklahoma: State Attorney General Sues to Block Religious Charter School

By dianeravitch
October 23, 2023 //
13

Gentner Drummond, the Attorney General for Oklahoma, sued to block the authorization of a Catholic charter school. Drummond disagrees with Governor Kevin Stitt and State Superintendent of Education Ryan Walters. Even the lobbyists for the charter movement oppose the religious charter school, which is a back door voucher.

Sean Murphy of the AP reported:

Oklahoma’s Republican Attorney General Gentner Drummond on Friday sued to stop a state board from establishing and funding what would be the nation’s first religious public charter school after the board ignored Drummond’s warning that it would violate both the state and U.S. constitutions.

Drummond filed the lawsuit with the Oklahoma Supreme Court against the Oklahoma Statewide Virtual Charter School Board after three of the board’s members this week signed a contract for the St. Isidore of Seville Catholic Virtual Charter School, which is sponsored by the Archdiocese of Oklahoma City.

“Make no mistake, if the Catholic Church were permitted to have a public virtual charter school, a reckoning will follow in which this state will be faced with the unprecedented quandary of processing requests to directly fund all petitioning sectarian groups,” the lawsuit states.

The school board voted 3-2 in June to approve the Catholic Archdiocese’s application to establish the online public charter school, which would be open to students across the state in kindergarten through grade 12. In its application, the Archdiocese said its vision is that the school “participates in the evangelizing mission of the Church and is the privileged environment in which Christian education is carried out.”

The approval of a publicly funded religious school is the latest in a series of actions taken by conservative-led states that include efforts to teach the Bible in public schools, and to ban booksand lessons about race, sexual orientation and gender identity.

Oklahoma’s Constitution specifically prohibits the use of public money or property from being used, directly or indirectly, for the use or benefit of any church or system of religion. Nearly 60% of Oklahoma voters rejected a proposal in 2016 to remove that language from the Constitution…

Oklahoma’s Republican Gov. Kevin Stitt, who earlier this year signed a bill that would give parents public funds to send their children to private schools, including religious schools, criticized Drummond’s lawsuit as a “political stunt.”

“AG Drummond seems to lack any firm grasp on the constitutional principle of religious freedom and masks his disdain for the Catholics’ pursuit by obsessing over non-existent schools that don’t neatly align with his religious preference,” Stitt said in a statement.

Drummond defeated Stitt’s hand-picked attorney general in last year’s GOP primary and the two Republicans have clashed over Stitt’s hostile position toward many Native American tribes in the state.

The AG’s lawsuit also suggests that the board’s vote could put at risk more than $1 billion in federal education dollars that Oklahoma receives that require the state to comply with federal laws that prohibit a publicly funded religious school.

“Not only is this an irreparable violation of our individual religious liberty, but it is an unthinkable waste of our tax dollars,” Drummond said in a statement.

The National Alliance for Public Charter Schools, a nonprofit organization that supports the public charter school movement, released a statement Friday in support of Drummond’s challenge.

Categories Charter Schools, Corporate Reform, Education Industry, Oklahoma, Privatization, Religion, Republicans, Resistance

John Thompson: Oklahoma’s State Superintendent Ryan Walters Is a Shameless Liar

By dianeravitch
October 17, 2023 //
3

John Thompson, historian and retired teacher in Oklahoma, is appalled by the spread of a culture of lying. The state’s superintendent of schools is a textbook example of a man who lies openly, repeatedly, and without shame.

As the New York Times’ Peter Wehner wrote, “The first hours of the Trump presidency began with a demonstrable lie, when Mr. Trump, his press secretary and his closest advisers lied about the size of his inaugural crowd, photographic evidence to the contrary be damned.” Since then, state and federal officeholders, as well as Trump voters have become shockingly comfortable with “alt facts,” but as cases are heading to multiple courts, brazen falsehoods which have been portrayed as political narratives that are legal, even when they are lies, will become violations of law. Oklahoma’s State School Superintendent Ryan Walters is likely to become one case study in such transitions.

Walters is facing federal lawsuits for wrongly firing Department of Education employees. Another employee, the director of grant development, disproved Walters’ claim that, ‘We have applied for millions and millions of grants since I took office.’” She explained, “We have not applied for one single grant. That was a blatant lie.”

The Oklahoma Ethics Commission fined Walters $7,800 for filing late campaign reports 14 times. Most importantly, the state auditor alleged that $30 million of COVID-19 relief money was misspent by Walters’ department, and the “Oklahoma Attorney General Gentner Drummond said he won’t rule out criminal charges against some state leaders after a report alleged misspending of COVID-19 relief money.”

Moreover, Walters’ promotion of lies (that presumably were not illegal) by Libs of TikTokand other rightwingers likely contributed to bomb threats to Tulsa-area public schools. As the top Democrat in the Oklahoma Senate said, she supports her House colleagues’ request for an impeachment investigation because, “These threats are a direct result of reckless rhetoric and must be addressed.”

Then, as KGOU reported, “Walters put TPS (Tulsa Public Schools) in the national spotlight for participating in the Chinese language program Confucius Classrooms, which has indirect ties to the Chinese government.

It’s hard to understand how anyone could believe Walter’s narratives, especially Sen. James Lankford, R-Oklahoma City, who “is one of 18 members of the U.S. Senate who have called for an investigation into educational ‘funds from hostile foreign governments flowing into America’s K-12 schools.’” Lankford asserted “The CCP is the greatest threat to America’s security today,” and “The CCP’s involvement in the K-12 education system further demonstrates how far the Chinese government is willing go to expand its influence and promote its authoritarian agenda.”

But Walters’ recent stunt, testifying before Congress, should prove that he is willing to tell virtually any lie, defend it, and at least temporarily, convince some or many (or most?) Republican legislators to believe it. As the Oklahoman reports:

“Walters has often equated the nonprofit with the Chinese Communist Party and accused Confucius Classrooms of being part of a propaganda campaign by the party.

“He and the state Board of Education voted in August to require all Oklahoma school districts to report any foreign funding. Walters urged Congress and the state Legislature to prohibit schools from receiving funds from hostile foreign governments.”

Then, he testified to Congress, “We must protect our kids and not allow a hostile foreign government to indoctrinate them.”

In fact, as the Tulsa Public Schools replied:

All costs that related to the Confucius Classroom Coordination Office amounted to $6,240 over the 2022-23 school year. That included the price of the teacher’s training and travel, classroom supplies, cultural supplies and food for students.

The superintendent and founder of the Texas charter school which trained the Tulsa teacher, “Eddie Conger, drove to Oklahoma City to reiterate that to Walters and the Oklahoma State Board of Education during the board’s meeting Thursday. ‘I just want you to know that I’ve not sent any money to Tulsa Public Schools, not one dime,’ Conger said while speaking in public comment at the meeting. ‘I would have, but they said no.’”

Then, as reported by the Oklahoman, Walters testified to Congress on Sept. 19 that the ‘district maintains an active connection with the [Chinese government] through a program called the Confucius Classroom.’ But TPS says it ended its contract nearly a month before, on Aug. 25.”

It was reported by State Impact that according to:

Email correspondence obtained by State Impact between TPS and the State Department of Education, the district made the department aware of the contract termination the week before Walters testified otherwise, on Sept. 15. The department had asked for the information on Sept. 7.

Once upon a time we believed “A lie is a lie.” It’s been four decades since Ronald Reagan proclaimed, “The nine most terrifying words in the English language are “I’m from the government and I’m here to help.” Since then, the Rightwing has been extremely successful in undermining public services by telling big lies, arguing that what we now call “alt facts” may not be true but that’s just politics.

But as rightwingers ranging from hate mongers like Ryan Walters to Trump have been willing to speak any falsehood they want, they seem to be forgetting the legal danger of spinning their tales under oath. As long as they keep repeating false claims, it seems inevitable to me that their habits of repeating concrete and documented lies will backfire in court.

Categories Accountability, Administrators, superintendents, Character, Fake News, Lies, Oklahoma

Peter Greene: Norte Dame Law School Joins Rightwing Extremists to Defend Religious Charter School in Oklahoma

By dianeravitch
October 5, 2023 //
7

Peter Greene reports on the status of Oklahoma’s attempt to open the nation’s first openly religious charter school. the State’s Attorney General thinks it’s wrong, so Oklahoma’s State Superintendent Ryan Walter (a MAGA-nut) is relying on outside help. As Peter explains, the rightwingers are flocking to Walters’ side.

He writes:

Earlier this year, Oklahoma State Attorney General Gentner Drummond issued an opinion about the prospect of the state approving a church-run charter school. He was reversing the opinion of his predecessor, saying that previous opinion “misuses the concept of religious liberty by employing it as a means to justify state-funded religion. If allowed to remain in force, I fear the opinion will be used as a basis for taxpayer-funded religious schools.”

In June, the Oklahoma Statewide Virtual Charter School Board ignored him and approved the St. Isidore of Seville virtual charter, a cyber school that was proposed by the Archdiocese of Oklahoma City in collaboration with the Diocese of Tulsa. It was in anticipation of this application that the virtual charter board asked the previous AG for an opinion in the first place.

As an AP report noted, “Archdiocese officials have been unequivocal that the school will promote the Catholic faith and operate according to church doctrine, including its views on sexual orientation and gender identity.”

And just in case you wonder if the state knew what it was doing, or was trying to preserve any plausible deniability, State Superintendent Ryan Walters supported the decision:

This decision reflects months of hard work, and more importantly, the will of the people of Oklahoma. I encouraged the board to approve this monumental decision, and now the U.S.’s first religious charter school will be welcomed by my administration.

And Governor Stitt hailed it as “a win for religious liberty and education freedom in our great state.”

Meanwhile, AG Drummond called the decision “contrary to Oklahoma law and not in the best interests of taxpayers.” Furthermore, “It’s extremely disappointing that board members violated their oath in order to fund religious schools with our tax dollars. In doing so, these members have exposed themselves and the state to potential legal action that could be costly.”

To the surprise of nobody, that lawsuit was filed before summer’s end with Oklahoma Parent Legislative Action Committee and individual parents as plaintiffs in a case that has already been busy and twisty.

The case has drawn a number of national groups to the case, including for the plaintiffs the ACLU, Americans for Separation of Church and State, and the Education Law Center.

The defendant side is a more interesting array. Drummond, having made it clear that he believes the charter proponents are dead wrong, is not using the attorney general’s office to defend them. So the school board, the state department of education, and Ryan Walters are being defended by private attorneys in Oklahoma and some other hired guns.

Two are part of the usual array of legal shops that work to defund and dismantle public education. There’s the Alliance Defending Freedom, a conservative Christian advocacy group that was incorporated in 1993 by six right-wing luminaries, including Larry Burkett, Bill Bright, and James Dobson. They are supported by a host of right-wing foundations, including the Richard and Helen DeVos Foundation. And they oppose abortion, same-sex marriage, most all LGBTQ+ rights. Their track record is sadly successful; these are the Hobby Lobby lawsuit folks. They have a summer legal training program to get Christian law students whipped up for legal careers; Justice Amy Coney Barrett taught at it. They successfully litigated against Vermont, establishing that the state must include Catholic students in its voucher program, a sort of throat-clearing for Carson v. Makin.

There’s First Liberty Institute a Christian conservative firm based in Texas, which co-took Carson v. Makin all the way to SCOTUS, as well as the case of the praying coach.

These are to be expected; getting money away from public education and into church coffers is their thing. But you get a fuller idea of who has a lot riding on this case from the third set of lawyers– the Notre Dame Religious Liberty Clinic….

A Catholic charter in Oklahoma would pretty much erase the difference between charters and vouchers, and the Catholic charter in Oklahoma serves as a proof of legal concept, so this case is a good fit for the church. It is winding through various legal twists and turns (the defendants just moved to have it dismissed), but if it ends up before SCOTUS, it could represent one more reduction of the pile of rubble that now stands where the wall between church and state used to.

Please open the link and finish the article.

Categories Bigotry, Billionaires, Charter Schools, Education Industry, Extremism, Gender, Oklahoma, Religion

John Thompson: Protests Force Ryan Walters to Suspend Plans for Takeover of Tulsa Public Schools

By dianeravitch
August 28, 2023 //
3

John Thompson, retired teacher and historian in Ohlahoma, keeps us up to date on the battle between Tulsa Public Schools and Ryan Walters, Oklahoma’s far-right MAGA Secretary of Education.

He writes:

Who won the latest battle between Oklahoma Superintendent of Public Instruction Ryan Walters and the Tulsa Public Schools (TPS)?

Walters had promised to fire TPS Superintendent Deborah Gist, and drive “Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion” (DEI) out of the classes, as well as mandating his ideology-driven curriculums. Then, Walters said at a Moms for Liberty event, “Tulsa Public Schools is getting money from the Chinese communist government,” He said, “They funneled it through a nonprofit — I mean, money-laundered it through a nonprofit in Texas.”

But Walters’ assault on the TPS accelerated further when Walters said he “had been in regular communication with Houston [HISD] about their school takeover.” And according to HTUL news, he has said “there’s currently a standards team and textbook committee to gather information on possible vendors like Hillsdale College and PragerU.” It thus became clear to Tulsans that the survival of their schools (and Oklahoma schools in general?) was at stake.

Walters’ promised to reveal his plan during the Oklahoma State Board of Education (OSDE) meeting on August 24. So, TPS board member, Jennettie Marshall, warned “during the board’s 90-minute discussion of the district’s accreditation status. ‘We are under attack. If you’re not keeping up with Houston, … if we continue the course we’re on, that’s where we’re headed. That shouldn’t be.’”

The day before the OSDE meeting, Deborah Gist resigned in the hope that Walters wouldn’t take over the state’s largest school system. And at the meeting, the World also explained that Walters “praised the local school board for ‘rooting out a cancer in the district that caused so many problems,’ referring to the Tulsa school board’s formal agreement approved Wednesday evening to part ways with Tulsa Superintendent Deborah Gist.” But “he also vowed to give the local Tulsa school board ‘a very short rope,’ saying he would return and ask for additional authority from the state Board of Education if he does not see adequate progress made within a few months.”

In response, the TPS Board Chairperson, Stacey Woolley, criticized Walters’ misstatements about the system’s student outcomes. She also said, “Antics and rhetoric must stop. We had two bomb threats at schools in the city of Tulsa because of rhetoric.” she said. “I do look forward to going forward and continuing the work and accelerating that work.”

Similarly, “Rep. Regina Goodwin, D-Tulsa, told the state board Walters has been ‘fostering an atmosphere of intimidation’” and protested, “When you talk about Black and brown children in Tulsa, Oklahoma, there are issues that go on in larger cities that have to be addressed. You don’t just say ‘You better perform better in three or four months!’ What kind of plan is that?”

Almost certainly, pushbacks by TPS supporters, and private communications, produced this outcome. It is too soon to know which side won the battle. Or, should I say lost less?

Unless Walters is correct and the TPS is secretly plotting with China to bring our democracy down, or violence erupts, I believe that the most important aspect of the battle could be the way that educators and journalists (especially at the Tulsa World) issued fact-based rebuttals to the extremists. Then, the Schusterman and the Kaiser foundations publicly opposed Walters’ takeover threats. Mayor G.T. Bynum finally came out against the takeover. And on the day of the OSDE meeting, Booker T. Washington H.S. students walked out.

The resistance even reached the point where the World editorialized, “conservative lawmakers must speak up.” And also, Gov. Kevin Stitt distanced himself from Walters who he appointed and then repeatedly supported. The World reported that Stitt said he “believes the State Board of Education will not overreact when considering accreditation for Tulsa Public Schools.” Stitt now says, “I don’t know what takeover is, what they are talking about. I believe in local control. I think the local board needs to address that.”

Secondly, the battle wasn’t over Deborah Gist. It was about the future of public education, and defending our democracy.

Thirdly, the former-teacher Rep. John Waldron (D) explained what we now know, “A far-right media source spread a doctored video suggesting a librarian was spreading a ‘woke agenda,’“ causing a Tulsa Union elementary school and the librarian to receive a bomb threat. (By the way, Waldron noted that the librarian’s actual agenda was promoting “reading and kindness.”)

Then, Walters reposted it, leading to two more bomb threats. NPR’s Beth Wallis reported that the first threat included, “I’m not going to stand as you bastards continue to indoctrinate and prey on our children.” And it also warned the librarian, “We know where you live.” Walters’ response was, “Woke ideology is real and I am here to stop it.” Another threat said:

“We placed a bomb at [the librarian’s elementary school address] and inside the Residence of [the librarian]. You will stop pushing this woke ideology or we will bomb every school in the union district.”

At the time that Wallis published the story, Walters had not removed his “repost of the altered video.”

Perhaps we will someday learn the behind the scenes discussions that prompted Walters to pull back from his most extreme threats. Who knows, perhaps this mayhem will prompt Republicans who are appalled by Walters to come out in support of public education and against the dangerous politics of hate. However, Rep. Mark McBride, R-Moore, the chair of the Oklahoma House subcommittee on education funding who has frequently challenged Walters, complained to the Oklahoman that “he was unable to sit in the conference room during the board meeting, despite requesting a seat along with multiple other lawmakers for several weeks.”

Finally, the other issues pushed by Walters at the OSDE meeting are a recipe for dysfunction and chaos. As Nondoc’s Bennett Brinkman reported, the board unanimously approved Walters’ demand for a “a report of ‘foreign government contributions to Oklahoma schools,’” and “a report regarding district policies and informal guidance for ‘student pronouns in Oklahoma schools.’” 

Moreover, Walters’ mandates, such as teacher training in the science of reading, can’t be rushed into place. As Linda-Darling Hammond explains, school improvement can only “move at the speed of trust.” Moreover, will teachers be expected to focus on phonics, or will the TPS be allowed to bring back the science and history instruction that is required to build the background knowledge that is needed for reading for comprehension? 

Sadly, we’re likely to learn more fake news over the next few months about what Walters sees as student outcomes, and a passing grade for high-challenge schools. Across the nation, we have seen the disastrous effects of rushed, test-driven instruction that was forced on high-poverty schools. Also, I sure hope we don’t see violence. But, even though Walters warned the TPS, “Do not test me,” I expect that the defenders of schools in Tulsa and elsewhere will continue to push back diplomatically but firmly. For better or for worse, we’re likely to see in the next few months what the TPS will face.

Categories Accountability, Democracy, Disruption, Extremism, Oklahoma, Resistance, State Takeover, Stupid

Oklahoma: Will the State’s Extremist Secretary of Education Seize Control of Tulsa Schools?

By dianeravitch
August 21, 2023 //
9

Oklahoman John Thompson writes about the conflict enveloping the Tulsa public schools: Ryan Walters, the extremist Secretary of Education, wants to take over Tulsa’s public schools. Opposition to Walters’ plans by Tulsa’s parents and political leaders is growing. State takeovers if school districts have historically failed but Walters doesn’t appear to know it.

Thompson writes:

Oklahoma Secretary of Education Ryan Walters has a history of threatening the accreditation of the Tulsa Public schools, promising to fire its superintendent, Deborah Gist, and driving “Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion” (DEI) out of the classes, as well as mandating his ideology-driven curriculums. Walters’ attacks grew dramatically as he responded to the news in June that he might be in danger because his department’s “administration of federal GEER funds is being investigated by FBI agents and the Oklahoma Attorney General’s Office, according to people with direct knowledge of the inquiry.”

For instance, Walters said at a Moms for Liberty event, “Tulsa Public Schools is getting money from the Chinese communist government,” He said, “They funneled it through a nonprofit — I mean, money-laundered it through a nonprofit in Texas.”

But then Walters said he “had been in regular communication with Houston [HISD] about their school takeover.” According to HTUL news, he has said “there’s currently a standards team and textbook committee to gather information on possible vendors like Hillsdale College and PragerU.”

Immediately afterwards, journalists, educators, and public school supporters studied the history of Broad Foundation takeovers in Dallas and the HISD. Even better, they spoke out in ways I had never seen in Oklahoma’s edu-politics. For example, TPS board member, Jennettie Marshall, “said during the board’s 90-minute discussion of the district’s accreditation status. ‘We are under attack. If you’re not keeping up with Houston, … if we continue the course we’re on, that’s where we’re headed. That shouldn’t be.’”

Just as important, the Tulsa World balanced its excellent reporting with editorials and publishing letters to the editors. The following 13 headlines were cited in just one day, August 18, 2023, of the paper’s E-Edition:

Letter: Many good things, successes happening in Tulsa Public Schools

Letter: State School Board needs to show support for Tulsa community, stop antics of top official

Letter: Tulsa Mayor G.T. Bynum must be more forceful defending Tulsa schools

Letter: Tulsa Superintendent Deborah Gist deserves credit for leading through times of crisis

Letter: State Education Department ought to help improve schools, not tear down

Letter: State superintendent has no specific plans for Tulsa schools, only insults


Letter: State superintendent’s attack on Tulsa schools harms students across the state

Letter: Tulsa clergy leaders urge state to build bridges with TPS, not hurl rocks

Letter: Oklahoma education crisis comes from state superintendent pushing a personal agenda

Editorial: Silence is no way to improve schools or defend representative democracy

Editorial: Losing control of Tulsa schools to state bureaucrats bad for city and students

Ginnie Graham: Manufactured crisis in schools takes time away for big-picture discussions

Opinion: Set aside political rhetoric, provide Tulsa schools help to keep good teachers

The first thing that stands out stands out about the World’s coverage is its excellent journalism, and its fact-checking of Walters. The first thing that stands out from the World’s opinion pieces and letters to the editor is the strong wording when opposing Walters’ threat to the Tulsa Public Schools. The letters opposed Walters’ “antics;” his “personal agenda;” his “political rhetoric;” how he “has no specific plans for Tulsa schools, only insults;” and how he “harms students across the state; as well as how he should “help improve schools, not tear down;” and how the mayor “must be more forceful defending Tulsa schools.”

The editorials criticize the “silence” of political leaders, who belatedly pushed back against Walters, saying the “TPS needs partners, champions and advocates to improve — not political firebombs and quiet bystanders.” Another argued that Walters’ “political rhetoric” hurts the retention of good teachers; and that it hurts the city. Ginnie Graham described the chaos that she witnessed when enrolling her child in school, and explained:

The TPS administrators are completely overwhelmed by the firehose of misinformation, distortions and lies coming at them. Their time is monopolized by people seemingly hell-bent on tearing down the district, rather than offering a helping hand or even sitting down for an informative discussion.

And TPS School Board Chair Stacey Woolley closes her editorial with:

Your TPS Board of Education has a plan. Walters does, too, but not one that works on behalf of Tulsans.

I didn’t sign up for this takeover and neither did you. As a community, we must stop it: www.protecttps.com

Moreover, the World reported on powerful philanthropists, like the Schusterman and the Kaiser foundations, who have publicly opposed Walters takeover threats. Then, Mayor G.T. Bynum came out against the takeover. The resistance has even reached the point where the World editorialized, “conservative lawmakers must speak up.” And now, Gov. Kevin Stitt has distanced himself from the extremist (Walters) who he appointed and then repeatedly supported. The World reported, Stitt said he “believes the State Board of Education will not overreact when considering accreditation for Tulsa Public Schools.” Stitt now says, “I don’t know what takeover is, what they are talking about. I believe in local control. I think the local board needs to address that.”

When I first learned about Walters’ new threats, I worried, “If we don’t recognize the extent of the threats of a HISD-style takeover, he might unite the worst of the corporate reform privatizers, with his Moms for Liberty extremism, and impose irreparable damage on the TPS and other school systems.” But, “If we unite, the damage that Walters is promising to inflict on the TPS, and the Tulsa metropolitan area as a whole, could undermine his extremist campaigns.”

It looks to me, that Tulsans and other Oklahomans are pushing back, making it more likely that Walters will lose this fight

Categories Accountability, Censorship, Corporate Reform, Democracy, Education Industry, Ethics, Extremism, Houston, Injustice, Oklahoma, Privatization, Resistance, Stupid, Tulsa

Tulsa: Mayor Tells State Board: Hands Off Our Public Schools! Meanwhile, Mike Miles Stages a Musical in Houston

By dianeravitch
August 19, 2023 //
32

The State Secretary of Education in Oklahoma Ryan Walters has been threatening to take control of the Tulsa public schools, replace the elected school board and fire the district superintendent. State takeovers have a long history of failure. Tulsa Mayor G.T. Bynum wrote a strongly worded letter to the Oklahoma State Board of Education and told its members in no uncertain terms, “hands off our public schools and our elected board!”

It’s a terrific letter. Open the link and read it. If only every city had leadership who stood up for their public schools like Mayor Bynum did!

Of course, Houston’s Mayor opposed the state takeover of HISD but Governor Abbott and his state Commissioner Mike Morath were determined to destroy democracy in Houston because the people there vote Democratic.

Speaking of Houston, the state-imposed Superintendent Mike Miles celebrated his arrival with a splashy musical performance, while teachers sat obediently in their seats at the NRG Arena.

The Texas Observer reported:

Hundreds of Houston’s teachers gathered at the NRG Center early morning Wednesday, where they were directed to wear school colors, wave school banners, and shake sparkly pom poms. Facilitators started the Harlem Shuffle dance in the aisles. And then, as the teachers were motioned back into their seats, the room turned dark and silence fell.

A single spotlight shined on a student performer in an aisle belting the lyrics to West Side Story’s “Something’s Coming”:

Something’s comin’, something good
If I can wait!
Something’s comin’, I don’t know what it is
But it is
Gonna be great!

The stage lit up to reveal a 1950s diner with red and white checkered tablecloth tables and red rubber stools. In walked new district superintendent Mike Miles, playing “Mr. Duke,” owner of the joint who doubles as a counselor who listens to the teachers’ and students’ grievances.

Since March, when the Texas Education Agency seized control of the Houston Independent School District (HISD), citing the failure to meet state standards at one high school, Houston’s teachers and parents have seen the battle with the state-appointed school board and superintendent play out in community meetings and in the press. Now, during a week of district-mandated conferences at the NRG Center, teachers were watching the takeover play out on stage. Miles directed the script—an hour-long musical that took six weeks to prepare, depicting how the new superintendent will rekindle the extinguished spirits of burnt-out teachers, give hope to hopeless students, and bestow a visionary plan to save public education.

“We are lost as a profession,” a teacher said on stage.

“My dreams are getting smaller and smaller,” a student later echoed.

“Well, maybe that new guy—you know, super … super …”

“You mean Superintendent Miles?”

“Maybe Superintendent Miles will make things better for us.”

Maybe.

But teachers who spoke to the Texas Observer said Miles’ performance wasted the district’s time and money and mocked their professional experience and concerns.

“For him to turn our concerns into satire is really insulting,” HISD teacher Melissa Yarborough said. “It reeks of propaganda.”

“He wasted our time when we could be in our classrooms preparing our lesson plans before school starts,” said Chris, an elementary school teacher who asked only to be identified by his first name.

Jessica, who has been teaching for 24 years, told the Observer Miles’ musical “was very condescending. The message was that we don’t know what we’re doing. And he’s coming in to show us how to do it right.”

The Houston Chronicle also reviewed Miles’ musical event.

A few fine arts teachers who spoke to the Chronicle said Miles is hypocritical for spreading his message through a musical theater production even after disrespecting fine arts teachers, who at NES schools will be paid far less than their peers teaching reading, math or science.

“He claims reading and math are the forefront and he wants to get rid of fine arts. Yet he used fine arts to promote his ideologies,” said one fine arts teacher, who called the production a “slap in the face.”

Another fine arts teacher said it was “the very definition of irony.”

“The fact he used HISD fine arts teachers and students in his presentation, the day after saying in his evaluation sessions that we are not as essential … creates a sense of rage and despair I cannot even describe,” said the teacher, who was told they could be fired for making negative public statements about the district.

Only staff from NES campuses attended the live event at NRG, while educators from other schools watched convocation remotely from their own campuses following a last-minute scheduling change.

Funnily enough, Miles also staged a splashy musical with him as the star when he began his tenure in Dallas in 2012. All of the district’s 18,000 teachers were summoned to watch. The video has been removed from the internet. But The Texas Observer ran a great story about the event, with a photo of him dancing with students. At that performance, he laid out his vision for making DISD the best urban district in the nation by 2020 using ideas he learned at the Broad Superintendents Academy. He was, he said, a believer in disruptive change, like Arne Duncan. “Miles epitomizes today’s school reform movement, convinced that anything worth doing in a classroom can be measured.” But three years later, he was gone.

Categories Accountability, Democracy, Education Reform, Houston, Oklahoma, State Takeover, Teachers, Texas, Tulsa

Oklahoma: MAGA State Chief May Take Over Tulsa Public Schools

By dianeravitch
August 16, 2023 //
4

John Thompson, historian and retired teacher, believes that Ryan Walters, the state superintendent, may take control of Tulsa Public Schools, despite the fact that he has no idea how to improve them and that state takeovers have seldom (if ever) improved any schools. It’s ironic that Walters is eager to fire Tulsa superintendent Deborah Gist, since Gist received national plaudits for threatening to seize control of the impoverished Central Falls school district in 2010 when she was state superintendent in Rhode Island.

Thompson writes:

We’ve known that State Superintendent Ryan Walters was rapidly ramping up his attacks on public education, especially the Tulsa Public Schools (TPS), but the intensity of his assaults keeps growing at a frightening rate. Even though I’ve been worrying that Walters would combine the destructive rightwing extremists’ venom with the worst of the discredited neo-liberal corporate privatization reforms, it sounds like on August 24, he may do it in the worse possible way. Rather than remove the TPS’s accreditation and/or its superintendent, Walters may order a rushed takeover of the district patterned after the recent takeover of Houston’s schools.

As Nondoc reported on Tuesday, on Saturday Walters said at a Moms for Liberty event, “Tulsa Public Schools is getting money from the Chinese communist government,” He said, “They funneled it through a nonprofit — I mean, money-laundered it through a nonprofit in Texas.” On Monday, “Walters appeared at the Tulsa County Republican Party headquarters to discuss the district,” saying that it must “Reorient finances to serve students, increase reading proficiency scores to the state average, and lift its schools off of the state F-list.” “Now,” Nondoc reports, “state board members could choose to place TPS on full probation.” Moreover, Walters has “also declined to rule out a non-accreditation vote on TPS, though it is unclear how that action would play out for a district of 33,000 students after the school year has already started.”

Clearly, the removal of Superintendent Deborah Gist is a major priority. Ironically, Walters is challenging the honesty of TPS administrators as his “administration of federal GEER funds is being investigated by FBI agents and the Oklahoma Attorney General’s Office, according to people with direct knowledge of the inquiry.”

Even worse, Walters says he is regularly consulting with the Texas education commissioner, Mike Morath, about “strategies Texas used in its takeover of HISD.” The new Houston superintendent, Mike Miles, has long relied on mass exiting of teachers, and he’s already ordered educators at 28 schools to reapply for their jobs, and ordered the closures of many  “reformed” schools’ libraries. So, it is no surprise that the President of the Tulsa Classroom Teachers Association, Shawna Mott-Wright, says that “the uncertainty over the district’s future already has some teachers stepping away from their jobs.”

In response, TPS board member, Jennettie Marshall, “said during the board’s 90-minute discussion of the district’s accreditation status. ‘We are under attack. If you’re not keeping up with Houston, … if we continue the course we’re on, that’s where we’re headed. That shouldn’t be.’” She warned, “We can’t afford to lose our educators, support groups and people who provide wraparound services. We can’t afford for this district to lose its accreditation.”

To understand why Walters’ new attack could be an existential threat to public education in Tulsa, one should listen to Nancy Bailey’s analysis of such takeovers:

State takeovers aren’t new. Nor are they known for innovation, but for creating school voids, cutting services, and firing key staff, promising to close learning gaps. Takeovers usually only weaken schools, breaking them up and leaving communities with fewer and poorer schools.

Moreover, the Hechinger Report cited a study by Brown University and the University of Virginia which “looked at all 35 state takeovers between 2011 and 2016. ‘On average, we find no evidence that takeover generates academic benefits.’” But the Hechinger Report added, “Race, meanwhile, plays a role in the likelihood of a district being taken over.”

The HIDC takeover campaign sped up in 2018 when “four of Houston’s 274 schools, all of them in the city’s economically distressed north and east sides, hadn’t met the standards for four years running.” By the time the takeover was ordered, “all but one of the district’s four failing schools was meeting state standards” but a rule change caused Phillis Wheatley High School to “narrowly” miss the mark. By 2021-22, Phyllis Wheatley had already improved from an F to a high C grade. Persisting in the takeover thus added support to researchers who concluded, “Now red-state governors increasingly use the takeovers to undermine the political power of cities, particularly those governed by Black and Hispanic leaders.”

We must also remember the history of the disastrous reigns of non-educator Mike Miles, a Broad Foundation corporate reform trainee, who Texas commissioner Morath placed in charge of Houston. When Miles was selected, apparently nobody asked about “the 26% drop in high school enrollment during the 6 years he was superintendent over Harrison School District Two in Colorado.” In Dallas, Miles set a target of “at least 75 percent of the schools are ‘partially proficient’ in four areas that focus on classroom instruction.” One of many reasons why that goal was impossible was “the loss of 6000 teachers in just three years.” His dictatorial mindset was illustrated by Miles ordering the removal by the police of a board member visiting a middle school where he had “replaced the principal, two assistant principals and 10 teachers.”

Dallas student outcomes had been increasing before Miles took over but student performance largely stagnated during his administration. As the Dallas Morning News reported, his tenure was marked by “disruptions, scandals, clashes.”

Now, Houston is facing the same situation where “sweeping changes include longer instructional days, lessons scripted by planners, not teachers, and new evaluations for educators that tie pay to academic performance.” The focus will be on math and reading. Cameras will be placed in each classroom to monitor behavior. Not surprisingly, Nancy Bailey notes that as the “HISD is losing qualified teachers, school libraries, and librarians,” it is “advertising for 350 long-term substitutes who don’t require a college degree.” She presciently concludes, “Watch as these kinds of reforms become prevalent in other school districts if they haven’t already.”

I have long had serious problems with Superintendent Gist, but I would have never called her “Woke Barbie” as her opponents have. To me, this is similar to the situation when Democrats joined with former Rep. Liz Cheney in defending our democracy. And, if we unite, the damage that Walters is promising to inflict on the TPS, and the Tulsa metropolitan area as a whole, could undermine his extremist campaigns. On the other hand, if we don’t recognize the extent of the threats of a HISD-style takeover, he might unite the worst of the corporate reform privatizers, with his Moms for Liberty extremism, and impose irreparable damage on the TPS and other school systems.

Categories Accountability, Administrators, superintendents, Closing schools, Corporate Reform, Democracy, Disruption, Education Industry, Extremism, Failure, Oklahoma, Rhode Island, Tulsa

John Thompson: Oklahoma Careens Toward Chaos

By dianeravitch
July 28, 2023 //
18

Historian and retired teacher John Thompson describes the confusion and chaos generated in Oklahoma as MAGA Governor Kevin Stitt and the bumbling State Superintendent Ryan Walters continue on their path of privatization and religiosity.

Thompson writes:

Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt and his ally, State School Superintendent Ryan Walters, have histories of double-barreled shotgun-style assaults on both public education and other state government agencies. For instance, Stitt previously pushed out “three highly-regarded leaders” of the Corrections, the Health Care Authority, and the Transportation departments. Recently, as Arnold Hamilton of the Oklahoma Observer protests, “Stitt took aim at another experienced state leader, trying to stampede longtime higher education Chancellor Glen Johnson into retirement. And he hasn’t backed off from his other barrel – demeaning rhetoric to advance privatization.

Similarly, Walters has pushed out many of his staff who administer competitive federal grants. The Oklahoman reported that the lead grant writer, Terri Grissom, who had “secured more than $101.5 million in competitive grants over five years,” resigned and “blew the whistle that Walters’ administration had brought the process of competitive grant applications to a halt. These funds supported a variety of initiatives, but many focused on student mental health and behavioral services.”

Grissom said Walters “blocked her from applying to a student wellness grant,” and Matt Langston, his chief policy advisor “forbade her from seeking any programs with elements of diversity and inclusion, LGBTQ initiatives, social-emotional learning or trauma-informed practices.” Moreover, Oklahoma Watch reported, “Langston emailed employees of the agency, threatening any employee ‘found leaking information to the press’ with immediate termination.” Two other managers were fired and filed lawsuits against Walters and Langston.

In May and June, as Walters’ rhetoric and behavior became even more unhinged, I was told that many Republicans decided to not push back against him because his antics drew attention to him, and away from more silent Republicans. But as Grissom, and Auditor and Inspector Cindy Byrd, revealed the losses of tens of millions of federal funds for schools and Covid responses (for which the governor shared responsibility,) and as school system leaders voiced concerns about not receiving timely notification about larger amounts of federal funding, it seemed more likely (or not impossible) that more Republican legislators would listen to their adult Republican colleagues and hold Walters accountable.

For instance, Auditor and Inspector Byrd, a Republican, “released an audit of how the state handled federal pandemic relief money, specifically expenditures made during fiscal year 2021.” The audit found $12.2 million in CARES costs and about $29 million in the state’s spending of federal COVID-19 relief funds were questionable. And Republican Attorney General Gentnor Drummond is investigating Walters and, perhaps, the Stitt administration regarding misspent federal money.

In response, however, Walters has doubled down on both his assaults on public education services and extremist rhetoric. As the Tulsa World reported, “Walters has been critical of federal funding opportunities that come with strings attached and directed the State Department of Education to pass on grant opportunities that don’t align with ‘Oklahoma values.’” Then, speaking to the Moms for Liberty in Philadelphia, Walters proclaimed, “You are the most patriotic, pro-American group in the country right now.”

And chaos has increased. Shouting and physical contact involving Moms for Liberty and other rightwingers have disrupted district school board and State board meetings, resulting in charges being filed.

Walters has continued to weaponize his calls for censoring curriculum and educators. For instance, the Tulsa Public Schools “was penalized for an August 2021 professional development session on implicit bias for teachers — not students — offered through a third-party vendor.” A year later, its “state accreditation was downgraded in July 2022 over an allegation that it violated a state law commonly referred to as House Bill 1775, which limits classroom discussion on race and gender.”

And as the World now reports, Walters’ latest attack on the Tulsa schools for “assaults” on religious liberty, became a shouting match where Walters pledged to further investigate Tulsa’s accreditation.

This controversy started when a board member, E’Lena Ashley, spoke at a high school graduation ceremony, and asked the audience to join her in prayer:

I pray in the name of Jesus Christ that each one of you would walk forward from this moment in the excellence and love of God, that he would guide you, direct you and draw you to your ultimate goal. In the name of Jesus.

The schools’ students and staff “voiced their concerns [about Ashley] during the citizens’ comment portions” at two Tulsa school board meetings. The Tulsa Board and Superintendent Deborah Gist sent an email “saying that the prayer Ashley made is not allowed under the U.S. Constitution and rulings by the U.S. Supreme Court.”

Walters replied that the email “fundamentally misunderstands religious liberty and religious freedom and attack a duly elected board member for saying a prayer. … It’s outrageous, and we’re not going to stand for that.” And World reported that he “vowed to make an issue of the matter when the school district’s accreditation is up for renewal next week by the Oklahoma State Board of Education.”

Who knows if these extremists’ rhetoric will lead to greater chaos, vituperation and, perhaps, serious violence? Who knows whether such behavior will undermine Walters politically to the point where enough Republicans take action. It must be remembered, however, that Walters’ and Stitt’s words and actions are parts of a national campaign to undermine our governmental institutions. And, most likely, it will take public servants, legal actions, and the public to defend our democracy.

Categories Academic Freedom, Accountability, Censorship, Democracy, Education Industry, Funding, Oklahoma, Privatization, Religion, Republicans

Oklahoma: $39 Million in Federal Pandemic Funds Tilted Towards Private Schools, Not the Neediest

By dianeravitch
July 16, 2023 //
3

Two nonprofit news organizations in Oklahoma—The Frontier and Oklahoma Watch—teamed up to discover a misuse of federal funding by special interest groups. One such group was Betsy DeVos’s American Federation for Children. The state received $39 million to aid students during the pandemic.

Millions in federal relief money meant to help Oklahoma students during the pandemic was misspent at the hand of special interest groups who gave preferential treatment to private schoolers while hundreds of needy children missed out on financial aid, a state audit has found.

The Stay in School program provided tuition assistance of up to $6,500 for private school students whose families were financially affected by the pandemic.

An audit released Tuesday also confirmed flaws in how the state handled the Bridge the Gap Digital Wallet pandemic relief program. A joint investigation by The Frontier and Oklahoma Watch last year revealed how families spent hundreds of thousands of dollars in Bridge the Gap money on video game consoles, Christmas trees and grills.

Both programs were funded through the Governor’s Emergency Education Relief Fund, a pot of flexible federal money intended to give governors the power to fund educational programs during the pandemic…

Before he was elected State Superintendent last year, Ryan Walters oversaw the implementation of the pandemic programs funded with federal relief money while he was executive director of the pro-school reform nonprofit Every Kid Counts Oklahoma and after Stitt appointed him Secretary of Education in September 2020. State auditors were unable to find any contract authorizing Every Kid Counts Oklahoma to oversee the programs.

E-mail records obtained by Oklahoma Watch and The Frontier show Walters issued a “blanket approval” for purchases of all vendor items available on the ClassWallet platform, after the company gave him a chance to restrict which items could be purchased….

State Auditor and Inspector Cindy Byrd’s audit found $1.8 million in questioned costs for the Bridge the Gap Program and $6.5 million for the Stay in School program. The report found programs were overseen by individuals and private organizations who were unqualified, didn’t have contracts with the state authorizing them to perform the work and were granted access to confidential student records.

The audit found that almost 20% of purchases through the Bridge the Gap program were spent on non-educational items, against grant guidelines.

According to Byrd’s report, administrators of the Stay in School program were involved in a “deliberate operation to give selected private schools and individuals preferential treatment by allowing early access for application submission prior to the date this program was offered to the general public.”

Jennifer Carter, a prominent school choice advocate and president of Libertas Consulting LLC was named as an administrator for the Stay in School program administrator without entering into a contract with the state, the audit found.

Carter is a senior advisor for former U.S. Education Secretary Betsy Devos’s education privatization organization Federation for Children, served as chief of staff and campaign manager for former State Superintendent Janet Barresi and has been involved in multiple school-choice efforts in Oklahoma. ClassWallet also listed Carter as a district administrator.

With Carter’s direction, five, unnamed private schools were given preferential treatment for the Stay in School program, the audit found.

Students from the preferred schools were awarded the maximum $6,500 per-student and received enrollment exceptions for children who had not previously attended, the audit found.

After funds ran dry, 657 students of low-income families who qualified for the Stay in School program did not get the financial assistance. More than $5.3 million went to families who said they did not have a pandemic-related financial hardship. The audit also found private schools received $1.8 million in excess of families’ tuition responsibilities.

In a statement to The Frontier, Carter said the American Federation for Children did not bill the state for its work on the program.

“As the nation’s leading voice for education freedom, AFC was happy to offer advice to the state around the implementation of the Governor’s Stay in School Fund GEER program,” Carter said. “The Stay in School Fund, which was aimed at minimizing students’ education disruption during COVID, served almost 1900 kids with tuition assistance. We gladly provided this service at no expense to taxpayers….”

The state auditor said:

“This was a tangled web of government agencies, non-profit organizations, and non-government individuals representing special interest groups managing millions of tax dollars with no contracts and no written agreements,” Byrd said. “Sadly, millions of tax dollars were misspent because certain individuals who were put in charge of managing these programs seemingly ignored federal grant guidelines.”

Wasn’t it charitable of the American Federation for Children to divert money away from impoverished children to private school students, at no cost to the state?

Categories Accountability, Billionaires, Corruption, Education Industry, Fraud, Oklahoma

John Thompson: Oklahoma Superintendent Contends that Tulsa Race Massacre Was Not About Race

By dianeravitch
July 13, 2023 //
332

John Thompson, historian and retired teacher in Oklahoma, describes how State Superintendent Ryan Walters tied himself up in verbal knots trying to explain why the Tulsa race massacre wasn’t about race or racism.

He writes:

I’ve been teaching the Tulsa Race Massacre, and discussing Critical Race Theory since the 1990s, but I finally learned the true facts about both, when “Oklahoma school officials announced plans Friday to begin teaching students that the Tulsa Race Massacre was a crime of passion that resulted from loving Black people too much.” The State Superintendent, Ryan Walters, explained:

It’s important that students are educated on how this horrifying event—which resulted in hundreds of deaths and the destruction of Black Wall Street—only happened because of how electric and wild the love was between white people and Black people at the time. … White people had been getting jealous because their African American counterparts were doing too well economically and couldn’t hang out as much as they used to. “We often end up hurting the people we love the most, and … Sometimes burning down more than 35 city blocks and 1,250 homes is the only way to express the fiery passion of your love for someone.”

Walters further explained that “the Tulsa Race Massacre had been left out of history books out of respect for Black people’s privacy.”

Okay, that was the narrative told by The Onion. But, still, it leaves open the question: which is crazier, The Onion’s satire or Superintendent Walters’ claims?

As KFOR T.V. and the Oklahoman reported, Walters spoke at Republican event at a library where “Silence!: Intense, heated moments” took over. He “was asked three times by someone in the crowd why the Tulsa Race Massacre doesn’t fall under his definition of Critical Race Theory (CRT).” The next day, Walters supposedly “walked back his statements. ‘I am referring to individuals who carried out the crime. They didn’t act that way because they were white, they acted that way because they were racist.’” And, as reported by The Frontier, Walters has also said,

“The media is twisting two separate answers. They misrepresented my statements about the Tulsa Race Massacre in an attempt to create a fake controversy.”

Reading the transcript of the meeting, it’s hard to understand Walters’ weird words, but it is impossible to deny he was saying contradictory things – that the Tulsa Massacre should be taught in school while also saying that the role of race, when it is mentioned in terms that he see as CRT ideology, is making whites feel bad about the history of violent racism, and that is banned by HB 1776.

Walters said:

Folks, I believe this is absolutely the greatest country in the history of the world. I don’t think there’s any doubt about it. That doesn’t mean there weren’t mistakes. … The only way our kids have the ability to learn from history and make this country continue to be the best country is to understand those times we fell short, a very clear, very direct understanding of those events.

Walters then may have tried to explain his understanding of the “mistakes” made during the Tulsa massacre where members of one race committed mass murder of persons of another race. But Walters’ words – that threaten schools and teachers – were incomprehensible. And as the Oklahoman noted, “Two Oklahoma school districts had their accreditation downgraded for touching on topics of race and privilege, and educators risk having their teaching license revoked.”

An audience member pushed further and asked, “How does the Tulsa Race Massacre not fall under your definition of CRT?” Walters then replied, “I would never tell a kid that because of your race, because of your color of your skin, or your gender or anything like that, you are less of a person or in or are inherently racist. That doesn’t mean you don’t judge the actions of individuals.” But with critical race theory:

You’re saying that race defines a person. I reject that. So I would say you be judgmental of the issue, of the action, of the content of the character of the individual. Absolutely. But let’s not tie it to the skin color instead of the skin color determine it.

So an audience member then asked, “How does the Tulsa Race Massacre not fall under your definition of CRT?” Walters replied, “I answered it. That’s my answer. Again, I felt like…. (inaudible)”

So, what did Walters mean when he said the Tulsa Massacre and/or CRT should not be tied “to the skin color instead of the skin color determine it?”

The next day, after having the time to choose his words carefully, Walters said he wanted to be “crystal clear” that the “The Tulsa Race Massacre is a terrible mark on our history. The events on that day were racist, evil, and it is inexcusable.” But he didn’t seem to explain what could be taught about the “mistake,” the mass murder of around 300 Black people by a white mob, “Folks, I believe this is absolutely the greatest country in the history of the world. I don’t think there’s any doubt about it. That doesn’t mean there weren’t mistakes.”

Categories Bigotry, Failure, History, Oklahoma, Race, Racism
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