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The State Board of Education has approved a budget for K-12 public schools that requests an additional $219 million, but board members expressed concern the proposal misleads by omission and fails to provide a carefully considered long-range plan for Oklahoma schools.

There is no real need to regulate private schools, in choice programs or otherwise, for anything other than health and safety. Parents are the real accountability system.

One of the top-performing schools in Tulsa is also among the Oklahoma schools facing the greatest challenge when it comes to facilities—because it is a charter school.

In 1999, the legislation allowing charter schools to open in Oklahoma was signed into law. The repercussions are still being felt today and were hailed by hundreds of parents and children at an anniversary celebration in Oklahoma City.

Mission Academy is a private school serving students in grades nine through 12 and does not receive state appropriations. Its tuition is need-based, and the school has never turned away anyone because of an inability to pay. While private funders cover much of the school’s cost, Oklahoma’s school-choice programs have played a crucial role.

To improve Oklahoma's K-12 school system, lawmakers were encouraged to adopt the ideas in a 1990s education law that combined increase in education funding, while simultaneously implementing large reforms.

A child survivor of trauma (who also has autism) struggled to obtain needed services until he was able to attend a private school for children with special needs. But this year, due in part to Oklahoma lawmakers’ failure to increase the cap on the tax-credit scholarship program, the boy can no longer attend that school—and the local traditional school refuses to provide many services he needs. The case was one of many reasons parents and caretakers urged lawmakers to expand Oklahoma’s tax-credit scholarship program during a recent forum.

When the Lindsey Nicole Henry Scholarship program was opened to foster and adopted children in 2017, no one knew how popular it would be. While participation in the program has grown steadily in three years, for at least one family with five foster and adopted children, the program extension has been literally life-changing.

Because Oklahoma’s public charter schools, unlike their traditional counterparts, do not receive local property tax funding, it is very difficult to pay for quality facilities, lawmakers were told at a recent legislative study. At the same time, some traditional districts face similar problems for a different reason: Their local property valuations are too low to pay for construction and repairs.

The National Education Association is urging its members, which include a sizable share of Oklahoma teachers, to lobby Congress to pass new gun-control laws.