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ADVOCACY RESOURCES
SMALL-TOWN STUDENTS WOULD PAY FOR HIGH PRICE TAG OF SCHOOL CHOICE
This issue of Better Schools Magazine was in production before SB 1647 was defeated on March 23, 2022.
By Don Ford, Executive Director, Organization of Rural Oklahoma Schools I’ve cherished pouring my heart and soul into teaching small-town students over the last four decades. I was drawn to rural schools early in my career because of the connection to the community. It’s a special opportunity to lead a school where you know every child’s name and can communicate with every parent. Rural Oklahomans take pride in our schools and see them as a hub of our communities. Entire towns rally behind our kids from first period on Monday mornings to the fourth quarter on Friday nights. In places where residents live far apart, the schools bring us together. As a former principal in communities such as Mason, Paden and Okemah and superintendent in Oilton, Midway, Alva and Holdenville, it was my job to instill values in our students that would help them become leaders. One of the lessons I taught is that our choices have consequences. We’ve been hearing a lot about choices lately, particularly in education. This legislative session, lawmakers are pushing to expand Oklahoma’s school choice and voucher programs through the Oklahoma Empowerment Act. The bill would siphon hundreds of millions of dollars away from educating public school students to pay for families enrolling in private school or home school. For students in our rural communities, there is no debate about school choice. Rural families overwhelmingly choose their local
public schools and the educational opportunities they provide. The plan offers no benefit to students and families in our rural communities, yet we will still pay the price—literally—if this bill becomes law. Under the proposal, when families— even those already enrolling students in private schools—utilize the Oklahoma Empowerment Act, that money is transferred from the pool of taxpayer dollars used to fund all public schools at the state level. Every public school in Oklahoma will lose significant funding if this bill passes,regardless of what private choices are offered in their district. It’s no secret that many of our small towns have lower incomes and home values compared to the metro areas and suburbs. While schools in metro and suburban areas have higher financial support from local taxes, rural schools often rely to a greater extent on state funding. The state dollars are a larger percentage of most rural schools’ budgets and are critical to helping small towns educate their kids.
That’s why this bill is so backward. If it is passed into law, every time families in Oklahoma City or Tulsa are given a voucher to place their kids in private schools,money is taken away from a rural student’s public education. The 90% of Oklahoma students enrolled in public schools will all lose funding so the10% in private schools or home-schooled can be handed thousands of dollars each. For years, rural educators and the towns they represent fought hard for the historic increase in education funding in 2018. The passing of this voucher bill would be a damaging step backwards from that progress. Oklahoma already ranks near the bottom of the country in education funding. Can our kids and their communities afford to pay the price of a massive cut? Remember, our choices have consequences. ■ Don Ford is executive director of the Organization of Rural Oklahoma Schools and resides in the small town of Dewar.
