OKLAHOMA CITY — Though school choice is not a panacea for everything that is wrong with education or society, it is an innovation that can be employed to improve educational quality and access in Oklahoma, the associate dean of social sciences at Rose State College said recently during an online discussion about education policy.
James Davenport, who teaches political science at Rose State College, said an honest discussion about school choice has been difficult because partisans on both sides use heated rhetoric.
“School choice touches on some very important social questions,” Davenport said. “Those include what type of education will produce individuals who will live meaningful and productive lives and who gets to decide what that education will be.”
Davenport said the issue is so important that “all sides of the discussion need to be included.”
Brent Bushey, executive director of the Oklahoma Public School Resource Center, said many Oklahoma families change school districts due to bullying. Bushey said a poll conducted by the Statewide Virtual Charter School Board showed bullying was the main reason people wanted to change school districts.
“It’s something that I worry about as a parent of two kids,” he said.
Bushey said the other reasons parents choose a different school district were course flexibility or assisting a child with special needs. He said what often gets lost in the school choice discussion were the options offered by public school systems.
“That does a disservice,” he said. “There isn’t a lot of thinking about the existing choices families have with the state’s various public school systems.”
Bushey said parents have several options, including sending their children to the district of residence or transferring to a surrounding district, a public charter school or a Career Tech center. He said middle schools and high schools in larger areas offer parents the most options, including virtual education.
“Parents should ask the district what electronic options are available,” Bushey said. “Though we know virtual learning isn’t for everyone.”
Bushey said the majority of students who are enrolled in public charter schools are attending virtual, online schools.
Chip Carter, president of Christo Rey Catholic High School in Oklahoma City, said his school offers choices for the families of parents who have limited financial resources. He said his school partners with the business community to defray the cost of their education.
“Our students work at local businesses five days a month, and those funds are assigned to the school,” he said. “We feel that putting them in the workplace and by connecting the workplace and school issues, we are completing the pipeline.”
Carter said his school believes in educating the whole student.
“We believe that you’re not just educating the student in English and math and science but that you are also teaching them morality and trying to educate the whole student,” he said. “We incorporate a faith-based education. You’re going to have four years of Catholic theology. You’re going to go to Mass once a week.”
Carter said his school supports students of all faiths and doesn’t try to convert them, but “they are going to be exposed to the Catholic faith.”
While many public officials, including Gov. Kevin Stitt, have called on the Oklahoma Legislature to fund school voucher and education savings account programs, some groups say those programs – because they use state funds – could also include state regulations and oversight.
Because the ESAs would probably have some type of accountability issue, parents who want to educate their children without state oversight oppose them.
Paul Rose, president emeritus of the Homeschool Oklahoma Association, said parents who choose to homeschool don’t want the state looking over their shoulder.
“This is a parent-directed, privately funded education,” he said. “And our parents typically oppose ESAs because of the accountability.”
But parents who homeschool, Rose said, take it very seriously and do very well.
Gabriella Jacobi with the Oklahoma Policy Institute, said her organization has hosted listening sessions all over the state, discussing education and the well-being of children.
“We talked a lot about education,” she said. “And not once did vouchers or school choice come up in those conversations.”
What families did discuss with her, Jacobi said, were concerns about spending more time with their children, helping with homework.
“I have parents tell me about children with a chronic illness who have to drive hours and miss days of school just to see a doctor because there isn’t a health care provider in their region,” she said.
Jacobi said many teachers told her they were concerned about their students’ mental health and didn’t have the resources or services or knowledge to know how to help them.
She said other parents and teachers told her after-school programming and transportation programs were cut due to budget constraints, “and now they don’t have a safe place for their child in the evening after school.”
“Unfortunately, the data backs up these anecdotes,” she said. “While our education outcomes are definitely low, they don’t exist in a bubble. Our children experience much higher rates of poverty and trauma and worse health outcomes than their peers in the neighboring states.”
Private school vouchers won’t help improve this, she said. She said 45 counties in the state – about 60% of the population – don’t have a private school.
“Private school vouchers not only harm public schools, but they also leave students and communities worse off than before,” Jacobi said. “They harm student academic achievement, fail rural students and leave low-income students behind while also damaging state and local budgets. They are a poor investment for a community, and they don’t save money because they require the state to fund a separate education system.”
The virtual policy discussion comes at the same time state lawmakers are considering proposals in both the House and Senate to fund some type of school choice program, increase teacher pay and invest more in public schools.