The Lasso

Restore Oklahoma Public Education

January, 2011

Department of Education in order to obtain

Race to The Top grant money. One of
these ‘reforms’ was the passage of the Core
Curriculum Standards.
As would be expected, the State
Board of Education rubber stamped the
curricula during their June meeting and
voila, Oklahoma’s students suddenly grew
umbilical cords attached to the federal
The Honorable Rick Santorum speaking to the government through which they would be
22nd Annual Educational Policy Conference. fed their studies.
Immediately I contacted Rep. Sally
Board member Lynn Habluetzel and
Kern, with whom we had attended last
I were excited to attend the 22nd annual
year’s Educational Policy Conference and
Educational Policy Conference in St. Louis
asked what we could do to free Oklahoma
the weekend of January 27th.
from this new federal government
Vice-President Julie McKenzie and I
entanglement.
attended last year and so enjoyed the
informative speakers! It was no less
And so, after months of research,
enjoyable or informative for Lynn and I
ROPE, as authored by Rep. Sally Kern, will
this year and we returned to Oklahoma
have HB1714; Repeal of the Core
City with renewed vigor for several of our
Curriculum Standards for the 2011
projects as a result.
Friday morning, we sat through four legislative session starting February 7 .
th

presentations regarding the national Core
Curriculum Standards (CCS). ROPE had
been researching the issue of national
standards since last year’s legislature
passed SB2033 at the end of the session.
This bill contained a number of education
‘reforms’ required by the Federal
Please visit this link for more
information and to become familiar with our
CCS research.
We ask you to support this bill with
calls and emails to your legislators and
help Oklahoma’s children get a local,
Oklahoma education.

“States are dropping the teaching of cursive because they are NOT in the core
curriculum standards (CCS), but these are absolutely necessary for any child‟s
development.” Peggy Littleton, Previous Member, Colorado State Board of Education
 More from the
Education Policy Conference

History Bills
As many of you may remember,
last year, ROPE began its legislative
session with HB2814 – a bill to restore
Oklahoma’s US History standards.
As many of you may remember,
Julie and I lobbied hard for passage in
the House, only to have Senator Ford
Lynn talks to several women from Bartlesville about how
refuse to hear it in the Senate to get involved in Oklahoma public education.
Education Committee.
oma.
This year, we have two bills with
Rep. Charles Key. The first bill is
HB2064 which requests our state to
adopt an actual curriculum for our
Celebrate Freedom Week. There has
never been a curriculum for teachers to
follow this important week and we are
advocating the acceptance of one from
the Centers for
Constitutional studies.
I really enjoyed listening to Ann Coulter. You can check
In addition, Rep. Key has also out our Facebook page to see how I got her to laugh.
decided to run a very similar bill to
HB2814 entitled the Bill of Rights of
Education Act of 2011. In it, we are
asking the state to suggest a US History
book for adoption and for teachers to
teach several specific items about the
US and its founding.
You can find information on
BOTH bills here. We ask your support
for their passage.

Representative Kern talking with Peggy Littleton, speaker

on the „evils‟ of the Core Curriculum Standards.
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School Choice Week newsletter

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American’s For Prosperity (AFP) become more informed and government
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schools fail. For example, Education Savings
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Accounts have been proposed as yet
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a list which already includes
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and vouchers.
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Many of you have heard of the
Lindsey Nicole Henry Scholarships for
Continue newsletter
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proposed last yearhere.byContinue
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Jason Nelson.
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Rep. Nelson is continuing his work on the
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Jenni White (L) with Leslie Hiner of the
Foundation for Educational Choice during the
panel discussion following the AFP’s showing
of Bob Bowden’s movie about the financial
fleecing of public education, The Cartel.
School Choice was celebrated all
over the country last week and it
appears to have been a raging success.
Sponsored by groups such as AFP
and the Foundation for Educational
Choice (Leslie Hiner from the Foundation
sits to my left), the ultimate goal of the
week was to open the eyes of legislators,
parents and tax payers to the
opportunities
that can and do exist for students to
obtain the best education for them – not
the ‘one size fits all’ version offered by
‘government’ schools.
have been attending Continuethe School
newsletter Choice
text here. Continue newslette
monthly meetings here.and I will continue to
provide information as it becomes available.
Please continue to stay informed, as
we move forward knowing full well that only
choice in education can provide excellence
in education for all students in Oklahoma.
2011 Education
Legislation
Thanks to our own Jean Schroer, ALL
educational bills filed for the 2011
legislative session have been compiled in
one place. Though none have been
researched by ROPE to this point, we
will be working on this effort as soon as
humanly possible. Please take the time
to look over this list, and if you have one
you’d like us to follow, let us know. We’ll
see what we can do!

We have concluded that the achievement of effective parental choice requires an ongoing
effort to inform the public about the issues and possible solutions, an effort that is not
episodic, linked to particular legislative or ballot initiatives, but that is educational. It
requires also the cooperation of the many groups around the country who are devoted to
improving the quality of our schools, whether governmental or private
Milton Friedman
 ROPE Hosts its First School
Board Candidate Forum
Thursday, January 13th, ROPE held it’s
first School Board Candidate Forum for
candidates of Edmond’s first district. Ed
Murray moderated for us and with over 60
people in attendance, we felt the event
successful.
ROPE authored five questions which
we asked each of the six candidates,
providing 2 minutes for answers. We then
posted video of the answers on our
YouTube channel so that anyone who
desired could make a determination as to
the best candidate for the job.
With all our board members in
attendance save one, ROPE endorsed Mike
Blalock for District 1 following the event. We
hope you’ll join us in supporting his
candidacy as well.
Thursday, February 3rd, ROPE will be
hosting the Piedmont School Board
Candidate Forum. We hope to get many
different organizations using our template
and providing a forum for each school
district next year. Our school boards are our
first line of defense when confronting bogus
or incorrect curricula or textbooks. We need
to make them accountable to voters
everywhere.
Can You Help ROPE Continue
its Mission?
ROPE is not a 501(C)-3, nor a
PAC. We have chosen to remain a
simple LLC to prevent having to answer
to the federal government for tax
status. You can find out more
information about our thoughts on the
topic here.
Though we neither provide
money to the candidates we endorse,
nor legislators, we still require a small
amount of funding to continue our
work. We do not take salaries, using
our own household budgets for most
expenses, yet we regularly incur costs
as we travel the state educating others
and printing expenses also dominate.
We also still have need of a projector
for our presentations.
If you can help in any small
way, we would certainly appreciate any
amount of assistance.
We do not maintain a post
office box in order to keep down
overhead but you can donate using
the button at the top of this newsletter
or through our website to our Paypal
account. If you are more comfortable
sending cash, please email Jenni and
she will provide an address to which
you can send a donation.
Thank you for your
consideration and God Bless!
 Clash of the
Education Titans
As many of you, I have been
dismayed and just flat irritated by the
State School Board vs Superintendent
death match. Consequently, I had to pen
an editorial about the situation. You can
find that here. I think it important to
support our Superintendent, with her
mandate from the people, but I think
she’s doing a pretty good job holding her
own, as evidenced by her editorial in the
recent Oklahoma Gazette.
My only concern is that cooler
heads prevail and we drop the partisan
nonsense in order to move on with a
solution that stays workable no matter
who gets elected to the legislature, or
sits in the State Superintendent’s chair.
Upcoming Events
Though impossible to locate and
post ALL upcoming events of interest to
ROPE and its readership, I have
tried to start an ongoing calendar on
the website. You can find that here.
Any ROPE events are usually
listed on our Facebook page and sent
out to users as an event invitation. You
do not need to be a Facebook user to
view our page, so please ‘like’ it and
visit it often as I post as many as 5
articles a day sometimes so there’s
always something to read!
During the upcoming Republican Party Precinct meetings, you will have an opportunity to submit
an idea for the Republican Party plank. Don’t you think one that says, “Oklahoma chooses NOT to
receive federal funding for common education, instead relying on the ingenuity of her people to
Legislative Activism
I recently posted a page on the
website that contains all the Education
Committees in the House and Senate.
While I have not yet listed all the contact
information for each Senator or
Representative, I have listed a link to the
webpage where you can obtain that
information. ROPE would ask you to please
form two email groups, one for the House
Common Education Committee and one
for the Senate Education Committee. This
way, when a bill we want to support or kill
is ready to come before the committee we
can entreat them to vote our way (move
to the floor or refuse hearing).
In addition, make sure you have
located the contact information for your
own Representative and Senator and be
sure to call or email them with ANY
comments or instructions you have about
ANY bill.
You voted for them, now let them
be your voice. You simply can’t complain
about the state of our state if you don’t!
Do not forget! School Board Elections are
Tuesday, January 8th from 7am to 7pm. Please
make sure to VOTE and get your neighbors to
VOTE! Also, Republican Party Precinct
meetings are the same night. Go to the GOP
website to find information on your precinct
and go to the State Election Board to
determine your precinct if you don’t already
know!
educate her own.”, sounds pretty good?